Billionaire Sam Zell: ‘The 1% Work Harder’
Billionaire Sam Zell, one of the richest people in America, told Betty Liu of Bloomberg that poor people should stop envying the rich and “emulate them” instead.
Zell, who founded Equity Group Investments, was responding to comments made by venture capitalist Tom Perkins, who recently compared the “demonization” of the wealthy in America to how the Nazis treated the Jews during the Holocaust. “He’s right,” Zell told Liu. “The, quote, ‘one percent’ are being pummeled, because it’s politically convenient to do so.”
“The problem is that the world and this country should not talk about envy of the one percent, they should talk about emulating the one percent,” he continued. “The 1 percent work harder, the 1 percent are much bigger factors in all forms of our society.”
