Whenever I get it modern job, the first thing I do is call my dad. And the first thing he asks me is: How much do they pay you? This man’s obsession with dollars and cents is a Drummond family tradition. But his zealous interest in how much money I get paid has a very good reason: after all, money rules the world, regardless of whether You to have or not. So, according to Mr. Drummond, you might as well try to make as much money as you can.
My inherited pathologies aside, WIRED’s interest in money is both obvious and enormous: We are in an industry awash in trillions of dollars, and that industry happens to shape everything about our lives. But who exactly has this money? How do they deal with it? So what does this mean for the rest of us? To find out, we sent several WIRED reporters to far-flung places: from the United Arab Emirates to Denmark to Washington, D.C. to crazy Florida, we fanned out around the world to bring you exclusive WIRED stories documenting wealth and power across the planet.
Finally, a group of editors sat down to evaluate our lineup. And we noticed something while looking through drafts and infographics. Wherever in the world we sent a reporter, what corner of the tech landscape were we covering, the holders of all this money? Men. All. Everyone. Single. One. Bill Gates, who spoke to Steven Levy about his modern memoir (read more), has been at the top of the list of the world’s richest people for 19 of the last 30 years. Of the 30 cryptocurrency investors in Trump’s inner circle, all of them are – wait for it – guys. Even the newborn men hustling door-to-door in the Sunshine State shilling for solar panels in a desperate attempt to become millionaires before they turn 30 are, well, men.
Let me be the first to point this out: There’s more testosterone in this issue than in the last decade of People’s Sexiest Man Alive issues combined. Part of this is a circumstantial reality: 87 percent of billionaires around the world are men, and women still have an overwhelming, outrageous advantage in leadership positions in the tech industry. None of this even begins to explain racial diversity, which paints an even bleaker picture. And this will likely continue as tech giants like Meta and Google scale back their DEI investments. Meanwhile, the internet manosphere – recently emboldened by President Trump and his early buddy Musk – continues to gain reach and influence.
But I will also take ownership. At WIRED, our error of foresight and editorial imagination was that we only saw the obvious – the blatant, persistent masculinity, page after page – at the last minute. We did not choose at an earlier stage of job allocation to challenge the fraught and divided gender dynamics of wealth accumulation, corporate influence and power. All this still infuriatingly belongs almost exclusively to people with penises, with baritones dominating the boardroom and with centuries of advantage.
Don’t get me wrong: you’ll love this issue both in print and online. We hope you learn a bit about how large money is raised and spent in the tech industry, and how people – men – raise and spend it. But speaking from one woman in charge to all men, including those featured on our pages: it may be a luxurious man’s world for now, but believe me, women like money too. And we’ll come get some of yours.
Let us know what you think about this article. Write to the editor at: mail@wired.com.