Stone Inequality Book Talk: Evan Osnos

In this Stone Inequality Book Talk, Evan Osnos will discuss his recent book The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich. For more information, click here.

About the book: "From National Book Award–winning author Evan Osnos comes a timely and provocative collection of essays exploring American oligarchy, billionaire culture, and the modern Gilded Age, offering a wry, unfiltered look at how the ultrarich, from Silicon Valley billionaires to Wall Street power players, shape—and sometimes warp—our social and political landscape. The one percent now hold more of America’s wealth than they did in the heyday of the Carnegies and Rockefellers. In this incisive work of investigative political journalism, Osnos paints an unforgettable portrait of the tactics and obsessions that define today’s wealth inequality in America: from superyachts and luxury bunkers to elite tax havens, political influence, and private security teams. This is the new face of the American elite class—armed with unimaginable fortune and unprecedented power. With deft storytelling and meticulous reporting, this is a book about indulgence, incentive, and the psychological distortions of vast wealth. In each essay, Osnos lifts the curtain on a world rarely seen, from the outrageous to the surreal: a private wealth manager betraying an American dynasty; pop stars performing at billionaires’ parties for children; status anxiety spilling from marinas in Monaco and Palm Beach—like real-world episodes of Succession or The White Lotus. You’ll meet disgraced moguls in a “white-collar support group,” unravel a Ponzi scheme, and explore the global ambitions of tech tycoons, including Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. A celebrated political reporter, Osnos documents the rise of the modern oligarchy, examining how the wealthiest people in America wield influence—and the backlash it provokes. Originally published in The New Yorker and revised for this edition, these essays offer an urgent, entertaining, and unsettling look at the economic power and privilege shaping our world. The Haves and the Have-Yachts is essential reading for anyone interested in wealth and power, social critique, or the high-stakes reality of the new Gilded Age."

Evan Osnos has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2008. He is also co-host of The New Yorker’s Political Scene podcast and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. The topics of his work range from politics and foreign affairs to white-collar crime and espionage. He has published profiles of Xi Jinping, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris; visited North Korea during a nuclear crisis; and reported from the siege on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. He is the author of four books, including “Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China,” which won the National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His latest book “The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich,” was an instant New York Times bestseller in 2025. Prior to The New Yorker, he worked as the Beijing bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune, where he shared the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 and in 2008. Before his assignment to China, he worked in the Middle East, reporting mostly from Iraq. He lives with his family near Washington, D.C.