Business Schools, Billionaires, And The Myth Of Doing Good

In Stinking Rich: The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire, Carl Rhodes argues that the idea of the “good billionaire” is less a reality than a carefully sustained myth. We investigate the implications for business schools.

Billionaires are highly visible. Their philanthropy is publicized, their ventures celebrated, and their personal narratives amplified. But visibility should not be confused with virtue. The uncomfortable truth is that much of what is presented as doing good is often aligned first and foremost with the preservation and expansion of wealth and power.

Innovation, job creation, and even philanthropy frequently serve to reinforce the very systems that enable extreme accumulation in the first place. What appears as social contribution is, in many cases, structurally intertwined with self interest.

This is not to say that positive outcomes do not exist. But they are rarely the primary driver.

And this is precisely where business schools enter the picture.

A SYSTEM THAT TEACHES & TELLS STORIES

Business schools occupy a unique position in this landscape. They do not simply transmit knowledge. They help define what success looks like.

Across classrooms, case studies, and leadership programmes, certain narratives are consistently reinforced. Scale signals impact. Disruption signals progress. Wealth signals achievement.

At the same time, business schools increasingly position themselves as agents of positive change by embedding sustainability, ethics, and stakeholder thinking into their programs.

This creates a tension at the heart of modern business education.

INSTITUTIONS UNDER PRESSURE

What is often overlooked is that business schools are not operating in a vacuum. They are themselves embedded in the same system they are asked to critique.

They compete for rankings, for international visibility, for top students, and for corporate partnerships. Their success is measured through salary outcomes, placement rates, and brand positioning, all of which are closely tied to the very dynamics of wealth creation and concentration.

In this sense, the system does not just shape what business schools teach. It shapes how they operate, how they are evaluated, and ultimately what they can afford to challenge.

There is a growing expectation that business schools should be forces for good. Yet the incentives they face often pull in the opposite direction.

They are asked to promote sustainability while competing on metrics of financial success. They are encouraged to develop responsible leaders while showcasing alumni who embody traditional markers of economic achievement.

This creates a structural constraint. Even the most well-intentioned institutions are navigating a landscape in which challenging dominant narratives can come at a cost.

BETWEEN CRITIQUE & REPRODUCTION

On the one hand, students are encouraged to question systems. They are asked to think about inequality, climate change, and long-term societal impact.

On the other, they are trained within frameworks that often celebrate the very outcomes that drive those challenges.

The result is not contradiction so much as coexistence. Business schools are simultaneously spaces of critique and engines of reproduction.

They help produce leaders who are both aware of systemic issues and highly capable of succeeding within the systems that generate them.

THE LIMITS OF ‘BETTER LEADERSHIP’

A common response to global challenges is to call for better leaders. More ethical. More responsible. More purpose driven.

But this raises a deeper question.

If the structures of the economy themselves produce concentration of wealth and power, can individual virtue meaningfully counterbalance those dynamics?

Or does the narrative of the “good billionaire” function, in part, as a way of legitimising them?

REIMAGINING THE ROLE OF BUSINESS SCHOOLS

This is not a critique of business schools as such. It is an invitation to push further.

If business schools are serious about being forces for good, their role may need to evolve from preparing students to succeed within existing systems to equipping them to question and reshape those systems.

That shift involves:

• Moving from celebrating success to interrogating its foundations
• Expanding from leadership development to systems thinking
• Reframing value creation to include who benefits and who is left out

It also means broadening the conversation beyond a narrow set of elite outcomes and institutions, to recognise the diversity of business schools and the different forms of impact they enable globally.

BEYOND THE MYTH

The appeal of the “good billionaire” lies in its simplicity. It suggests that the concentration of wealth can coexist with social progress if it is guided by the right individuals.

But real progress is rarely that simple.

Business schools have a critical role to play. Not in reinforcing comforting narratives but in challenging them.

Not in rejecting ambition but in redefining what it means to succeed.

Because the question is no longer whether business can do good.

It is whether we are willing to rethink the assumptions that define what good looks like in the first place.

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Carl Rhodes is a Professor of Business and Society at the University of Technology Sydney. Benjamin Stevenin is former Director of Business School Solutions and Partnerships at Times Higher Education. 

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