Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There

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I wrote a book in 2000 called Bobos in Paradise, which was about people with '60s values.

Oh, that was your first big book.

And, and so it was about the story I told just a little while ago about how the educated class really divided this country.

[laughs] I've achieved more career success than I ever thought I would, by far, and it felt like eh.

Like I remember the first book I wrote was called Bobos in Paradise, and I was driving on Sunset Boulevard in LA and my agent calls to say it's on the bestseller list.

And this is what writers dream of or want, and it felt like nothing.

And yet I grew up in this culture which is an achievement culture.

You've mentioned this when we talked, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla on the front row of the Prada r- I mean, he used to wear hoodies and drive a Camry.

It used to be very, like, remember that Bobos in Paradise?

Yeah.

It was all about, like pretending you're not rich, and Warren Buffett lives in his ranch house and, and that, you know, in his modest ranch house in Omaha, and it was...

And then, you know, kind of stepping back to think about why this happened and ultimately led to the book.

Yeah, and to use another historical marker, you use David Brooks' concept of the Bobo.

I remember his book, Bobo's in Paradise.

He was on for that at the time.

Bobo, the bourgeois bohemian as a before picture.

And you say this new generation looks similar on the surface, but you write that they have the bank accounts and the politics of the proletariat.

First, remind us what the bourgeois bohemian is supposed to mean.

They have powerful smartphones.