Whenever I get it new job, the first thing I did was call my dad. And the first thing he asked me was: How much do they pay you? This man's obsession with dollars and cents is legendary in the Drummond family. But his passionate interest in my paycheck was for a very good reason: After all, money still runs the world, even though Friend yes or no. So, Mr. Drummond said, you might as well try to earn as much as possible.
My genetic pathologies aside, WIRED's interest in money is obvious and huge: We cover a trillion-dollar industry, and that industry just happens to is shaping everything about the way we all live. But who exactly has that money? How do they use it? And what does that mean for the rest of us? To find out, we sent some WIRED reporters with an eye for money to far-flung locales: From the United Arab Emirates to Denmark to Washington, D.C., to wacky Florida, we travels to bring you some unique WIRED stories chronicling wealth and power across the planet.
Finally, a group of editors sat down to evaluate our lineup. And we noticed something as we flipped through the drafts and infographics. Wherever in the world we send reporters, whatever corner of the tech landscape we're covering, who holds all the money? Man. All of them. All. Single. One. Bill Gates, who sat down with Steven Levy to talk about his new memoir (stay tuned), has topped the list of the world's richest people for 19 of the past 30 years. Of the 30-plus crypto investors in Trump's inner circle, they're all—wait for it—you guys. Even the young people hustling door-to-door in the Sunshine State, selling solar panels in a desperate bid to become millionaires by age 30, are all men.
So let me be the first to point it out: There's more testosterone in this issue than in People's Sexiest Man Alive issues of the past decade combined. In part, that's a matter of circumstance: 87% of the world's billionaires are men, and women continue to be far outnumbered in executive positions in the technology industry. None of that even begins to account for racial diversity, which paints an even bleaker picture. And it will likely continue to accelerate, as tech giants like Meta and Google invest in their DEI. Meanwhile, online space—encouraged by President Trump and his First Friend Musk—continues to expand its reach and influence.
But I will also take ownership. At WIRED, we failed in our editorial foresight and imagination to see the obvious—blatant, persistent masculinity, page after page—only at the last minute. Earlier in our assignment, To had not decided to interrogate the fractured and rife gender dynamics of wealth accumulation, corporate influence, power. Infuriatingly, all of that still belongs almost exclusively to people with penises, with commanding boardroom baritones and centuries-long head start.
Don't get me wrong: You're going to love this issue, both in print and online. We hope you learned a thing or two about how the big bucks in technology are being accumulated and spent, and how the people—the men—are accumulating and spending them. But from one woman in charge to all the men out there, including those featured on our site: It may be a rich men's world right now, but believe I go, women also like money. And we'll come get some of yours.
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