We should celebrate business success

Liam Dann writes:

Graeme Hart’s total worth leapt by about $6.4 billion last year. According to Forbes magazine, New Zealand’s richest man is now worth a whopping $13.6 billion dollars.

That upsets some New Zealanders.

A Herald letter writer last week declared this wealth gain a symbol of “a vulgar and bankrupt capitalist system”.

Yeah how dare Hart be successful.

But, seriously, the answer to that question about “meaning” is to look at what Hart does with his life.

He hasn’t spent it counting dollars. He has spent it building a business empire. That’s his buzz. He told me more than a decade ago – when he became New Zealand’s first billionaire – that the dollars were a “byproduct” of what he does.

“Business is what gets me out of bed in the morning,” he said in 2003. “That’s my hobby.

If I was a mountaineer or an athlete, or had an interest in politics or teaching, then I’d spend my day trying to do that to the best of my ability.”

It is being the best at what you do that is the motivation – not whether you are worth $1 billion or $5 billion.

That in itself is hard for some to understand. Particularly in New Zealand we have never celebrated our business leaders at mainstream cultural level.

Peter Jackson has become very wealthy making movies. Lorde and Lydia Ko should also both end up very wealthy if they stay at the top of their respective fields.

In those examples we can easily see how the money came second to realising their dreams.

From time to time we talk about how much money these star Kiwis make, but mostly we take pride in their success on the global stage.

It is socially acceptable to make hundreds of millions through singing or sport or making movies. But for many it is socially unacceptable to make hundreds of millions by being good at business. If you win $5 million in Lotto you’ll be feted. But become a world class CEO and get a salary of $5 million a year and you’ll be condemned.