It is, at best, incredibly hard to accumulate that much wealth without doing shady things. Microsoft's monopolistic practices in the 90s for example. The only person I can think of that ever cracked a billion without their money coming through dirty means was, funny enough, JK Rowling who has her own set of issues separate from the value she got out of Harry Potter.

I feel the "always have been" meme might be a suitable insert here.

> Why are all billionaires (especially tech) such villains?

Not all billionaires are villians. But it is long-known in organizational psychology that dark triad [1] traits are very "helpful" if one wants to climb career ladders fast.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad

I'm not 100% sure if it's strictly necessary to be a villain in order to become and remain a billionaire, but it seems like it could be and even if it's not it surely helps.

Money often changes people's attitude in a fashion similar to chronic substance abuse. Plus, there's a insular and detached bubble effect that grows around them.

Also, there's the psychopathic and narcissistic tendencies of greedier people and the false "virtue" "greed is good" that is contrary to the values espoused by Adam Smith.

We need standard income tax brackets of 90% after $20M/y and 99% after $100M/y.