In 2017, the renowned media theorist, author, and professor Douglas Rushkoff got invited to speak at an event he assumed would be full of investment bankers. Instead, Rushkoff was ushered into a backroom with five ultra-wealthy men from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world.

MIT Technology Review ranks Rushkoff as the world's sixth most influential thinker for his work on how digital technology and media shape culture, economics, and society. However, the men in the room had little interest in his information about the future of technology. Instead, they wanted to know about a potential apocalypse resulting from environmental collapse, social unrest, a pandemic, nukes, or just about every other event horizon that would pull society into a black hole and result in something similar to the video game and hit Amazon series Fallout.

The men peppered him with questions about areas that would be the least affected — like New Zealand. Rushkoff recognized that the men were, indeed, curious about the future of tech, but instead of a world that had turned into a utopia, they expected it to become a dystopian hellscape. They had no interest in how to course correct the coming "event" as they called it, but in how they could insulate themselves from any effects. A year after the meeting, Rushkoff wrote a seminal — and viral — article about his meeting with these ultra-wealthy men on Medium, which became the basis of his book Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires.

Like many others, I read the article with horror. The moment that shocked readers came when Rushkoff realized the conversation had turned sinister. He writes:

"Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, 'How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?'"

The billionaires listed in Rushkoff's article suggest solutions like having special combination locks on their food supplies that only they know or forcing their security teams to wear disciplinary collars in return for their survival. The article continues talking about the rich and ultra-wealthy's escape plans, bunkers, and how they've largely checked out of our society. But the question they never could fully answer or address was the one the CEO posed — how do I maintain control over my security teams? When I read the article in 2018, I laughed and mused to myself, "Well, they won't. They'll be the first to die."

Now, I know I was right.

Operator City

Southern Pines, North Carolina, is a small town consisting of roughly 15,000 people. It's about a 40-minute drive from one of the main entrances of perhaps the most well-known Army base for Special Operations soldiers — Fort Bragg. What most don't realize is that Ft. Bragg is a sprawling base with portions of the gun and artillery ranges backing up to Southern Pines. Even less known to the public is that Southern Pines largely consists of special operations retirees who were commandos in some of the most clandestine units in the world. The town is flush with former operators now running tactical ranges, breweries, and distilleries, all backed by venture capitalists.

Until recently, one of my best friends, "Max," lived in Southern Pines and was part of one of the clandestine units. He often visited the distilleries, breweries, and tactical ranges within his "backyard." However, Max finally hit his 20-year mark and retired, opting to move out of Southern Pines. In 2003, Max and I were wounded in action, and we have been best friends since, celebrating our survival with an annual ski trip together. During each trip we'll muse about foreign policy, politics, or the general state of the world. After a particularly grueling day of skiing that turned our legs to jello, we hit a pub for some après-ski to soothe our aching bodies.

Max can't tell me a lot of what he's done given that my security clearance has expired and I've long been out of the military, but as we conversed I brought up Rushkoff's article and how the tech millionaires and billionaires are planning to hide in their underground bunkers in the event of something like a zombie apocalypse or ChatGPT suddenly becoming self-aware and nuking civilization à la Terminator.

"Oh, you mean like Peter Thiel's plans for his bunker in New Zealand and inviting his buddy Sam Altman?"

"Yeah, like that," I said. "But it's not just him and other tech gurus like Zuckerberg building compounds. It's CEOs of hedge funds and venture capitalists with lots of cash that Rushkoff interacted with. The funniest part of the article was that these guys all wanted to know how to control their security forces."

Max smirked. "Well… those dorks are all over Southern Pines already."

I nearly choked on my drink. Once I regained composure, I set the glass down and inquired, "What do you mean they're already in Southern Pines?"

Max shrugged. "Where do you think all these operators get their money from? It's a bunch of rich nerds on the spectrum — Elon Musk level — trying to make buddy-buddy with a bunch of special operations guys." Max took a drink, then stated, "They're annoying."

That made sense given Rushkoff's article — how do you control your security team? The simple answer is you try to become friends with the very people you employ to protect you. It's a lot harder to kill a friend and take over their compound than just some random jerk that's your boss.

"Are they buying it?" I asked. "The operators, I mean."

Max shook his head. "No. They all think they're a bunch of rich assholes trying to secure their survival or buy them off. But as one guy told me, 'I'm not about to turn down an entire paid-for trip to Monaco with my wife and kids just because the guy is annoying and stupid.'"

Winter Park, Colorado

When my grandmother died in 2024, we wanted to bring the extended family together to celebrate her life and scatter her ashes in Rocky Mountain National Park alongside my grandfather. We weren't able to do so until this summer because of work schedules and given that one of my uncles lives in New Zealand. My family trekked up to Winter Park, where my brother and I had learned to ski under my grandparents' tutelage and enjoy the cool summer mountain air.

Before dinner one evening, I snagged my uncle and brother, asking if they wanted to head to a local brewery and snag a drink. We're all craft beer snobs and love exploring breweries we've never tried, so we marched up the road about five minutes and settled onto an outdoor bench with a flight of fresh brews. We'd arrived somewhat early in the evening, but soon other patrons began filling the tables. Next to us, a couple with a large goldendoodle settled onto their bench, took a sip, then immediately began taking photos of their dog.

Taking photos with your pet is quite normal and I've even done so in the past, but this was like a staged photo session straight out of an Instagram influencer page. The couple began providing treats and giving commands while the wife smiled fondly as she took hundreds of photos.

For Colorado residents, we often chuckle about the "out-of-towner" mountain attire. It's a mix between rustic cowboy and Gucci. You've probably seen it — wide-brimmed Smokey Bear hats, giant fur jackets, leggings, and Ugg boots. The locals, however, look like a mix between homeless and hippy. In the summer, the ultra-rich wear golf polos, Brunello Cucinelli linen button-downs, or Danner boots that have never touched mud. This couple wore the same and immediately signaled they weren't locals.

On his way back to the table, my brother bumped into the couple and began chatting. They were kind and courteous, but as my brother chatted with the husband, I watched the wife continue snapping an absurd amount of selfies with the dog.

"They're also from Tulsa," my brother told me. My entire family is from the Tulsa, Oklahoma, area, so I nodded. "They have a summer home here in Winter Park. Some mansion nearby, I guess."

I nodded along. "Kids?" I asked.

"Just the dog," my brother responded. "They're in oil and gas."

I nodded once more, and then my uncle unexpectedly spoke up. "They're not gonna make it, are they?" he said, followed by his infectious laugh.

My uncle, a New Zealand citizen, is well accustomed to the ultra-rich entering the country and purchasing large swaths of land. During FaceTime sessions, we've talked about the ultra-wealthy who have homes on the chain of islands. It's been a pain in the ass for him and his partner to even purchase a home because of the desirability of the land and the super-wealthy driving up property values from the locals. For a small home in his area, he told me it'll cost a minimum of $750,000 to $1 million USD.

I shook my head in response to my uncle's question about them "making it." "Nope. They'll get picked off."

Moments before, my brother, uncle, and I had been talking about Rushkoff's article given the extreme amount of wealth we'd seen in Winter Park. None of us have a problem with people making money, but it's a totally different thing watching the mountain town locals revolt because they can no longer afford to live in the area and provide services because the ultra-wealthy have made the environment completely unaffordable. Those same ultra-wealthy patrons who own summer homes, then berate and demean the local working class for their inability to live and provide services to appease their endless appetites.

My brother, uncle, and I know lack and all served in the military, so we empathized with the locals. It's not that we despised the couple at the table or were angry at the affluence, but almost pitied them. Wealth has the illusion of security. But when the "event" happened — nuclear war, AI, food scarcity, or societal collapse — that couple would likely die quickly. There will be no law enforcement to call or a security entity they could go toe-to-toe with. Some of the ultra-wealthy might have even been good people, but like Smaug the Dragon in Tolkien's The Hobbit, they'd hoarded their gold and insulated themselves from the world in their rich bubbles.

The Problem in Trying to Own Wolves

A lot of people want to blame a specific political party for the advancement of wealth inequality, but what most fail to realize is both sides of the aisle have played the game. During my time in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I watched both Republicans and Democrats alike pontificate while the game went on unchanged. They'd fly into the war theater under the guise of snapping photos with the troops, only to meander over to the Kellogg Brown and Root facilities to check their investments. Now that the wars are over, both political teams are working with Silicon Valley to ensure the AI race is in favor of national security as well as their bank account statements (merely look into the company Palantir).

I often hear a lot of ultra wealthy apologists from poorer communities defending billionaires, which I don't fully grasp. From 1978 to 2020, CEO pay (realized compensation) increased by 1,322%, compared to just the 18% growth in a typical worker's compensation over the same period. Congress and the House of Representatives in the United States rarely advocate for their constituents, but instead have loose ties to insider trader and have grown their wealth end-over-end while supporting legislation that favors the elite. While recent legislation introduced a ban on politicians owning stock, it doesn't appear the ban will pass, even though 86% of Americans support the resolution. Roughly the same number of Americans support net neutrality despite the government striking it down. Instead, what's happened is that this environment has created the "haves" and "have-nots" in which the majority of Americans now despise the wealthy and can blatantly see the corruption on every level.

I suppose the failure of the elite ruling class and ultra wealthy is in their thinking. That by oppressing the average man, yet giving him a carrot on a stick when things go poorly, they'll somehow be able to control their security teams all while assuming they'll blindly do their bidding. But what Rushkoff's clients failed to recognize from their initial meeting is something the warrior class perceived — they have the skills the wealthy don't in addition to zero loyalty. In some ways, perhaps this is why Mark Zuckerberg has taken up jiu jitsu as a means of self defense. But as a jiu jitsu practitioner myself, I'll be the first to tell you grappling won't save you from a bullet, especially coming from an operator with over 20 years of experience merc'ing warlords in their own bunkers on all edges of the planet.

That's why I have to hand it to Rushkoff's clientele — they were correct in asking how to control their security team. And yet, that was never a question Rushkoff could answer — nor one he intended to.

But I can.

In the military, we have a term about how to operate successfully in a hostile environment — Speed. Surprise. Violence. When the end of days comes, the ultra-rich would do well to accept their fate, as opposed to thrashing against it, because it will be a quick surprise followed by a violent ending. Many in society already blame the ultra wealthy for polluting our waters, enriching their pocketbooks, oppressing the average man and woman, or trying to convince the populace they're somehow the hero protecting all us peons.

When confronted with mortality, it's said we revert to primal instincts: freeze, fight, or flee. Some meet the end with courage — especially when the cause or the person is worth dying for. But when the final moment comes for the ultra-rich, desperate to wall themselves off from the common man, it will be marked by cowardice and pleading. Guilty men rarely face death with honor. Instead, they scream their way to the grave, convinced their cries or wealth can save them.

That's what the men in Rushkoff's circle overlooked. They had indeed prepared for the end.

They just never believed those same men would be the ones to end theirs.

Enjoy nuanced ideals in an age of divisiveness? Follow us at The Panopticon. Like Benjamin Sledge's work and want more? Consider picking up his multi-award winning memoir, Where Cowards Go to Die.