Billionaires Don't Own Ideas
Finding courage to speak when money talks
I feel like I have forgotten the full scope of my humanity and what I'm capable of imagining, and I suspect many of us have lost touch with this part of ourselves. Fear has kept me from accessing my imagination. There's a deep vulnerability in sharing your perspective with the world. When we can't articulate our ideals perfectly or worry our impact won't be significant enough, we often choose to suppress our voices entirely.
Right now, people feel intense pressure to align strongly with one side of an increasingly polarized political divide. This leads to oversimplified approaches to complex issues. The very human desire for community acceptance often leads us to suppress our authentic opinions and conform to dominant viewpoints, especially in online spaces where social pressure is amplified.
When political discourse descends into personal attacks and group think, it creates an escalating cycle of hostility. Each side begins viewing the other as malicious rather than simply holding different views. This erosion of trust makes it nearly impossible to identify shared values, acknowledge valid opposing perspectives, find solutions that involve compromise, or build the trust necessary for meaningful dialogue. The result is both policy gridlock and deepening social divisions, as neither side can engage with the other's ideas without viewing them through a lens of suspicion.
We need more people to embrace constructive audacity—not the kind demonstrated by figures like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, who seek to dominate through their singular vision regardless of collective impact. Rather, we need those who have the vision and capability to create positive change to step forward, even as they question whether they're allowed or worthy enough to pursue their ideas. Too many potential changemakers remain paralyzed by self-doubt and diminishment.
The Elizabethan era offers an interesting parallel. I know this sounds like a departure, but stay with me. Between 1560 and 1640, approximately 3,000 plays were written for the stage. Of the 540 that survived, Shakespeare wrote 38 and Marlowe seven. While only 15 to 17 of Shakespeare's plays are considered masterpieces, his work—just 7% of surviving Elizabethan drama—now dominates modern performance. Yet in his time, he was one voice among many. Elizabethan theater was a vibrant, collective effort—an ongoing dialogue between writers, actors, and audiences. Playwrights borrowed from each other, refined ideas through iteration, and reworked existing narratives to better resonate with their times. Creativity wasn’t about a lone genius producing a perfect idea; it was about a multitude of voices shaping the cultural conversation together.
In many ways, the public theaters of that era functioned like today’s social media landscape. They were platforms where ideas and stories spread rapidly, responding to current events and one another’s works. Just as tweets, videos, and essays today remix and refine cultural narratives, Elizabethan playwrights built upon shared ideas, adapting them into sharper critiques or more compelling stories. Yet, much like how algorithms now amplify certain voices while others fade into obscurity, history has streamlined this creative explosion, reducing it to a few dominant figures while erasing many contributors who played an essential role in shaping the discourse of their time.
Theater also provided a unique shield for social and political commentary through metaphor and allegory. Playwrights could critique powerful figures or controversial ideas by setting their stories in distant lands or historical periods. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, for example, explored themes of political ambition and tyranny that were deeply relevant to Elizabethan England, but by framing them in Ancient Rome, the play maintained a layer of plausible deniability. This artistic framework allowed for the exploration of subversive ideas in a way that might have been impossible through direct confrontation.
If you feel called to start a conversation or a creative work and share it with the world, you must take action. If you feel called to contribute meaning, healing, connection, beauty, or liberation to our world, take bold steps forward. The transformation of our collective experience won't come just from removing these self-serving voices from positions of power. It will come when many of us step up as creators, declaring our right to shape what's generated.
I won’t pretend like this is easy. I’ve struggled with sharing my own voice, wrestling with the fear that I won’t say things perfectly, that my perspective isn’t refined enough, that I’ll be misunderstood, or worse, ignored. For a long time, I let that stop me. But I’ve come to realize that waiting until I feel ready is just another way of staying silent and compliant. The fear of not getting it right the first time is just resistance keeping me quiet. History shows us that discourse, art, and change, are all collective processes. Ideas sharpen over time, and voices gain strength through use.
The forces that seek to dominate public discourse are counting on your silence. They want you hesitant, uncertain, and small. But the antidote to suppression isn’t retreat—it’s presence. You don’t need to be Shakespeare or command billions to shape the conversation. The most powerful movements aren’t driven by a single voice; they emerge from the interplay of many.
Stop letting those with worse ideas and motivations take up more space than you. Creating change demands assertiveness and courage from those with a real vision for the future. If you don’t claim the space you’re meant to occupy, those with narrow, self-serving agendas will continue to fill the void.