Shadowing Practice: The Problem with Billionaires — and the Debut of True Net Worth | Randall Lane | TED - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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I am a journalist, trained as a journalist, but I spent most of my last 35 years as an anthropologist.
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84 sentences
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I am a journalist, trained as a journalist, but I spent most of my last 35 years as an anthropologist.
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I've kind of been embedded with a very unique subspecies.
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You might know them by their Latin name, Billionaires Maximus.
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And when I got to Forbes out of college in 1991, there were all of 274 billionaires in the world.
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It was a very aspirational little club.
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You know, Bruno Mars in his song "Billionaire" sings of dreaming of being on the cover of Forbes magazine, standing next to Oprah and the Queen.
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Well, you know, fast forward, if we did that cover now, it would be very crowded.
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Forbes tracks 3,428 people we believe have a net worth right now of a billion dollars or more.
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And they all have one thing in common.
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Who wants to know the secret of every billionaire right now in the world, which is nobody likes them.
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Forbes and HarrisX conducted a survey a couple of weeks ago [of] 1,009 Americans.
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The results are not good.
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Trial lawyers are kicking billionaires' ass.
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(Laughter) They are tied with members of Congress.
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They are barely beating TikTok influencers.
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(Laughter) But there's a disconnect going on right now because the world needs billionaires.
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The world desperately needs billionaires.
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If you look at countries that have billionaires, they tend to have all the things that we all love: progress, jobs, growth.
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Let's go to China.
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At the beginning of this century, there were no Chinese billionaires on the Forbes list, and almost 500 million people lived in extreme poverty.
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Fast forward 20 years, it's almost the opposite.
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Almost 500 Chinese billionaires and no one living in extreme poverty.
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That is not a coincidence.
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If you go to Nigeria, one of the largest countries in the world by population, only four billionaires, about 100 million people live in extreme poverty.
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There are no billionaires in Cuba.
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There are no billionaires in Iran.
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There are no billionaires in Belarus.
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History shows that incentive creates personal wealth and societal wealth.
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When you cap earnings, that correlates with repression and stagnation.
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So why all the hate?
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Why all the hate?
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Wealth disparity is some of it.
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In a few weeks, if SpaceX goes public as scheduled, Forbes believes that at that moment, Elon Musk will become the world's first trillionaire.
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That's a million million.
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But here's the deal.
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Elon is no richer, not much richer at least when you measure by GDP, [than] John D. Rockefeller when he became the world's first billionaire a hundred years ago.
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John D. Rockefeller, he was an OG monopolist.
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But by the end of his life, doing lots of good works, he was highly respected.
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Andrew Carnegie even more so.
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People don't resent billionaires.
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People want to become billionaires.
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People resent billionaires when they forget that the purpose of business is to create happiness, not who dies with the most toys.
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(Applause) So here's the scorecard.
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Right now, here are the five richest people in the world, all Americans, all with a net worth north of 200 billion dollars.
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Forbes tracks pretty much every billionaire in terms of how much they give to charity -- how much winds up, [and the] end result into charity.
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Right now, these five collectively, [their] competitive net worth, less than one percent of their net worth, has been donated to charity: 0.9 percent.
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Compare that with the average American -- teacher, fireman -- [who] gives two percent of his or her income to charity.
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That gap, as somebody who loves entrepreneurial capitalism and defends entrepreneurial capitalism, bothers me.
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That gap is why there are pitchforks.
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But that gap is something we can address ...
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by leaning into the final decision maker that a lot of billionaires have when they decide if they're going to be philanthropic or not, which is their egos.
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It turns out that a lot of people care about where they are on various Forbes lists.
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In fact, in 1982, the very first Forbes 400, we had one tycoon who helped us create an immutable law of wealth tracking: the Trump rule.
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Take what the Donald tells you, divide by three and refine from there.
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Saudi Arabia's Prince Al Waleed created an entire public company, basically to get higher on the Forbes list.
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Every year before the Forbes issue came out, the billionaires issue, he would buy up his own stock, pump up his own stock, and after it came out, he would sell it.
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Look, it’s like a 10-digit cardiogram there.
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(Laughter) Kylie Jenner's team gave us what we believe are bogus numbers about her company to get onto the Forbes billionaires list, and she's not even the thirstiest member of the Kardashian family.
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(Laughter) During COVID, Kanye West called me maybe every other day.
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We talked about an hour at a time, mostly about how he thinks he was richer than we said he was.
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When we respectfully disagreed, he respectfully responded by tweeting my cell phone to 30 million followers on Twitter.
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(Laughter) That was a tough day.
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(Laughter) But Kanye inspired an idea.
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Why can't we lean into this strange leverage we have over some people?
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Why can't we create a list that rewards people for donating to charity versus penaliz[ing] them by taking them further down on the Forbes list?
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(Applause) So we've created something called True Net Worth, and we're going to debut it right here.
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(Cheers and applause) True Net Worth is your regular net worth, combined with the money you've donated that we appreciate like you still own it.
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(Applause) Here is a refresher.
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Here are the top five in the world.
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Here are the top five by true net worth.
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(Applause) Look at my friend Warren Buffett.
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He's already given more away, in today's dollars, than he still has.
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He's pledged 99 percent of what's left to charity, and he stipulated that all that money has to be spent down within 10 years of his death, as opposed to just sitting in a foundation, gathering interest for years.
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(Applause) That's true net worth.
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Now let's look at the biggest movers on this list.
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(Applause and cheers) MacKenzie Scott is giving away money faster, smarter, no-strings-attached than pretty much anyone in history.
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She's the 84th richest person in the world by net worth.
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She's 26th by true net worth.
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(Cheers and applause) People don't value what you can't measure.
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True net worth offers role models for billionaires, for millionaires, for thousandaires.
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Give while you live.
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Give faster and bigger maybe than you're comfortable with, give your money or your time.
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But what all of it does is support the system that makes all of us prosperous.
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Thank you. (Cheers and applause)

About This Lesson

In this lesson, you will engage in English speaking practice by analyzing the TED talk "The Problem with Billionaires" by Randall Lane. This session focuses on improving your spoken English and pronunciation through the technique of shadowing, where you mimic the speaker to develop your fluency and intonation. By the end of this exercise, you will not only enhance your comprehension of complex topics but also become more comfortable with advanced vocabulary, particularly around social issues like wealth disparity and entrepreneurship.

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

  • Net worth: The total value of an individual's assets minus liabilities, often used to measure wealth.
  • Billionaire Maximus: A humorous term coined to describe a unique subgroup of extremely wealthy individuals.
  • Wealth disparity: The unequal distribution of wealth among individuals in a population.
  • Societal wealth: Wealth generated from economic activities that benefit society as a whole.
  • Incentive: A motivation or reason to act in a particular way, often linked to financial gain.
  • Charity: An act of giving to those in need, often seen as a measure of social responsibility.
  • Entrepreneurial capitalism: An economic system that emphasizes innovation and business growth to create wealth.

Practice Tips

To effectively use a shadowing app or site for your English learning, follow these tailored tips based on the talk's speed and tone:

  • Pace yourself: Lane speaks with clarity, but at times he employs a conversational tone. Start at a slower speed if the app allows, then gradually increase the pace to match his natural delivery.
  • Focus on emotion: Lane includes humor and passion in his voice. Pay attention to how he emphasizes certain points and try to replicate that in your practice to add expression to your speaking.
  • Break it down: If a section feels challenging, pause the video after key phrases or sentences. Repeat them multiple times until you feel confident.
  • Recording yourself: Use the shadowing app to record your practice. Listening to your recordings can help you recognize areas where you need to improve your English pronunciation.
  • Regular practice: Consistency is key. Allocate short daily sessions to practice shadowing this talk, gradually building your fluency and confidence.

By focusing on these tips and utilizing a good shadowing approach, you will significantly enhance your English speaking skills, making you more proficient in expressing complex ideas clearly and effectively.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

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