Sections
  • Home & Style
  • Editors’ Picks
  • Events Calendar
  • Food
  • Health
  • News & Politics
  • Longreads
  • Our Events
  • Parenting
  • Real Estate
  • Shopping
  • Things to Do
  • Travel
  • Weddings
Reader Favorites
  • 100 Best Restaurants
  • Takeout Guide
  • Quiz
  • Neighborhoods
  • Newsletters
  • Directories
Washington’s Best
  • Apartment Rentals
  • DC Travel Guide
  • Dentists
  • Doctors
  • Financial Advisers
  • Health Experts
  • Home Improvement Experts
  • Industry Leaders
  • Lawyers
  • Mortgage Professionals
  • Pet Care
  • Private Schools
  • Real Estate Agents
  • Restaurants
  • Retirement Communities
  • Wedding Vendors
More
  • Subscribe
  • Manage My Subscription
  • Digital Edition
  • Shop
  • Contests
  • Newsletters
  • About Us
  • Advertising
  • Contact Us
  • Jobs
© 2021 Washingtonian Media Inc.
Privacy Policy
All Rights Reserved
 Rss
Skip to content
Washingtonian.com
  • Search
  • Subscribe
  • Menu
  • News & Politics
  • Things to Do
  • Food
  • Health
  • Shopping
  • Home & Style
  • Real Estate
  • Weddings
  • Travel

  • 100 Best Restaurants
  • Takeout Guide
  • Quiz
  • Neighborhoods
  • Newsletters
  • Directories
  • Trending Now in News & Politics
  • Features
  • Brood X
  • National Zoo
  • Javanka
  • covid
News & Politics

Chris Hughes Is Shopping a Book About How He Shouldn’t Be So Rich

"We Should All Be So Lucky" promotes a basic income.

Written by Andrew Beaujon
| Published on July 18, 2017
Tweet Share
Chris Hughes book proposal
Photograph by Steve Rhodes, via Flickr.

If you think Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes is the luckiest human being since Ringo Starr, you’re not alone: Chris Hughes, apparently, agrees with you.

A copy of Hughes’s proposal for a book tentatively titled We Should All Be So Lucky: Notes on Fortune, Hard Work, and the Basic Income is making the rounds of publishers now via the Levine Greenberg Rostan literary agency. Its introduction places readers in a room with Hughes and wealth advisers almost six months after Facebook went public. The “lock-up” period after which Hughes can sell some of his stock is about to expire.

Hughes didn’t help code Facebook and has an odd role in its founding myth: The actor who plays Hughes in the film The Social Network has exactly one line. Hughes was “part anthropologist, part customer-service rep, part media spokesperson,” as one profile put it, in the social network’s early days.

“Despite all that, it’s hard not to feel like a bit of a fraud sitting here stressing about how many shares to sell and how many to keep,” Hughes writes in the introduction. “I worked hard, but three years of work does not justify the hundreds of millions of dollars I’m about to receive. I know this, and the Wall Street suits across the table know this.”

The proposal for We Should All Be So Lucky finds similar problems throughout the US economy:

Today’s economy creates unprecedented wealth for a small, fortunate few in the blink of an eye. Many of these winners work hard for their money, but the size of the reward is too often incommensurate with the amount of work and time invested. Not since the age of monarchs and royal courts has so much capital been controlled by so few and been so disconnected from work.

Trump’s election, he says, “just alerted the elite that the middle class and poor are waking up to this new economic reality.” Hughes thinks the solution might include a monthly $500 check to “all working middle class and poor Americans who make less than $75,000 a year.” Hughes intends to use any profits from the book to fund a pilot UBI program for “workers in a small city in America,” the proposal reads.

The idea of a universal basic income, or UBI, has gained currency among thought leader types lately. In fact, among the potential audiences Hughes envisions for the book are what he calls “Techies with a conscience,” “Policy minds desperate for creative new policy thinking,” and “The lucky rich.” That last group includes people who “feel guilty, and this book will be a reason to step out of the shadows and support bold economic policies,” he writes.

As with many book proposals, Hughes’s includes potential endorsers. He cites Mark Zuckerberg, which seems quite possible, as well as Fareed Zakaria, Arianna Huffington, and Y-Combinator President Sam Altman (also plausible). He says he’ll employ a “national barnstorming effort” to promote the book and use his digital organizing experience as well. Moreover, he notes he has “personal connections to many of the editors and journalists who cover economic and political issues at places like The New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, Quartz, etc.”

That last point may foreshadow a rough landing for We Should All Be So Lucky–many journalists at these outlets and others remember Hughes’s star-crossed ownership of The New Republic all too well. After burning through cash spent on high-profile publicists, consultants, design firms (and writers) he abruptly changed course and pivoted the venerable magazine toward the fuzzy goal of becoming a “vertically integrated digital media company.” He fired editor Franklin Foer and most of the staff quit. When Hughes sold a year later, highbrow journalism’s verdict on his reign was brutal.

Related
How Much Would You Pay for the New Republic?

Hughes’s agent didn’t reply to an email from Washingtonian, but the proposal allows for a business-plan-like chapter of “Critiques,” in which he’ll discuss arguments against his ideas. He addresses them earnestly, but there’s at least one other big problem that a publisher may wish to consider: A remarkable number of former TNR staffers review books.

Don’t Miss Another Big Story—Get Our Weekend Newsletter

Our most popular stories of the week, sent every Saturday.

Or, see all of our newsletters. By signing up, you agree to our terms.
More: Chris HughesFacebookThe New Republic
Join the conversation!
Share Tweet
Andrew Beaujon
Senior editor

Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. His book A Bigger Field Awaits Us: The Scottish Soccer Team That Fought the Great War was published in 2018. He lives in Del Ray.

Most Popular in News & Politics

1

The True Story of Jess Krug, the White Professor Who Posed as Black for Years—Until It All Blew Up Last Fall

2

Cicadas Are the Next Plague That Will Keep You Indoors

3
Photograph courtesy of Smithsonian's National Zoo.

Rejoice! There Is Going to Be a Free Livestream of the Giant Panda Cub Today.

4

PHOTOS: Moving Boxes Being Loaded Up Outside Jared and Ivanka’s Home

5

Could Northern Virginia Land a Vaccination Supersite?

Washingtonian Magazine

January 2021: Joe Town!

January 2021: Joe Town!

View Issue
Subscribe

Get Us on Social

We'll help you live your best #DCLIFE every day

Get Us on Social

We'll help you live your best #DCLIFE every day

Related

It’s Digitally Official: Joe Biden Is @POTUS

Facebook Apologizes for Removing Photojournalists’ Pictures of Capitol Riot

Is It Finally Time for a National Bureau of Privacy?

Tech Titans 2019: Washington’s Top Tech Leaders

More from News & Politics

Virginia’s Tightened Covid Restrictions Will Extend Through February

More Ride-Sharing Mopeds May Soon Be Coming to DC

Photograph courtesy of Smithsonian's National Zoo.

Rejoice! There Is Going to Be a Free Livestream of the Giant Panda Cub Today.

Hello to DC’s (Hopefully) First Boring Wednesday in 2021

The True Story of Jess Krug, the White Professor Who Posed as Black for Years—Until It All Blew Up Last Fall

Could Northern Virginia Land a Vaccination Supersite?

A Frustrated Writer Built a Useful (and Fun) Site for New Authors

What’s Going On at MASN?

© 2021 Washingtonian Media Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Washingtonian is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
Privacy Policy and Opt-Out
 Rss
Get the best news, delivered weekly.
By signing up, you agree to our terms.
  • Subscribe
  • Manage My Subscription
  • Digital Edition
  • Shop
  • Contests
  • Newsletters
  • About Us
  • Advertising
  • Contact Us
  • Jobs