Wealth & Money Quote by Doug Coupland

Doug Coupland wraps a social law inside a provocation. Becoming rich is not only a matter of effort, talent, or even luck; it is also a matter of affinity. Wealth is transmitted through networks, mentorships, and norms that cluster among the already wealthy. If you dislike rich people, you keep yourself at a distance from those networks. You forfeit the tacit knowledge of how money is made and kept, the vocabulary, etiquette, and risks that circulate inside those circles. Disdain becomes a psychological moat: you will not study what you resent, and you will not join people you cannot stand.

The word like does not have to mean worship. It can mean curiosity, empathy, or at least a suspension of contempt long enough to learn. Coupland, who has chronicled the technocratic ascent from Generation X through Microserfs and beyond, understood that modern wealth often flows through cultural fit. Social capital is not just who you know but how comfortably you can be known by them. Liking rich people signals comfort with their values and rhythms: delayed gratification, ownership over wage work, an appetite for compounding, a tolerance for asymmetry. Without that comfort, you remain an outsider to the opportunity stream.

There is an uneasy undertone. The line hints that wealth is a club with emotional dues. To get in, you may have to relax moral judgments about inequality or at least compartmentalize them. That tension is Coupland’s terrain: a world where irony and aspiration live side by side. The remark can be read as advice, warning, or satire. Want riches? Be willing to sit at those tables and enjoy the company. Want to keep your distance from their worldviews? Accept the likely economic cost.

The paradox resolves only by distinguishing approval from understanding. You do not have to idolize wealth to learn from it. But you probably do have to stop sneering long enough to listen.