Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World

Anand Giridharadas, the author of Winners Take All, is a journalist with a background in foreign correspondence. In addition, Giridharadas has authored several nonfiction books. Aside from his work as an author, he has worked as a business consultant and public speaker and was a fellow of the prestigious Aspen Institute.

As Giridharadas explains in the Acknowledgements section of Winners Take All, these professional experiences have often placed him among the world of the very same elites that he critiques in his book. For instance, he has given several TED talks, though he criticizes them in the book. Likewise, his book characterizes the Aspen Institute as a breeding ground for elite thought leadership of the kind that Winners Take All argues against. Giridharadas admits his own connections to the elite world out of a spirit of honesty, so that readers will find him believable. Like many of the individuals his book examines, Giridharadas’s proximity to elite plans to change the world is precisely what led him to begin questioning the validity and motivations of those plans. Thus, he’s uniquely poised to deliver the critiques contained within Winners Take All.