If you like to watch billionaires on TV, you don’t have to wait for Donald Trump to launch his own media network. The husband of Alaska Dispatch News owner Alice Rogoff now has his own prime-time television talk show.
“I began to take on the life of an interviewer, even though I have a day job of running a private equity firm,” Rubenstein says, in the introduction for the “The David Rubenstein Show.”
It launched on Bloomberg Television last week. The series is billed as “peer-to-peer conversations,” and for his first episode, Rubenstein started at the top of the billionaire list, with Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
“You’re the wealthiest man in the world for 20 years or more. Is that more of a burden than a pleasure to be the wealthiest man in the world?” Rubenstein asked Gates.
Rubenstein is the co founder of the Carlyle Group investment firm. He lives in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. and has been married to Rogoff for 33 years. She bought Alaska’s largest newspaper in 2014.
“The David Rubenstein Show” makes a feature of the host’s unglamorous personal style, with a logo that includes his prominent eyeglasses. The opening sequence shows him sitting at a desk piled high with documents, his tie askew.
Rubenstein is number 290 on the Forbes list of richest Americans, with a net worth $2.4 billion. He’s an advocate of what he calls “patriotic philanthropy” and this year donated more than $18 million to restore the Lincoln Memorial. His upcoming interview subjects include investment magnate Warren Buffett and Eric Schmidt, chairman of the parent company of Google.
Liz Ruskin is the Washington, D.C., correspondent at Alaska Public Media. Reach her at lruskin@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Liz here.
