Roger Federer: The billion-dollar backhand

10:13Simon Jack:Then in 1999, turning 18, he started his first ATP tour. He wasn't exactly successful. For his French Open and Wimbledon debuts, he was beaten in first rounds. But the Grand Slam tournaments do pay well. And even going out so early, earned him 20 grand across both tournaments. And he started doing better throughout the rest of the year, earning around$225 ,000 in prize money. He ended the year ranked number 64 in the world, the youngest player to finish in the top 100. And that is a big deal. But Roger was bemused by his newfound status. He said, I've noticed that the more well-known one becomes, the less one has to pay.

10:52Simon Jack:Everybody wants to invite me and everyone wants to be nice to me just because I can play tennis well.

10:57Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, you think? Yes. Free to those that can afford it. very expensive to those that can't. His next year, 2000, brought more money, more recognition. He reached the semifinals at the Sydney Olympics. I didn't get him a medal, but brought him greater name recognition and also brought him something perhaps more important, love. On the last day of the Olympics, he kissed Mirka Wavrenetz, a member of Switzerland's women's Olympic tennis team, and they started dating. Mirka had to retire from tennis in 2002 due to a foot injury, which put her into a deep hole of depression, she said. But she said Roger was my greatest support back then.

11:31Zing Tsjeng:He gave my tennis life back to me because when he wins, it's as if I win as well.

11:35Simon Jack:It's very funny because it really reminds me of a recent tennis movie, Challengers. Have you watched that?

11:40Zing Tsjeng:Nope.

11:40Simon Jack:So it's basically about a woman who has to retire from tennis professionally because she has a huge injury. She pours all her energy into coaching her husband against his great rival who was also an ex-boyfriend of hers. Oh, wow. It must have been based on this slightly.

11:55Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, and also I do remember one of my memories of his long and illustrious playing career was seeing Mirka in the player's box for many years. She was there at pretty much every match and you could tell that she was very involved. She was an ever-present character on the court.

12:10Simon Jack:Well, let's get back to 2000. Roger's 18, he's turning 19. It's his second year playing professionally. So he was doing well in competitions. He finished the year ranked number 29th in the world. and the tennis schedule is very busy. That year he played in 24 tournaments as a singles player and 19 as a doubles player and depending on how well he did, he earned anywhere between 5 grand to 50 grand per tournament. So this meant that by the end of 2000, he'd earn over$600 ,000, nearly triple the prize money from his rookie year. So he's stacking up the cash bit by bit.

12:42Zing Tsjeng:Paying his dues, but he still hadn't won a major tournament as a professional. So he hired a new fitness coach, he spent the year working hard on fitness, got a new tennis coach to replace Peter Carter another Peter, Peter Lundgren and Peter number two, Lundgren that is saying Roger is not a workaholic that you can hit 3 ,000 backhands to and he hits them and feels good doing it training has to be fun for Roger I identify with that

13:06Simon Jack:Yes, me too actually the Grand Slam will come calling any minute Well the training slowly paid off for Roger in 2001 he won his first tournament Milan Indoor and later that year he beat one of the most successful and celebrated tennis players in history, the world number one and defending champion Pete Sampras in the fourth round at Wimbledon, which brought him international acclaim.

13:29Zing Tsjeng:I remember that match really well. Everyone sat up, you know, because I had a lot of friends who were very into tennis and they say this guy is going to be something special. So that was a big moment.

13:37Simon Jack:But tragedy struck in 2002 when his coach and mentor, Peter Carter, Peter number one, died in a car crash in South Africa. Roger said, when something like this happens, you see how really unimportant tennis is. It took him time to recover from the loss.

13:52Zing Tsjeng:But by the end of 2002, he was ranked number six in the world and you start making real money when you're in the top ten. He made around$1.8 million in prize money. But remember, he has quite a lot of outgoing. Tennis operates more like a kind of individual business than a team system. You don't get a salary, of course, and you have to pay all your own outgoings, like the coach's salary, all your entourage, your nutritious, your physio. I actually played against a guy when I was a kid called Barry Cowan. I hope he's listening. I was about 15 and Barry was about six and he was beating me back then.

14:25Zing Tsjeng:And he went on to hold Pete Sampras to five sets at Wimbledon one year. And anyway, but I remember watching his career grow. And actually, it is grueling being on the road, paying your expenses, your hotels, your trainer, what have you. So you're kind of like a mini, you know, entrepreneur in a way. You're running your own business.

14:44Simon Jack:He's also taxed on those winnings. So tennis prize money is usually taxed by the host country before the player even receives it. So for Wimbledon, this would mean about 45 % deducted before he even sees it in his bank account. So all of this means that very early on in their careers, tennis players often barely break even.

15:01Zing Tsjeng:But there's another threshold to break and he was about to do that into the big time. He won his first Grand Slam. Remember we described those earlier. In 2003, he won Wimbledon. Remember he promised to do that? It was laughed at back at the Basel Training Academy. The prize money was£575 ,000 then. That's about just nearly a million dollars. He also won the season-ending championship, the Masters Cup. That was another one and a half million dollars in prize money. And that year, he earned four million total across the entire season. So even with tax and bills and expenses, we can probably say pretty confidently that by the end of 2003, Roger Federer is a millionaire, just 21.

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17:57Zing Tsjeng:Let's take Roger Federer from a million onto that very rare thing for an athlete, a billion. In February 2004, he became the world number one. And he would maintain that top spot for four and a half years. And if you think about how consistent you've got to be, that's incredible. And over this time, he won many, many more tournaments. His annual yearly prize money was between six and ten million dollars. Now, that's a lot of money to win. But as we know from this show, that is pocket change to billionaires. There's no way he could ever become a billionaire from prize money alone.

18:29Simon Jack:I vaguely remember Roger Federer at this point having a ponytail.

18:33Zing Tsjeng:I wasn't a fan of that. I mean, I know less about haircuts and fashion than anyone in the world. But even I could tell that was not a good look.

18:40Simon Jack:I think he's going to have to drop their ponytail if he wants to make it to a billion, I'm afraid. Well, when he won Wimbledon in 2003, he has deals with Nike and Wilson to give him free clothing and tennis equipment. But not much else. But during those years of near total dominance in tennis, Roger became the global face of the sport. And that meant that his earning potential shifted from just being a regular athlete to becoming a powerful brand in and of itself. And his journey to being a billionaire is really about the power of sponsorship and endorsements.

19:12Zing Tsjeng:And tennis is a particularly attractive sport to sponsors. Tennis fans are usually quite affluent. They have high disposable income, so money to spend on whatever product they're endorsing. It's also global. It's got appeal to audiences in the US, in Europe and Asia. And so in 2004, he signed a deal with watchmaker Maurice Lacroix. Watch brands tend to be quite a go-to thing for male celebrities because it's expensive, but it's one of the few bits of jewellery that men will ever wear.

19:43Simon Jack:Exactly. I mean, for a lot of guys, it's the only accessory they will ever buy. I've noticed something quite interesting happening with men in their 30s. They've started investing in watches and if you ever want a man to go off on one and you can just sit back and let him take the reins of the conversation, just ask him where his watch is from.

19:59Zing Tsjeng:Oh, gosh.

20:00Simon Jack:Where is your watch from, Simon?

20:03Zing Tsjeng:Weirdly enough, I do like a nice watch. Anyway, two years later, he switched his allegiance to Rolex. He had to pay Maurice Lacroix an undisclosed breakup fee to end his five-year contract with them. Rolex was and probably still is the biggest luxury watch brand in the world and it paid him$15 million for a 10-year deal. And that change in sponsorship reflected his new status as the undisputed world number one.

20:25Simon Jack:And before that, he'd relied on a four-person team. So a lawyer, financial advisor, his mother who quit her job to help her son full-time and his girlfriend, Mirka, who handled media relations and travel. And this small team handled all his contracts, which were deals worth millions, yes, but deals worth about half that of other top athletes in the sports. So when Forbes brought out their 2005 list of top earning athletes, Roger did not make the list despite being the world's number one tennis player. So it was time for a change.

20:53Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, and he turned to a company called IMG, that's International Management Group, super famous agency for sports stars. They manage other people like Andre Agassi, Serena and Venus Williams. And with IMG's power behind him, he was able to negotiate some huge global sponsorship deals. And he not only got better at tennis, he'd also become much more commercially appealing. The ponytail was gone. I was holding him back. As were the tantrums, he was now elegant, athletic, handsome. He was charitable. He'd set up a foundation to raise money for South African children. So, in a way, unlike many athletes, Federer's image was really clean cut.

21:32Zing Tsjeng:Some might say, dare I say, bland. But that meant he was a pretty safe bet with global appeal. So, you know, he's not going to offend anyone. He's not going to get, you know, remember the scandals that Tiger Woods went through. That was going to be very unlikely with Roger Federer.

21:46Simon Jack:Exactly. And in fact, IMG had actually managed the career of Tiger Woods and turned him into a powerful brand. So they've got clout and they began to do the same for Roger, positioning him as a luxury global icon. And so this meant fewer deals to maintain his exclusivity, but much higher value per deal and long term partnerships. And over the next few years, Roger signed deals worth millions per year with shaving brand Gillette, coffee maker Jura, car brand Mercedes, the bank credit suites. I mean, these are all incredibly, I would say, masculine brands.

22:17Zing Tsjeng:Well, Gillette doesn't get much. You know, Gillette's the best a man can get. Exactly. I think that's well known enough for us not to get into any trouble. And there are lots of billboards and adverts where you would have Tiger Woods alongside Roger Federer. Sport was their go-to conduit, if you like, for channeling maleness for their clientele.

22:36Simon Jack:The old cliche of shaving and coffee ads to enhance performance.

22:39Zing Tsjeng:One thing I remember about Federer, he's always very keen on his appearance. I remember when he won the 15th Grand Slam, which was to equal or break Pete Sampras' record. He had a special jacket made for himself. He had some very clear ideas about how he wanted to look. And like every other athlete we've covered on this show, there's always one name hanging around the hoop, and that is Nike. In 2008, he renewed his deal with them, signing a 10-year contract worth almost$120 million. His biggest deal, one of the biggest ever for tennis.

23:10Simon Jack:And that deal made him the highest paid tennis star. But that very same year, Roger actually lost his hold on the top spot in tennis with Rafael Nadal overtaking him. And the Nadal-Federa rivalry is, I would say, one of the greatest rivalries in any sport. The media could not get enough of it because obviously it's drama, it's tension.

23:31Zing Tsjeng:It's so important that I think in some sports like in tennis. So, for example, you had Borg and McEnroe, then you had McEnroe and Lendl, and, you know, and then Nadal and Federer. Having these great rivalries really kind of captures the imagination. And with Nadal and Federer, you had two such different styles. You had the elegant ballerina of Federer, and you had the kind of matador charging, heavy thumping, big arms kind of, you know, bruiser of Nadal. And this kind of light and shade, this kind of contrast was absolutely electrifying as a sporting spectacle.

24:04Simon Jack:And crucially, you know, you can be the best player in the world, but it does get boring for fans and audiences to keep watching you win time and time again.

24:12Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, yeah, it sure does.

24:13Simon Jack:You know, you could argue that rivalry actually increased both of their commercial values because they brought attention to the sport, created a narrative that fans would follow who was going to beat who, when, where. And for Roger, it probably grew his global brand more than just sole dominance would have.

24:28Zing Tsjeng:100 percent. He was also busy off the court at this point, too. In 2009, he married Mirka and later that year they had identical twin girls. Five years later, they had another pair of twins, this time fraternal twin boys.

24:40Simon Jack:God, four kids in the entourage. Well, a full family life did not stop Roger from maintaining supremacy in tennis. By 2013, he held the records for most singles Grand Slam wins, 17, and Weeks ranked number one in the world, 302. That is astounding. That year, Forbes placed him at number two in the world's highest paid athletes, earning over 70 million in a single year. And that year, Roger shifted towards greater control over his commercial career. So he moved away from traditional agency representation with IMG. Instead, he co-founded his own management company, Team 8, with his longtime agent, Tony Godzik.

25:17Simon Jack:And what this did is it effectively brought his own management in-house. It allowed him to operate more like a business owner than a client of IMG.

25:25Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, so if you've got your own company, you're not paying the 20 % or whatever it is to the agent, and you've got more control over your own life. And through that new company teammate, he founded something called the Leiva Cup, which was an annual three-day men's tennis tournament in which the top six players from Europe compete against the top six from the rest of the world. A format kind of inspired by golf's Ryder Cup. The top players are paid to participate, unlike normal ATP Tour events when you get paid from your winnings. And it was positioned as a tribute to Rod Leiva, a huge tennis star from the 1960s.

25:57Zing Tsjeng:But the Labour Cup was a commercial venture. Team 8 was selling the tickets, the media rights, the sponsorships of this new competition. For the first time, Roger wasn't just playing the event. He kind of owned it.

26:08Simon Jack:Yeah. And over the next five years, Roger continued to play at the top level of tennis. And after a knee injury sent him down to 17th in the world ranking, he made an unbelievable comeback, winning multiple Grand Slams. People thought he couldn't do it. And in 2018, at the age of 36, he became the oldest world number one in tennis history, 14 years after he first topped the rankings.

26:31Zing Tsjeng:Now, the general trend for athletes has been longer and longer careers as sports science has got more advanced. There's better nutrition. There's better training. But at 36, he was years older than the average retirement age for a professional tennis player. If you look at the way they lunge, it's awful on the knees. But he was able to extend his career well beyond the norm because of his playing style, because he was so moved so effortlessly, it looked like. Unlike Nadal, you could hear heavy timber crashing as he went from side to side. It looked like he was just floating on air. And he also managed his schedule pretty carefully.

27:05Zing Tsjeng:He played fewer tournaments. He prioritised recovery, eking out as much as he could of his career. And that meant he had about an extra decade on court compared to the average player.

27:13Simon Jack:And that meant he could earn more through appearance fees and exhibition games, which is another crucial revenue stream for tennis players. So tournament organisers pay players to show up and play in non-ATP matches. The payments are separate from the prize money that essentially paid for bringing in audiences, for ticket sales, for broadcast attention. And obviously in these games, star power matters more than your actual ranking. So by this point, Roger was earning between two to three million dollars per exhibition match or short event.

27:42Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, I remember when I worked in finance many, many years ago, the company I was working for sponsored one of these things. And I got to have a go and played with Rod Laver and Jimmy Connors. Wow.

27:53Simon Jack:How did you do?

27:54Zing Tsjeng:Terrible. And you could tell they're saying, why am I doing this? Why am I doing this?

27:57Simon Jack:The light slowly going out behind their eyes.

27:59Zing Tsjeng:Literally inside they're slowly dying, having to play with someone like me. But gosh, it was exciting. So the thing is, is that companies pay big money for their executives or for their most favoured clients to do stuff like this. So that was a lot of fun.

28:12Simon Jack:I'm sure Rod Laver reassured himself of the money he got at the end of the day.

28:15Zing Tsjeng:Apologies to both of them. Anyway, his long career also meant more sponsorship. In 2018, he signed a deal with Japanese clothing company Uniqlo, after ending his decades-long partnership with Nike. The new Uniqlo contract was reportedly worth$300 million over 10 years. His on-court earnings at the time were around$116 million, making the deal more than double his tennis paycheck. But Uniqlo didn't make trainers that he could wear on court, So for a brief time, he had to keep wearing his Nikes, despite the fact he'd parted ways with the brand.

28:44Simon Jack:But a year later, he partnered with a relatively new athletic footwear brand called On. Founded in 2010, On is Swiss, so a perfect fit for Federer. But as a relatively young brand, they were unlikely to be able to match the sort of money that more established brands like Nike or Uniqlo paid him for sponsorship. So Roger, his agent and his wife started discussing a very different type of deal. and he did this is interesting he described negotiating as something also very new for me and all of a sudden you are a businessman and it just sounds so weird negotiations happen and it's kind of uncomfortable you almost don't want them to exist ever i mean that's funny words coming from someone who's played some grueling tennis matches yeah but they don't want to in a way they

29:25Zing Tsjeng:they want the control of the business thing but they don't want to actually have to sort of do the do the dirty work of actually that sort of you know the business negotiation but he made that deal he got a three percent stake in the brand and he worked with a brand to design the roger line of tennis shoes for both on and off court then in 2021 the company went public he made sell shares to the public and it was valued at over 11 billion dollars in their new york stock exchange debut and that meant his stake was suddenly valued at around 300 million dollars so time and time again we see that owning the company and the IPO of the company, the selling of the public shares, is where the really big money comes from.

30:07Simon Jack:Well, it's funny because remember that film I talked about, Challengers? Well, the star of that, Zendaya, is also one of the spokespeople for On.

30:14Zing Tsjeng:Oh, right.

30:15Simon Jack:And I imagine that must have come about because of Challengers. Maybe.

30:18Zing Tsjeng:So there you go. In 2022, age 41, Roger played his final game of professional tennis. And I think I saw this one as well. and actually Rafa Nadal showed up and they held hands at the end. He was in tears. We were all in tears.

30:32Simon Jack:That's sweet. Well, it was time because his tennis career had been declining. He was battling a knee injury which needed three operations. Ouch. And his last game was at the Labour Cup in the O2 Arena in London, therefore also bringing more attention to his own tournament. Very clever. And at the end of that match, he said, it's been the perfect journey. I'd do it all again. That's sweet.

30:53Zing Tsjeng:But he seems to be enjoying retirement. He says he doesn't miss tennis. He travels with his family, Tokyo, Thailand, South Africa. He didn't go into hiding. He attended the Oscars. There was an Amazon Prime documentary about him. He appeared in GQ where he would wear his Uniqlo clothes, his on trainers.

31:11Simon Jack:By 2025, his equity stake in On was worth more than$375 million. And that year, age 44, Forbes declared Roger Federer a billionaire worth$1.1 billion. dollars. So totting it all up, over the course of his career, he'd made$130 million in prize money. This puts him behind his rivals, Novak Djokovic, who has 189 million, and Rafael Nadal, who is 135. But off the court, it's where he makes his real money. He raked in more than double what Djokovic or Nadal has. He's earned roughly$1 billion before taxes and agents fees from endorsements, appearances, and of course, other business endeavors, which will probably continue to make him rich even as he retires.

31:53Zing Tsjeng:Well, that's for sure, because if you get off a plane in Switzerland or Geneva or Zurich, the first face you'll see almost is a smiling picture of Roger Federer tossing up a tennis ball while wearing a watch or promoting some financial services, for which Switzerland is so well known.

32:11Zing Tsjeng:So that's the end of the Roger Federer billionaire story to date. Now it's time to score him on our billionaire categories. This is a bit of fun where we rate them between zero and 10 on categories like wealth, controversy, power and legacy. So we'll start with wealth,$1.1 billion. He's barely a qualifier.

32:30Simon Jack:Wow, very good. I mean, he's only the seventh athlete to join this club, though. He's one of a very small group of sports people who've managed to make that amount of money.

32:39Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, he was the world's highest paid tennis player for 16 straight years. What about how he spends it. We also have a look at that.

32:46Simon Jack:He's worn a rare Rolex. I do not know what this watch looks like, but I assume some listeners will. It's called the Sky Dweller. Very evocative. He wore that to play tennis. It's thought to be worth more than 40 grand. I assume, though, that Rolex must have gifted that to him, surely. I'm sure they did.

33:03Zing Tsjeng:He pays$1 ,000 per haircut to his barber. I wonder if that's the same barber who lopped off that ponytail, which proved to be so important.

33:10Simon Jack:I hope that barber got a raise because that ponytail was truly atrocious. He's also an ambassador for NetJets, which is interesting. But that means he only owns a share of a private jet, not the whole plane. So he's got a little bit of his own PJ to fly around on.

33:23Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, it's an interesting company, NetJets. Actually, it's owned by one of our other billionaires, Warren Buffett. And it's kind of like a timeshare for planes. You sort of buy a quarter of a plane and that gives you X number of hours of flying time per year. Just like if you buy a timeshare apartment, you get X number of weeks living in it. but you don't fully own it. It's actually incredibly popular with it. It's about, what did someone once say? NetJets is like having a bus pass for private jets.

33:52Simon Jack:Wow, a bus pass for billionaires doesn't get any better than that. Okay, so how would we rate Federer?

33:58Zing Tsjeng:It's going to have to be pretty low. I mean, he's not extravagant. He's not bling enough to sort of get ratcheted up on that way. I would say I'm going to give him a two.

34:07Simon Jack:Oh, I would score him slightly higher, I think, because of the fact that he's one of a very small number of athletes who have made it to the Billionaires Club. But still, three out of ten.

34:16Zing Tsjeng:Three for you, two for me. Controversy, not much. Clean cut, dependable. Once he got it over his tantrums, pretty unflappable on court.

34:26Simon Jack:And given the amount of drama and controversy that has dogged other sports stars, not least people like Tiger Woods, I mean, this guy is squeaky clean.

34:35Zing Tsjeng:I think I might give him a zero. I mean, there's nothing in it, is there? Can you find any squeak of controversy about this person?

34:42Simon Jack:No, I mean, even the way he plays doesn't really invite that kind of controversy, does he?

34:47Zing Tsjeng:OK, sorry, Roger. Zero from us. Zero from me, anyway. What about you? Maybe I'll do one out of ten. Something dreadful might emerge.

34:55Simon Jack:Somewhere out there, you know, he's been really rude to a physio. I'll give him one out of ten.

35:01Zing Tsjeng:OK, fine. All right. Power. And this is interesting. So sometimes we look at this power within their sphere and then power in the world generally. No doubt he's an absolute legend in the game. He actually got quite involved in the actual running of the sport. He was president of the ATP Tour Player Council for six years. He also lobbied for extra prize money at the four Grand Slam events, a rather self-interested campaign, I think that might be.

35:28Simon Jack:But actually, what's interesting is that much of that money went to early round losers, which is quite charitable. Well, I wouldn't say charitable, but it certainly acknowledges the fact that if you go out early, you lose quite a bit of money.

35:39Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, for those players on perhaps not at the top of the tree. It's a recognition that actually once you've paid all the expenses, it's actually hard to make a living. So power outside of it. I mean, he's one of the biggest sporting brands ever. He's right up there in terms of power to sell stuff. Clearly, the sponsors think that he's worth it.

35:57Simon Jack:But politically, you know, he's very apolitical. And you can understand why.

36:03Zing Tsjeng:Famously Swiss neutral.

36:04Simon Jack:Exactly. Well, if you're the face of shaving brands and Rolex, you probably don't want to get involved in world politics.

36:09Zing Tsjeng:No. Okay. So power, again, I'm going to score him low on this one. I'm going to say three.

36:14Simon Jack:Yeah. Actually, no.

36:16Zing Tsjeng:Within the sport, he's such a legend. I'm going to give him a four.

36:18Simon Jack:I think four is right. I mean, you know, he did co-found a tournament. It's a big tournament, the Labour Cup now.

36:23Zing Tsjeng:Yeah. Okay. What about legacy? Now, for a time, he was the undisputed goat, greatest of all time at tennis. But statistically, he got 20 Grand Slams. I think Novak Djokovic is up to 24.

36:37Simon Jack:Yeah, but, you know, he still holds the most Wimbledon men's singles tennis titles. So eight titles. He hasn't been beaten on that yet.

36:44Zing Tsjeng:And one of the things that I think really rankles with Novak Djokovic is that he knows that despite the fact that he's got the most Grand Slam wins, he's not as popular and won't be remembered as fondly as either Nadal or Roger Federer.

36:58Simon Jack:But, you know, Federer does deserve it in a way. You know, he's got a beautiful attitude, a beautiful way of playing tennis. These things actually really matter in the sport.

37:06Zing Tsjeng:Yeah, I think if you were to go and say, of all the tennis players in the world, who would you like to go and watch play? I think Federer would be at the top of the list.

37:14Simon Jack:How would you score him then? That's a very high praise.

37:17Zing Tsjeng:In the game of tennis, nine.

37:19Simon Jack:When Federer goes, in the decades to come, the obituaries are going to say he was probably one of the greatest tennis players of all time. For sure. So, yeah, I do think it's an eight or niner for me. Go on, you've got to choose. Go on, just say your turn. Okay, I'll say nine out of ten. Okay, two nine. If only to make my old tennis coach happy. You had a tennis coach? No. You kept that quiet. This whole episode, you haven't discussed this. It was more like a tennis instructor, and I was very bad at tennis. Okay, all right. It didn't last for very long, trust me. Okay. But I've got a little niece who has played junior Wimbledon.

37:49Simon Jack:What? And she's now on a tennis scholarship in the States.

37:52Zing Tsjeng:Wow. So who knows?

37:53Simon Jack:Watch this space.

37:54Zing Tsjeng:Okay. So is Roger Federer good, bad or just another billionaire? What do you think? Email us at goodbadbillionaire, that's all one word, at bbc.com or drop us a text or WhatsApp to 001 917 686 1176 and tell us what you think.

38:12Simon Jack:And don't forget to include your name because we may read your message out on a future episode.

38:17Zing Tsjeng:For example, we've got one from Tom who says, firstly, thank you for this podcast. Always brilliant. Thanks, Tom. It strikes me that whilst there are good billionaires out there, the show has me wondering, do billions make unpleasant people? Or is it unpleasant people that have a thirst to make billions? That's a chicken and egg one for us. Great show, he says. Love the dynamic. Looking forward to more. Thank you, Tom. What do you think? For most people, once they'd made their first million or 10 million or 50 million, they would say, right, that's it. I'm out. I'm going to go fishing. There'd be a revolving chair right where I'm sitting if that happened to me.

38:51Zing Tsjeng:And to keep going on, to make more and more money, some people would say that's avarice and therefore unpleasant. So if you could say there's an unpleasant thirst for money, which is a prerequisite of becoming a billionaire. But it's not always like that. I mean, some of our billionaires have sort of become billionaires just because they're really good at what they do.

39:07Simon Jack:Yeah, it's true. I don't think Steven Spielberg ever set out to make movies thinking he was going to make a billion from cinema. Nobody does.

39:14Zing Tsjeng:No, it's a tricky one. I mean, in a way, that is such a fundamental question at the heart of some of the shows that we do. So thank you very much for raising that very good question, Tom.

39:28Simon Jack:So who do we have on our next episode of Good Bad Billionaire?

39:32Zing Tsjeng:Somebody who's changed the nature of entertainment arguably forever.

39:36Simon Jack:Someone who invented the idea of Netflix and chill and also binge watching.

39:42Zing Tsjeng:It is the co-founder of Netflix, Reed Hastings. And in the story, you'll find out that they begged Blockbuster to try and buy them where they were struggling. Blockbuster turned them down and boy, did they regret it.

39:52Simon Jack:That's the story of Reed Hastings on the next episode of Good Bad Billionaire.

39:58Zing Tsjeng:Good Bad Billionaire is a BBC World Service podcast produced by Hannah Hufford. The editor is Paul Smith and it's a BBC Studios production.

40:06Simon Jack:For the BBC World Service, the senior commissioning producer is Sarah Green and the commissioning editor is John Monnell.