Howard Schultz doesn't like the word 'billionaire,' prefers the more genteel 'people of means'

At a Manhattan Barnes & Nobel in Manhattan last week, financial journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin asked budding "centrist independent" presidential candidate Howard Schultz if he agreed with Winners Take All author Anand Giridharadas — plus Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and other wealth-tax Democrats — that "billionaires have too much power in American public life." At least one viewer enjoyed his answer.

"You haven’t lived until you've seen Howard Schultz's facial muscles react when @andrewrsorkin asks, on my behalf, if billionaires have too much power in American life," Giridharadas tweeted above a video of Schultz's answer. The interview is most famous for a heckler who called Schultz an "egotistical, billionaire a--hole," and the former Starbucks CEO began by suggesting the label "billionaire" might be a little toxic nowadays. He offered some alternatives.

"The moniker 'billionaire' now has become the catchphrase," Schultz said. "I would rephrase that and I would say 'people of means' have been able to leverage their wealth and their interest in ways that are unfair. And I think that speaks to the inequality, but it also directly speaks to the special interests that are paid for by people of wealth and corporations who are looking for influence, and they have such unbelievable influence on the politicians who are steeped in the ideology of both parties." He's not, he said. "All I'm trying to do is one thing: Walk in the shoes of the American people."

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Schultz did not at that moment explain what "ideology" has to do with money in politics, which "special interests" he finds problematic, or how "people of means" and "people of wealth" think they can "walk in the shoes of the American people" while they still have, unlike most of the American people, many billions of dollars. But he does address his humble upbringing in the hourlong Q&A, and you can watch the entire thing if you are interested.