A billionaire’s son and first-time novelist satirizes his own people

In “Smokebirds," a social satire out Tuesday that explores the dark side of inherited riches, Breyer observes the psyche of the elite from his own privileged perch. As a child of venture-capital billionaire Jim Breyer, he’s been a fly on lots of the walls that separate the 0.0001 percent from the rest of the world.

The writer, 30, who currently works for his father, did not build his novel around the San Francisco tech world that raised him. Instead, he centered it on a northern California logging dynasty, from the bullying lumber baron grandpa who profits off wildfires and climate change to the toxic nepo-babies ruined by their riches.

Breyer spoke with the Journal about his father’s reaction to the book, the difference between millionaires and billionaires and why his dog is in his author photo.

What gave you the idea for the book?

This book is about fire season. The impetus came in 2020, during I guess it was called “Orange Sky Day," somewhat comically, but it was like an Armageddon event in San Francisco where the sky was bright orange and everything was dark and gloomy and nobody knew what time it was. And the reaction of a lot of people was, “How do we get out of the city?" What an ultimate privilege—a climate-change event is happening and feeling like, “Oh, how do we escape from this?" Instead of snowbirds fleeing the winter, they’re fleeing the smoke.

A smoke vacation. What did they call it?

“Fire season sabbatical."

What in this book comes directly from your own upbringing?

I’m the ultimate nepo-baby in a lot of senses. I grew up in these circles and there’s a sense that comes with that, the worst kind, of feeling like you’re better than other people. Then there’s the other side, in the sense of social currency, of calling it out. That makes people inherently like you because you’re self-aware. I’m very fascinated by the world of people who grew up with everything, like myself, and how they justify that, what they try to do with that, how they talk about it.

What do your parents think of the novel?

This is not a book about my dad or my mom or my brother, my sister or so on. I give my dad so much credit because there could be interviews about this book where it’s like, “You wrote about your dad, he’s evil." It’s just so not the case. From the very beginning he was like, “You should go write books." I think he’s very proud. And my mom, she would defend this book to the death.

What’s something in the book that happened in real life?

There’s a scene at a luau barbecue and an older gentleman talks about moving out of the country because the taxes are so much better. That was an interaction I had with an individual at some mixer, and he was just talking about how he has to get away from the United States because he’s so sick of this. I remember thinking to myself, you can have all sorts of views about what’s wrong with America, or what’s good about America, but the idea of just someone to be like, “I’m going somewhere else entirely because I don’t want to pay these taxes anymore," I found that humorous.

I wondered if you related to the critical inner voice of some of your characters.

I think a lot of writing this book is about owning my own hypocrisy. I’m writing a social satire of the crazy rich and people who’ve benefitted from nepotism. I’ve been incredibly grateful to work with my dad. At the same time, I recognize there’s thousands of other people who’d be terrific investors. Breaking into that industry is so, so tough. My friends who did it without any background, I have way more pride in them.

Did some people write you off when you started working for your dad?

They have every right to write me off, to think, “What has this guy earned to get to do this?" And it’s up to me over a long period of time in the venture-capital space to work with founders, entrepreneurs and other people and try to really help them out. That chip on my shoulder of, “How dare these people dismiss me. I deserve to be here, too," that kind of thinking is dangerous. I’ve been given a crazy opportunity and people can think what they want, and a lot of those thoughts might be accurate, and I can control what I can control and to try to be good at my job and try not to be super obnoxious about it.

What’s the difference between millionaires and billionaires?

There is a level of excess that is different. And the problems are different. It turns into less of, “OK, how do I get to this next point in my career to get an even nicer house for my family?" to “Ok, how am I being portrayed among my peers? Do they respect me? Am I as respectable as this person or this person?" As you get to the next stage, I think the competition changes. If there’s a big difference, I think it’s that a lot of billionaires hang out with billionaires and a lot of millionaires hang out with millionaires and the social status of both have changed.

Why is your dog in your author photo?

I joke with my wife that my true love is this dog. He’s a Samoyed. They’re crazy cute. They’re also a handful. They bark a lot. His name is Nahko.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.