BET on Bob
Bob Johnson, the founder of D.C.-based BET and the first black billionaire, says he’d relish the opportunity to work with the country’s only other black billionaire, Oprah Winfrey.
Interviewed as part of CNBC’s forthcoming special “NEWBOs: The Rise of America’s New Black Overclass,” Johnson argues that black businesses should more aggressively work together and even merge. “I would love a call from Oprah saying, ‘Bob, I hear you’ve got this idea for this TV channel. I’d love to co-own that with you and develop it.’ ”
In the show, which premieres Feb. 26, Johnson discusses what it’s like to have achieved such wealth. “You’re sort of in a world where not many other African-Americans penetrate,” he says. “So you find yourself not alone in the sense that you don’t have friends, but alone in the sense that you’re invited to this meeting or you’re invited to this event, and you’re surrounded mainly by white men. … You’re still in that room by yourself.”
And, of course, he touches on his endorsement of Hillary Clinton for the presidency in 2008: “I think people expected me to support [Barack Obama], that [we] should be pulling the same wagon. … It gave people some consternation, but to me it was just a matter of who I thought I should support.”
