Alan Crowhurst / Stringer / Getty Images
The highly anticipated television series, "Billions," premiered last week and became Showtime's best-performing premiere ever.
The show centers around a hedge fund billionaire and the US attorney with a perfect track record of insider trading convictions.
"These guys are sort of like kings in their own worlds," explain the producers of the show, David Levien and Brian Koppelman, on a recent podcast with James Altucher. "They come into conflict with each other and cross swords, so they have to manage their own kingdoms, while doing this battle with each other that is sort of akin to what we've seen play out over the last several years in the financial papers."
Accurately portraying hedge fund billionaires meant sitting down with, interviewing, and getting into the heads of several billionaires - which is exactly what Levien and Koppelman did.
As they interviewed more and more billionaires, they started to pick up on common attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. They also started to understand what it's like to lead a life as the wealthiest of the wealthy.
Here, we've rounded up five insights into the lives of billionaires that the producers noticed and discussed with Altucher: