On his Santa Monica mountaintop, a billionaire envisions lofty thoughts on politics and culture

Nicolas Berggruen scuffs along a dirt road overgrown with foxtails, high in the Santa Monica Mountains. The Los Angeles basin falls at his feet.

The skyscrapers of downtown, the gantry cranes at the port and the peaks of Catalina are diminished by a vast panorama stretching from Saddleback Mountain in the east to the blue of Santa Monica Bay below, from Mt. Baldy in the haze and a slice of the San Fernando Valley at his back.