President Joe Biden’s new chief of staff, Jeff Zients, is a centimillionaire businessman who, like the failed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, got his start as a consultant at Bain Consulting. (For Romney and Bain, in Biden's telling, that was just a pit stop on the road to putting Americans "through hell and back.")

Zients will take over for Ron Klain in February. The former head of the White House’s COVID response, Zients amassed a vast fortune working for Bain & Company and other management consulting firms. But at Bain, according to the Wall Street Journal, Zients "fell in love with Bain's culture, teamwork … and analytical rigor." By age 35, his estimated net worth was nearly $150 million.

Zients's appointment is riddled with irony. Biden’s role in the 2012 presidential election, when he served as former president Barack Obama’s running mate, was to attack Romney, the Republican nominee. Like Zients, Romney began his business career at Bain & Company before serving as CEO of Bain Capital, a private equity company he cofounded with Bill Bain.