The real reason business is mad at Wu? She doesn’t cater to our ego.

That was the beginning of a phone call last week with a prominent Boston businessman I have known for years. We are not close associates, but apparently he was comfortable enough to call and ask if I was willing to meet and potentially support a couple of potential Wu opponents in 2025′s Democratic primary for mayor.

I subsequently learned that a number of other business people had received similar entreaties from a group of business folks intent on defeating Wu with a hand-picked and well-financed candidate. The entire business community is not part of this effort, but there is a clearly organized “anyone but Wu” campaign being mounted by powerful forces.

Over the past two years, the media have consistently reported that Wu has a strained relationship with the business community, whether it’s over the North End restaurant outdoor dining controversy; halted and altered development proposals; or her recent proposals to raise commercial property taxes dramatically.

These are the issues business groups cite as evidence of Wu’s “antibusiness” attitude and sufficient grievances to warrant backing others for the mayor’s job. They are just a smoke screen, camouflaging the real reasons for this rebellion. The fact is these same proposals by any of our white, male mayors of the past 50 years would have met resistance, as did Tom Menino’s support for the Community Preservation Act or Ray Flynn’s BRA linkage payment development plans. Resistance is not cause enough for organizing, recruiting, and funding opponents.

So what is the real cause of this outrage? It’s because Wu hasn’t given the business elite priority status and doesn’t treat us as entitled. All past mayors, of course, placed their voting constituency first as it is their power base. Often, though, businesspeople are slotted high on the list. After all, they employ that same constituency, own vast real estate, and pay property and business taxes.

To some degree, past mayors kowtowed to that power. In exchange, the business community grants the mayor membership in their exalted “society club.” As long as they are mayor, doors previously closed to mere City Council members or state legislators open wide. After being elected, you are invited to play golf at the swankiest private clubs, dine in our homes and Boston’s finest restaurants, and attend Celtics and Red Sox games in our luxury suites. While this fraternal membership is temporary and only available while still in office, it’s a pretty nice privilege.

The mayor, while “a politician of the people,” enters an entirely new social strata that, on the surface, is a harmless perquisite of office. In exchange, our phone calls are promptly returned, city staff pay particular attention to whatever we ask, the mayor attends our charity and business events, certain real estate developers get their projects through the city bureaucracy, etc.

The other added benefit for the mayor and city is the business community, in turn, supports many of the mayor’s urban programs. That’s how it all works. The inner workings of the powerful, privileged, and entitled. Every mayor in the last 50 years has participated in this arrangement to one degree or another. Then Wu showed up and made it clear she wouldn’t play this game and had her own vision of the “Shining City on a Hill.”

When you distill her agenda, it’s really quite straightforward. Her priorities are improving the Boston Public Schools system, creating affordable housing, and finding a path for better, cheaper public transportation. All issues are in the business community’s interests; a better-educated workforce and workers who are able to live closer to Boston businesses and who can travel on public transportation to work. Instead of marshaling our considerable resources and working with the city to make progress on these issues that are important to us, too many of us are instead spending time and money to unseat our strongest advocate.

So why is the business hierarchy so angry? It’s offended that the mayor doesn’t want to be our friend or give us priority access to her. She doesn’t care to share a steak with us at Smith & Wollensky or to have “one-on-one” meetings and doesn’t depend on our campaign contributions for reelection. We see ourselves as masters of the universe and are not used to nor do we react well to being dissed.

What’s truly ironic about all this is we pride ourselves on emotionless, pragmatic, capitalist-minded decision-making. And yet in this matter we are acting like hurt high school suitors rejected for a prom date. We are ignoring the reality here. None of the candidates business is floating will come within 20 points of beating Wu. And she knows it. While it is healthy for incumbents to be challenged and for the electorate to decide, these business-endorsed candidates will assure a landslide for her. And then business will eat a generous slice of humble pie and be in a worse position to have their views heard.

We need to get over this pique and embrace Wu’s new paradigm, accept our altered role, and play by her new rules, which are a variation on a theme from another famous Boston politician, “Ask not what your city can do for you, ask what you can do for your city.”

David D’Alessandro is former CEO of John Hancock Financial Services.