4 ms·

I think this is spot on. I have friends who left the finance industry because they absolutely hated the toxic personalities that it attracts. The ones who went

by itg 15y ago

I think this is spot on. I have friends who left the finance industry because they absolutely hated the toxic personalities that it attracts. The ones who went into tech say it isn't much different. Anywhere there is fast money to be made will attract scumbags.

api 15y ago
The most disturbing thing that I noticed was this: a person's status in the business world (or at least certain sectors of it) seems to be perfectly correlated with how they'd probably score on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist I'm not making some superficial political statement either. I noticed it in myself. There were people I worked with that I completely hated yet... when they were present... it was almost like a drug. There's this "high" you get off them. You feel more confident just because they're in the room. They've got this kind of charisma that goes beyond mere confidence or enthusiasm. They were, by their actions, the most psychopathic ones. It's like we have a genetic, predisposed tendency to follow psychopaths. I found it unbelievably disturbing. I'm a bit skeptical of evolutionary psychology, but this is one area where that kind of thinking feels like it could be right. It's like we know, on some subconscious animal level, that while these individuals are dangerous to us they're also more likely to win in a war. They will kill for us. And our genes want to be on the winning team. Among other things, it converted me to a born-again advocate for human genetic and neurological engineering. We simply have to purge ourselves of this evolutionary legacy code or it will kill us all.
- slavak 15y ago
  A psychopath as defined by Hare will never kill for you. At least, not in the sense you mean by "kill", which is probably "go to extreme lengths". They quite likely would kill for you, under the right circumstance - but only if it served their purpose and only because taking a life doesn't carry any particular emotional connotation for them. The scariest thing about realizing you're surrounded by psychopaths is knowing that they have about as much regard for your feelings and well-being as those of their toaster oven. From an evolutionary psychology viewpoint, things are probably the other way around. That is - psychopathic personalities evolved to reflect, albeit in a very shallow way, the traits we're programmed to identify and follow as leaders. I find the whole topic morbidly fascinating. In a way, it's the closest we can get to observing an alien intellect. The idea that so many executives in and around my industry could be such people just creeps me the hell out.
  - api 15y ago
    You should read Blindsight by Peter Watts. It's about this topic, and is basically an evolutionary dynamics horror story. The term you're looking for is "nonsentient."
michaelochurch 15y ago
In my experience, finance scumbags and startup scumbags are different breeds. Finance scumbags are greedy but honest. They believe themselves entitled to own $20 million apartments and will do whatever it takes to get them, but they don't pretend to be anything other than what they are. Startup/tech scumbags (because they're more accountable; Zynga's behavior would be unremarkable coming from Goldman) tend to be a bit better at disguising their intentions. They also tend to care more about power, social access and kingmaking, whereas finance scumbags are purely about money. In my opinion, that makes finance scumbags more respectable (or, I should say, less repulsive). That said, I like technology a lot better. There are always going to be scumbags when there's money, but the difference (IME) is that: (1) there are more normal (non-scumbag) people in tech, probably 85% vs. 70%, (2) the normal people in tech are more interesting and creative, whereas decent people in finance tend to be boring, 9-to-5 types, and (3) technology has a small but sizable number of people who are decent and have entered the upper ranks, whereas there's a glass ceiling that non-scumbags experience in finance (unless they start their own trading firms). I didn't move from finance to technology with the illusion that I'd never have to deal with another asshat. I moved because in technology, it's much more likely that I can succeed (a) in a creative way, and (b) without becoming a scumbag myself.

by itg 15y ago

api 15y ago

The most disturbing thing that I noticed was this: a person's status in the business world (or at least certain sectors of it) seems to be perfectly correlated with how they'd probably score on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist I'm not making some superficial political statement either. I noticed it in myself. There were people I worked with that I completely hated yet... when they were present... it was almost like a drug. There's this "high" you get off them. You feel more confident just because they're in the room. They've got this kind of charisma that goes beyond mere confidence or enthusiasm. They were, by their actions, the most psychopathic ones. It's like we have a genetic, predisposed tendency to follow psychopaths. I found it unbelievably disturbing. I'm a bit skeptical of evolutionary psychology, but this is one area where that kind of thinking feels like it could be right. It's like we know, on some subconscious animal level, that while these individuals are dangerous to us they're also more likely to win in a war. They will kill for us. And our genes want to be on the winning team. Among other things, it converted me to a born-again advocate for human genetic and neurological engineering. We simply have to purge ourselves of this evolutionary legacy code or it will kill us all.

slavak 15y ago
A psychopath as defined by Hare will never kill for you. At least, not in the sense you mean by "kill", which is probably "go to extreme lengths". They quite likely would kill for you, under the right circumstance - but only if it served their purpose and only because taking a life doesn't carry any particular emotional connotation for them. The scariest thing about realizing you're surrounded by psychopaths is knowing that they have about as much regard for your feelings and well-being as those of their toaster oven. From an evolutionary psychology viewpoint, things are probably the other way around. That is - psychopathic personalities evolved to reflect, albeit in a very shallow way, the traits we're programmed to identify and follow as leaders. I find the whole topic morbidly fascinating. In a way, it's the closest we can get to observing an alien intellect. The idea that so many executives in and around my industry could be such people just creeps me the hell out.
- api 15y ago
  You should read Blindsight by Peter Watts. It's about this topic, and is basically an evolutionary dynamics horror story. The term you're looking for is "nonsentient."

michaelochurch 15y ago

In my experience, finance scumbags and startup scumbags are different breeds. Finance scumbags are greedy but honest. They believe themselves entitled to own $20 million apartments and will do whatever it takes to get them, but they don't pretend to be anything other than what they are. Startup/tech scumbags (because they're more accountable; Zynga's behavior would be unremarkable coming from Goldman) tend to be a bit better at disguising their intentions. They also tend to care more about power, social access and kingmaking, whereas finance scumbags are purely about money. In my opinion, that makes finance scumbags more respectable (or, I should say, less repulsive). That said, I like technology a lot better. There are always going to be scumbags when there's money, but the difference (IME) is that: (1) there are more normal (non-scumbag) people in tech, probably 85% vs. 70%, (2) the normal people in tech are more interesting and creative, whereas decent people in finance tend to be boring, 9-to-5 types, and (3) technology has a small but sizable number of people who are decent and have entered the upper ranks, whereas there's a glass ceiling that non-scumbags experience in finance (unless they start their own trading firms). I didn't move from finance to technology with the illusion that I'd never have to deal with another asshat. I moved because in technology, it's much more likely that I can succeed (a) in a creative way, and (b) without becoming a scumbag myself.