I remember when I was growing up, tech industry has so many people that were admirable, and you wanted to aspire to be in life. Bill Gates, founders of Google Larry Page, Sergey brin, Steve Jobs (wasn't perfect but on a surface level, he was still at least a pretty decent guy), basically everyone involved in gaming from Xbox to PlayStation and so on, Tom from MySpace... So many admirable people who were actually really great....
Now, people are just trash. Look at Mark Zuckerberg who leads Facebook. Dude is a lizard man, anytime you think he has shown some character growth he does something truly horrible and illegal that he should be thrown in prison for. For example, he's been buying up properties in Hawaii and basically stealing them from the locals. He's basically committing human rights violations by violating the culture of Hawaiian natives and their land deeds that are passed down from generation to generation. He has been systematically stealing them and building a wall on Hawaii, basically a f*cking colonizer. That's what the guy is. I thought he was a good upstanding person until I learned all these things about him
Current CEO of Google is peak dirtbag. Dude has no interest in the company or it's success at all, his only concern is patting his pockets while he is there as CEO, and appeasing the shareholders. He has zero interest in helping or making anyone's life pleasant at the company. Truly a dirtbag in every way.
Current CEO of Home Depot, which I now consider a tech company because they have moved out of retail and into the online space and they are rapidly restructuring their entire business around online sales, that dude is a total piece of work conservative racist. I remember working for this company, This dude's entire focus is eliminating as many people as feasibly possible from working in the store, making their life living heck, does not see people as human beings at all. Just wants to eliminate anyone and everyone they possibly can, think they are a slave labor force
Elon musk, we all know about him, don't need to really say much. Every time you think he's doing something good for society, he proves you wrong And does the worst thing he can possibly do in that situation. It's like he's specifically trying to make the world the worst place possible everyday
Like, damn. What the heck happened to the world? You know? I thought the tech industry was supposed to be filled with these brilliant genius people who are really good for the world...
It's not just tech, but leadership positions in general.
Short answer is that the traits you need to climb the ladder have significant overlap with the traits of legit psychopathy.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/mind-of-the-manager/201304/the-disturbing-link-between-psychopathy-and-leadership
To add to this, there's been evidence that as an individual accrues more wealth, their empathy response lessens over time.
My arm chair psychologist hypothesis is that: as the individual sees their quality of life increase, they look at other human beings in deplorable conditions, and their empathy response atrophies in order to avoid cognitive dissonance.
There's a concept in the study of wealthy individuals which goes over their desire to hide impoverishment from their view.
Any good books or other articles on this? I'd be legitimately interested.
The more money I make or the better off I am, I actually just end up feeling more guilty and giving more away. Frankly, one only needs so much, after that if you can improve the quality of life of those around you it makes everything better.
Needs vs wants... Power corrupts.
Yeah I feel you. To echo your last sentence, there's that old study of money leading to increased happiness but only up to a certain point (I think it was like 75k USD pre-covid)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/rich-less-empathetic-than-poor-study-says.html