
Ask HN: Ever met a psychopathic CEO? - da02
Some claim Silicon Valley is full of psychopathic CEOs who are &#x27;charming and manipulative&#x27; but have no empathy:  http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dailymail.co.uk&#x2F;sciencetech&#x2F;article-4317484&#x2F;Silicon-Valley-psychopathic-CEOs-experts-claim.html<p>Have you ever met a CEO  like this? If so, did they come from marketing or sales?
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mrlyc
Oh yes. I used to work with one who wouldn't let the programmers print
anything. He once stormed into the programming room after someone called and
asked to leave a message for one of the programmers. "In my next company," he
yelled, "there will be no phone system!" He also bragged about taking a whole
year to pay a bill. Creative accounting was used to calculate my wages,
something I didn't realise until after I had left as there were no payslips.

~~~
taway_1212
I'm not sure it's psychopathy. Maybe the guy can function properly around his
family and friends, and just has this idea of business world being "dog eat
dog". Some of the worst German war criminals during WWII seemed to have a
decent family life etc. - they were just great at compartmentalizing.

~~~
mathgeek
Might be venturing into the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath.

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dsacco
There is no difference, because both refer to what is clinically considered
antisocial personality disorder. Both terms are too colloquially loaded and
ill-defined to be very useful outside of the clinical context. People use
"psychopath" to describe people across a wide spectrum, from asshole to
antisocial personality disorder.

There has been a misconception that sociopaths are psychopaths without violent
tendencies but with the same lack of empathy, but there's really no rigor in
any of it.

~~~
Nomentatus
I'm mostly with you, no diff - but some psychologists do make a distinction,
both have no empathy, but the sociopath has spent much more time learning how
to manipulate others and may have a desire to appear normal in order to get
away with more stuff; whereas it may never have occurred to a purer psychopath
that he or she should really try not to stick out so much, since s/he doesn't
naturally see things (including him or herself) from anyone else's point of
view.

Historically, the term sociopath was first introduced as a replacement for
"psychopath" since, for some reason, there seemed to be stigma attached to
that term. Later introducing "Antisocial Personality" was tried as another
attempt to duck the stigma. Somehow it didn't work, can't imagine why, and the
terms have been at least slightly repurposed by at least some psychologists.

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Nomentatus
I remember one company that probably had two different layers of psycopaths in
management, with the result that employees ended up with three different
strict rule books to follow, one of them unwritten; each inconsistent with the
other. The resulting triple-bind left every action by a psychopathic manager
justifiable, no surprise there. The business ultimately failed when it tried
to branch out to new cities. It turns out that psychopaths aren't very good
judges of people (probably that empathy thing, again) so they uniformly hired
thieves who flattered them and then skimmed cash until the branches flatlined.
I'm not sure whether they started as management or sales, but had risen to
management.

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andrei_says_
Not a direct answer to your question but Pieter Hintjens' Psychopath Code
addresses this exact topic and offers ways to identify and contain such
relationships.

[http://hintjens.com/blog:_psychopaths](http://hintjens.com/blog:_psychopaths)

~~~
da02
Thanks for this link.

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johnwheeler
I worked with a startup CEO who'd frequently reply to Marc Andresssen's tweets
and carry on Twitter conversations with such billionaires/tech moguls because
he felt he was in their league (he wasn't).

Even though he would get little or no responses, he'd talk to his employees
about the time he and Marc had a conversation regarding such and such business
matter.

~~~
Nomentatus
I'm gonna go with the character disorder of narcissism on this one, though
that can certainly combine with psychopathy.

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throwawaycereal
The CEO at my company is nice, handsome, charming and as far as I know I've
never seen him actually be angry at someone or anything like that.

I just think something feels off about him. The enthusiasm doesn't feel 100%
genuine.

I don't get this feeling from anyone else in the company. But hopefully I am
not blinded by "knowing" this about CEOs from HN/startup scene/roumours etc.

\---

Worst part? I feel like I'd like to learn from it / about it. It is a really
fascinating topic for me. I almost kind of envy it somehow.

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kerouanton
Sure, met one. He was coming from sales, and kept selling much more than teams
could deliver. At one point that began to generate burn-outs and resignations,
but he didn't even notice and change his goals. the issue was that most of the
time he was charming, but if you were able to check the small details (as he
never came to see the teams even to say good morning, unless he had something
to ask or someone to blame), you'd quickly understand the risk of being in the
team.

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IndianAstronaut
Not a CEO, but I am currently dealing with a very vindictive and petty VP.
Absolutely no empathy or thought for others. Brings similar people on board
her team and they run amock making the lives of their subordinates or others
that deal with them miserable. The lower end managers are blatantly self
centered, but the higher up you go, the shit just gets more polish. Capital
One has been quite the nightmare.

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unixhero
Isnt't always like this?

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baccheion
A new study suggests 1 in 5 CEOs are Psychopaths (up from 4%).

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jankedeen
I've met a couple who are purposefully overbearing and intolerant.

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hellofunk
I think you are asking the wrong question. It should be, have you ever met a
CEO who was not a psychopath?

The answer to this question is most definitely Yes, but the question remains
the proper one.

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zhte415
Yes. While having an obsessive desire to deliver <thing> be it service or
product to customer, they focus on their people, making sure everyone feels
valued and fulfilled. In a personal context, often quite shy.

