Charisma vs Competence

Is charisma not valuable in all jobs?

Charisma is telling people what they want to hear. The uncharismatic, pragmatic as they may be, are thus unpopular.

I think Charisma is a trait, not a skill. It is an aspect which just makes people "want to hear you". And that is extremely risky: Charismatic people can make everything sound good. They can hold the most dumb and unfounded position in an argument and still win, just because they are charismatic. And that is dangerous. One charismatic person can make for a meteoric rise of a company or he can destroy everything.

Not every character needs to be charismatic.

What's interesting is that people with Charisma fit this bill better than people who are competent.

I would say charisma.. that gets people before they think about any of those things

"people start stammering and deflecting if they’re full of shit. " - I think what your evaluating there is charisma.

I think the author confuses simple likability for charisma. Charismatic people generally have a lot of likability, but not all likable people are charismatic.Charismatic people aren't just able to get people to like them, they are able to persuade people to adopt their viewpoint. When someone charismatic wants X to happen, you find yourself also wanting X to happen.This distinction matters, because the easy path to likability is agreeability: simply do what the people around you want

appearance isn't independent from charisma.

Is is not generic charisma. It is specific to who he can attract to work with him. You and I cannot figure it out just by going through how we perceive him from a distance. The average AI researcher/investor isn't looking for traditional charisma. In the interview with Lex Friedman he comes across as just the right person to lead the current GPT based products. Anyone else would be too traditional for this nascent product suite.