Psychopathic CEOs

Comments discuss and debate whether CEOs and leaders exhibit sociopathic or psychopathic traits, such as lack of empathy, with references to studies linking psychopathy to business success.

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Keywords

forbes.com telegraph.co HN hintjens.com ribbonfarm.com CEO wikipedia.org tendencies empathy peter traits suffering ceo social lack trafficking compassion

Sample Comments

anigbrowl Sep 24, 2019 View on HN

Sociopaths, and not the chaotic good kind.

unforeseen9991 Aug 14, 2023 View on HN

Sociopaths don't get that feeling

belltaco Dec 6, 2022 View on HN

How are those things sociopathic?

joquarky Jun 5, 2024 View on HN

Not mankind, just psychopaths/sociopaths

andai May 2, 2018 View on HN

There's no nice way to say this, but you might be a sociopath.

fruitworks Aug 30, 2025 View on HN

Those people are psychopaths and the exception to the rule

wnevets Feb 18, 2016 View on HN

does this work with sociopaths?

bryanlarsen Oct 7, 2011 View on HN

I think he meant psychopath rather than sociopath. It's been hypothesized that many great CEO's are psychopathic.http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-som...

syngrog66 May 22, 2024 View on HN

he seems to be a sociopath/psychopath. not uncommon in folks in his role

Spare_account Mar 1, 2017 View on HN

What you're describing is one of the traits of a psychopathhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/13/1-in-5-ceos-are-p...