Do you have to Be a Psychopath To Become a Billionaire?

[SQAAD]

I believe psychopathy is on a range and not something binary. Some people have more of it. But when it comes to acquiring billions and billions of dollars, do you have to be a psychopath in order to make it to the top?

I am not talking about millions of dollars. I am pretty sure you can become a millionaire without being a psychopath but when it comes to billions of dollars, i believe only the most cruel, cold and vicious people make it up there.

You have to stomp on a lot of bodies and not really care too much about all of the bottom of the pyramid. It's like you have to be extremely vicious to be a warlord at the time of Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. Both of these were ruthless mass murderers. You couldn't become Genghis Khan by being someone like Jesus or the Buddha. If the current billionaires were more loving and caring then i guess the current situation in this planet would be a lot better for all of us.

Any thoughts?

Edited August 3, 2021 by SQAAD

[Parththakkar12]

@SQAAD You can, technically, become a billionaire if that is what you want. If that is where your Life Purpose takes you.

At those high levels, life just isn't easy in general. You have to make tough decisions, you literally decide who lives and who dies. If you are in your Life Purpose though, you will have principles higher than you guiding you in making those decisions. As a human, yeah, you may come across as a psychopath to the world. To your critics. But, if you are in your Life Purpose, the overall legacy you leave behind will be something you deliberately choose! You can choose it to be something that is a net positive.

[Preety_India]

Maybe.

 

 

[Gregory1]

Of course you don't have to be. Look at Larry Page, Bill Gates for example.. Completely normal and empathic people who simply have high intelligence and had a groundbreaking idea. 

[SQAAD]

@Gregory1

38 minutes ago, Gregory1 said:

Of course you don't have to be. Look at Larry Page, Bill Gates for example.. Completely normal and empathic people who simply have high intelligence and had a groundbreaking idea. 

Yeah and also exploited tons of people. Used shady business tactics to demolish Netscape's web browser off the market. (Talking about Bill Gates). I doubt he would be that powerful if he wasn't a devil. You can't play fair and reach that level of power and influence bc you are competing with other sharks who are as ambitious as you are.

Bill Gates is not an angel but certainly more conscious than the average Joe. I admire though his philanthropy work in Africa. 

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by SQAAD

[SQAAD]

@Parththakkar12

1 hour ago, Parththakkar12 said:

@SQAAD You can, technically, become a billionaire if that is what you want. If that is where your Life Purpose takes you.

At those high levels, life just isn't easy in general. You have to make tough decisions, you literally decide who lives and who dies. If you are in your Life Purpose though, you will have principles higher than you guiding you in making those decisions. As a human, yeah, you may come across as a psychopath to the world. To your critics. But, if you are in your Life Purpose, the overall legacy you leave behind will be something you deliberately choose! You can choose it to be something that is a net positive.

No i don't wish to ever become a billionaire. Only someone insane and with a huge ego would want so much power. But it is appealing because you could probably cause systemic changes and help solve serious problems people face. 

I don't know. I find it mind-blowing that we have managed to land a man on the moon, create all these sophisticated technology BUT we still haven't managed to eradicate hunger. This is insane to me. It's ridiculous. And probably explains how much underdeveloped we are a species in terms of our psychology.

Edited August 3, 2021 by SQAAD

[Parththakkar12]

14 minutes ago, SQAAD said:

I don't know. I find it mind-blowing that we have managed to land a man on the moon, create all these sophisticated technology BUT we still haven't managed to eradicate hunger. This is insane to me. It's ridiculous. And probably explains how much underdeveloped we are a species in terms of our psychology.

The problem of hunger is actually a much harder problem to solve than achieving World Peace. I think we should first focus on achieving World Peace because only then can our solutions to the hunger-problem be sustainable!

[captainamerica]

5 hours ago, SQAAD said:

If the current billionaires were more loving and caring then i guess the current situation in this planet would be a lot better for all of us.

I doubt it. I don't agree that it would be a lot better as you are emphasizing. Perhaps @Leo Gura would like to touch upon it. 

Regarding your title question, I believe that people with high intelligence (or even IQ) after a threshold point no longer need to have psychopathic traits in order to protect themselves or function(any form of function) in complex social/business situations.

Edited August 3, 2021 by captainamerica

[Leo Gura]

Not a psychopath, just exceptionally ambitious.

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, captainamerica said:

 Regarding your title question, I believe that people with high intelligence (or even IQ) after a threshold point no longer need to have psychopathic traits in order to protect themselves or function(any form of function) in complex social/business situations.

Being a billionaire requires a billionaire. Interpret that how you want

[fopylo]

@Leo Gura you said on a different thread that the only way you can become a billionaire is by stealing. You say billionaires a passionate about stealing or they're passionate about their thing and ignorant?

[aurum]

@SQAAD

Well let’s consider what being a “billionaire” actually means.

When people say “I want to be a billionaire”, they are not actually talking about having a billion dollars. Because money is totally relative. Given enough inflation, a billion dollars could be worth next to nothing. If everyone made a billion dollars a year, it would carry no significant weight. You’d just be average.

So what people really want when they say “I want to be a billionaire” is “I want to be at the top of the wealth pyramid. I want far more wealth than anyone else”.  That’s what being a billionaire is. It’s wealth polarization. Someone has, and someone does not.

Now you could say “well it’s fair they have more wealth than anyone else because they worked harder and / or provided more value to society”. But regardless of the justification, a society of polarized wealth is what you’re agreeing to by having billionaires.

So yes, it seems to me that anyone who wants to really be a billionaire is coming from quite a bit of ego. It’s a Win/Lose scenario. They can only be a billionaire if others are not.

However, our cultures comes with ready made excuses for this. Beliefs about individualism, meritocracy, freedom, etc.  It’s assumed that everyone should be focused on making as much money as they can. Who doesn’t want more money? Thus, I don’t think you have to be a psychopath to become a billionaire. You just have to follow many of the stories our culture has provided. Ignorance is as powerful as psychopathy.

[Leo Gura]

50 minutes ago, fopylo said:

@Leo Gura you said on a different thread that the only way you can become a billionaire is by stealing. You say billionaires a passionate about stealing or they're passionate about their thing and ignorant?

It's not stealing in the common sense, the stealing is simply baked into the capitalist system when you employ people.

They are not passionate about stealing, they are just ambitious, want to build their empires, and don't think too much about the systemic consequences. Their ambition makes them willfully ignorant of any collateral damage, and in their minds they rationalize it as: "this is just how everyone does business"

[Scholar]

What defines whether someone becomes a billionaire is usually a deep dissatisfaction with what one has and having a great need to have more. This is basically the state of mind you have to have to become that rich. And more importantly, this state of mind has to be resistant to satisfaction. Think about it, most people would be satisfied with having a well paying job, because usually it takes unreasonable amounts of your time and effort to actually become a millionaire, in most instances. So something in the billionare type has to be completely resistant to ever be satisfied with what one has. If he allowed himself to be satisfied, he would simply not have the motivation to keep doing what he is doing. He would get his million tops, and then live his life.

But the billionaire actually wants more, because that state of mind is permanent to him. He will never be satisfied, if he had the ability to be satisfied, he woudl have long been satisfied, and thus he would have never been motivated to become a billionaire. This is why billionaires aren't even satisfied when they are the richest person in the world, because if they could be satisfied at that moment of being the richest person in the world, they would have been satisfied long before that moment.

 

See the brain needs to be in a very particular frame to be this resistant to satisfaction. You don't become the richest man in the world if you have the capcitiy to be satisfied with any amount of money, power or influence. So these kinds of people are exceptionally atypical in the way their brains work. To some extend we all are resistent to satisfaction, but a billionaire just has that resistance geared up to the extreme.

[Leo Gura]

Billionaires aren't doing it for money. It's about ambition. Live life to the max.

[Scholar]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Billionaires aren't doing it for money. It's about ambition. Live life to the max.

They aren't living life to the max at all though. They are seeking a particular state of mind, not different from any other addict.

[IAmReallyImportant]

10 hours ago, SQAAD said:

I believe psychopathy is on a range and not something binary. Some people have more of it. But when it comes to acquiring billions and billions of dollars, do you have to be a psychopath in order to make it to the top?

I am not talking about millions of dollars. I am pretty sure you can become a millionaire without being a psychopath but when it comes to billions of dollars, i believe only the most cruel, cold and vicious people make it up there.

You have to stomp on a lot of bodies and not really care too much about all of the bottom of the pyramid. It's like you have to be extremely vicious to be a warlord at the time of Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. Both of these were ruthless mass murderers. You couldn't become Genghis Khan by being someone like Jesus or the Buddha. If the current billionaires were more loving and caring then i guess the current situation in this planet would be a lot better for all of us.

Any thoughts?

Bullshit. Becoming a billionaire does not depend on something like psychopathy.

[IAmReallyImportant]

56 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Billionaires aren't doing it for money. It's about ambition. Live life to the max.

Nope, there are also a lot of billionaires who do it for money and status.

Some of them do it because they need a strong purpose, other do it because they cannot take the feeling of being inferior in any way.

Edited August 3, 2021 by IAmReallyImportant

[Parththakkar12]

In my opinion, Steve Jobs is a very good example of a billionaire who truly had an amazing Life Purpose. One of the most well-respected entrepreneurs who has inspired millions and is held as an icon among entrepreneurs. He has literally revolutionized the way business is done. The way entrepreneurs think is deeply impacted by him. He is also a very good counter-example to OP's 'psychopath' theory!

Some of them, like Steve Jobs, are just out there to change the world! Not for the billions. I would not be surprised if this were the case for someone like Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk.

A big caveat about business in general - if you want to be a good marketer, you do not have the luxury of being a psychopath. You need to be able to understand what your market needs. People who have only done left-brained technical work tend to project this onto the big entrepreneurs, they tend to project this image of 'lizard-people way smarter than us, with way more IQ-points, better with computers than us' when this is not the case at all!

Edited August 3, 2021 by Parththakkar12

[IAmReallyImportant]

47 minutes ago, Parththakkar12 said:

In my opinion, Steve Jobs is a very good example of a billionaire who truly had an amazing Life Purpose. One of the most well-respected entrepreneurs who has inspired millions and is held as an icon among entrepreneurs. He has literally revolutionized the way business is done. The way entrepreneurs think is deeply impacted by him. He is also a very good counter-example to OP's 'psychopath' theory!

Some of them, like Steve Jobs, are just out there to change the world! Not for the billions. I would not be surprised if this were the case for someone like Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk.

A big caveat about business in general - if you want to be a good marketer, you do not have the luxury of being a psychopath. You need to be able to understand what your market needs. People who have only done left-brained technical work tend to project this onto the big entrepreneurs, they tend to project this image of 'lizard-people way smarter than us, with way more IQ-points, better with computers than us' when this is not the case at all!

Most or probably all of the Silicon Valley tycoon CEOs have IQs over 140.

Psychopaths can also empathize with others, but less on an emotional level. Psychpaths are also no bad people. There are  non-psychopaths who kill their families e.g. out of jealousy or despair. People are deeply insecure and the idea of psychopaths of course enforce that, because they could hurt you and you cannot or very hard recognize it in advance.

Edited August 3, 2021 by IAmReallyImportant