Sociopaths contribute creativity and cold-bloodedness and drive decisions that others are too scared or too compassionate to drive. They are the ones capable of exploiting an idea, killing one good idea to concentrate resources on another at maturity, and milking an end-of-life idea through harvest-and-exit market strategies. They enter and exit organizations at will, at any stage, and do whatever it takes to come out on top.
The Clueless serve as a Cat’s Paw for Sociopaths and as a buffer in what would otherwise be a painfully raw master-slave dynamic in a pure Sociopath-Loser organization. They don’t leave the org until they have absolutely no choice. They hang on as long as possible, long after both Sociopaths and Losers have left. They build up a perverse sense of loyalty to the firm, even though the firm is not loyal to them. To sustain themselves, they must be capable of fashioning elaborate delusions based on idealized notions of the firm.
Losers do the actual work of an organization. They produce, but are not compensated in proportion to the value they create. They made a bad economic bargain and traded freedom for a paycheck. They’ve given up some potential for long-term economic liberty (as capitalists) for short-term economic stability. They enter and exit reactively, in response to the meta-Darwinian trends in the economy. But they have no more loyalty to the firm than the Sociopaths. They do have a loyalty to individual people, and a commitment to finding fulfillment through work when they can, and coasting when they cannot. The Losers like to feel good about their lives. They are the happiness seekers, rather than will-to-power players.
Losers have two ways out, which we’ll get to later: turning Sociopath or turning into bare-minimum performers. The Losers destined for Cluelessness do not have a choice.
A Sociopath with an idea recruits just enough Losers to kick off the cycle. As it grows, it requires a Clueless layer to turn it into a controlled reaction, rather than a runaway explosion. One of the functions of the Clueless, recall, is to provide a buffer in what would otherwise be a painfully raw master-slave dynamic in a pure Sociopath-Loser organization. Eventually, as value hits diminishing returns, both the Sociopaths and Losers make their exits, and the Clueless start to dominate. Finally, the hollow brittle shell collapses on itself, and anything of value is recycled by the Sociopaths, according to meta-firm logic.
Rao offhandedly mentions that the Clueless are useful to put blame on when there’s a “reorg”. That didn’t mean much to me until I read the first few chapters of Moral Mazes, where it went through several detailed examples of the politics of a reorg.
Yep. Lot of overlap between this, Moral Mazes, and Dictator’s Handbook. That’s why I started posting these summaries. To make it easier to start that discussion.
The Gervais Principle
Chapter 1 Part 1
Sociopaths contribute creativity and cold-bloodedness and drive decisions that others are too scared or too compassionate to drive. They are the ones capable of exploiting an idea, killing one good idea to concentrate resources on another at maturity, and milking an end-of-life idea through harvest-and-exit market strategies. They enter and exit organizations at will, at any stage, and do whatever it takes to come out on top.
The Clueless serve as a Cat’s Paw for Sociopaths and as a buffer in what would otherwise be a painfully raw master-slave dynamic in a pure Sociopath-Loser organization. They don’t leave the org until they have absolutely no choice. They hang on as long as possible, long after both Sociopaths and Losers have left. They build up a perverse sense of loyalty to the firm, even though the firm is not loyal to them. To sustain themselves, they must be capable of fashioning elaborate delusions based on idealized notions of the firm.
Losers do the actual work of an organization. They produce, but are not compensated in proportion to the value they create. They made a bad economic bargain and traded freedom for a paycheck. They’ve given up some potential for long-term economic liberty (as capitalists) for short-term economic stability. They enter and exit reactively, in response to the meta-Darwinian trends in the economy. But they have no more loyalty to the firm than the Sociopaths. They do have a loyalty to individual people, and a commitment to finding fulfillment through work when they can, and coasting when they cannot. The Losers like to feel good about their lives. They are the happiness seekers, rather than will-to-power players.
Losers have two ways out, which we’ll get to later: turning Sociopath or turning into bare-minimum performers. The Losers destined for Cluelessness do not have a choice.
A Sociopath with an idea recruits just enough Losers to kick off the cycle. As it grows, it requires a Clueless layer to turn it into a controlled reaction, rather than a runaway explosion. One of the functions of the Clueless, recall, is to provide a buffer in what would otherwise be a painfully raw master-slave dynamic in a pure Sociopath-Loser organization. Eventually, as value hits diminishing returns, both the Sociopaths and Losers make their exits, and the Clueless start to dominate. Finally, the hollow brittle shell collapses on itself, and anything of value is recycled by the Sociopaths, according to meta-firm logic.
Continued in Part 2
Rao offhandedly mentions that the Clueless are useful to put blame on when there’s a “reorg”. That didn’t mean much to me until I read the first few chapters of Moral Mazes, where it went through several detailed examples of the politics of a reorg.
Yep. Lot of overlap between this, Moral Mazes, and Dictator’s Handbook. That’s why I started posting these summaries. To make it easier to start that discussion.