Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?

It is not inherently amoral to track a user or sell that user's data, so restricting yourself (a cost) has to have a benefit (a value) otherwise you're inventing rules for yourself that makes your journey needlessly harder.

This is kind of a loaded question/ statement.

> "Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?"

ok, you hooked me... lets see what you're talking about

> "to be a successful CEO"

Oh, well thats really only one very niche version of success. I personally can only think of a handful of CEOs that I consider "successful." They're really just managers, and we happen to be at a point in American history where they are very well compensated... historically this has not really been the case. Conservative (small c) argument: Name 5 successful CEOs from the 1930s. Now name 5 Successful Authors, Actors, Politicians, etc.

> "to be a successful CEO, you need to be a sociopath"

I would probably rephrase this as to be a successful CEO you need to be an "opportunist". Sociopathy is a mental illness that seems related to what you seem to be implying, but "sociopathy" exclusively is a bit narrow of a definition. If we were to say "all corporate managers are sociopaths" that would be very very prevalent.

> "Somehow it feels like decent people with decent products just don't make it."

I feel like you need more evidence to support this claim, and a more specific thesis. As an example per "The millionaire Next Door" most high net-worth individuals are just hardworking business owners that invest in income producing assets, and don't spend a lot. CEOs rarely make products unless they are a founder that becomes the CEO. CEOs as a group are corporate managers, and they usually become corporate managers by being trained to be corporate managers.

I personally don't agree with this take either. Too much anecdotal evidence on my side. CEOs, like the rest of the population have shortcomings, quirks, mental illnesses, etc. Thats just humanity.

Definitely not! If you act like a jerk it's not like that goes unnoticed either. Wouldn't you rather do business with companies that seem like they're generally trying to be helpful? Stripe is a good example. YC is a good example.

Frankly there is a shortage of companies like this, thats part of why you may feel this way.

This shortage makes it more valuable to operate with integrity.

Also it's just a much more fun way to live. What else are you going to do? Go around screwing people over all the time? At the end of the day you still have to live with yourself.

If you're looking for examples of this mindset I recommend reading Feynmann[0][1], How I Became The Honest Broker[2], and Various Diatribes from old hacker culture[3].

It's possible to play extremely hard and not be an asshole. It's called good sportsmanship. It's not required but it's entirely possible.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Cha...

[1] https://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/03933...

[2] https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/how-i-became-the-honest-brok...

[3] http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

I think this is what Nietzche calls the master and slave morality. Basically, generations of slaves, or peasants, or whatever, develop a morality that is fit for purpose for the life of a slave. Slaves care about things like loyalty, keeping your word, not being a squeaky wheel, honesty, and all that because those traits are adaptive for living and working together with a with a bunch of peers.

Conversely, the master morality is adapted to being a master. A King may lie in diplomacy and betray allies and that kind of thing would be horrible in a peasant, but the King's actions might make his entire country better off and in a utilitarian sense that values only the King's countrymen - it may make everyone better off. But regardless of who is made better off by it the masters, like the peasants, have developed their own sense of morality, closer to ends justifying the means, because it is adaptive for them.

Names like "Master" and "Slave" make it seem like the master morality is the good morality or that the slave morality is bad. But I think those are just value judgments that come from the words. Nietzche says (to my understanding) that the truly noble person must move beyond either the master or slave morality and do what is actually right based on his own understanding and without regarding for the folk traditions of either class of master or slave morality.

Ultimately, what I'm trying to get at is it may be the case that your morality is adapted to being a worker-bee and the CEO's morality is adapted to being a CEO and so what the CEO does can seem sociopathic because the CEO is actually playing by a different set of rules or with different goals in mind.

Paul Graham advises otherwise:

http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/safe.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/mean.html

Here's a VC, whose main driving force is the rate of company growth, telling people that they benefit from being nicer.

I believe Sturgeon's Law applies to companies as well. The average programmer is pretty incompetent and paid terribly, but often not within our social groups. Most CEOs you have access to would probably not be hired by a good company; the good ones are likely outside our social circle.