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Comment by thinkcomp

15 years ago

You're wrong.

There are, in fact, published reports of him actually breaking into Crimson reporters' private FAS (Harvard) e-mail accounts with information he gleaned from Facebook. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-in...

You don't know anyone you'd consider a sociopath with zero ethics because the vast majority of people aren't. Just the same, the people who up hugely successful by most people's standards, which is to say "rich," have a much higher probability of having gotten there at someone else's expense.

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thinkcomp

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ryanwaggoner  15 years ago

Just the same, the people who up hugely successful by most people's standards, which is to say "rich," have a much higher probability of having gotten there at someone else's expense.

You're wrong. Or at least, we have no reason to believe that you're right, other than small-mindedness borne of jealousy and self-righteousness.

  • thinkcomp  15 years ago

    There are countless stories of well-known and incredibly wealthy software CEOs such as Bill Gates and Larry Ellison crushing their competition, sometimes in ways that went beyond what was necessary to merely succeed. Outside of software, you only need to look at the financial sector to see rich people who got to their present position at the expense of others.

    I don't think my comment was small-minded at all!

    • ryanwaggoner  15 years ago

      There are also countless stories of rich people who are very nice and got where they are through hard work and creating a lot of value for their customers, investors, and employees. But you didn't choose to focus on them. Why not?

      7 replies →

  • loewenskind  15 years ago

    I'm surprised such an ad hominem got so many upvotes. For much of human history the only way to get rich was to do so at someone else' expense. pg talks about this in one of his essays. As he mentions in said essay, the internet has changed this a bit but you can bet that some people are going to go with the tried and true methods of getting rich (e.g. Robert Mugabe).

    The statement you quoted may be correct as stated, but it strikes me as a tautology (i.e. if you're not rich then of course you didn't "get there" at someone else' expense, you didn't "get there" at all).

rbanffy  15 years ago

I remember a somewhat disturbing piece I read a couple years ago that pointed out that a disproportionate number (as compared to the general population) of C*O's are borderline (the article used the term "subcriminal") sociopaths.