Almost any CEO + empathy doesn’t seem right.

At least 20% of people in executive positions are psychopaths. Literally psychopaths. Not sociopaths, full on psychos.

I can almost guarantee that the Venn diagram of psychopaths and executives at Fortune 500 companies is a circle.

That’s why he said it’s the hardest skill to learn…for him.

But he did it while feeling it with them

You guys just don’t understand how hard it is to make yourself think of other humans as important. This takes practice and effort! I spend 10 minutes a day thinking of how other people might feel and it’s exhausting. Anyway, the spreadsheet numbers are smaller than they used to be, so I’ll just do a round of layoffs.

Empathy is not universal. You persuade yourself that somebody is miserable, annoying, weak, unpleasant, and you are not empathetic to them anymore.

Well, at least I feel myself to be weird for not doing that and preventing myself from doing that.

Not excusing it, but I’d say it’s very easy to feel disconnected from others when you’re in a privileged position of power.

Everyone else becomes “them”, and you lose track of what “normal” or “average” experiences are like, because you tend to live within a very different space to others, and tend only associate with people with similar privilege levels.

I remember visiting my country’s Parliament building, and within about 15 minutes having this weird sense of disconnection due to the incredibly different beautiful and privileged environment. Everywhere were massive pieces of art, beautiful marble inlays, everything was clean and well ordered, great big wide open spaces, beautifully carved wooden chairs in dining areas etc.

I remember thinking no wonder politicians tend to be labelled disconnected and removed from the concerns of the average citizen. If I was working in that building 8-12 hours a day, 4-6 days a week, 40+ weeks a year, I’d find it hard to remain grounded and to also remind myself that what I was experiencing was something less than 5% of the population might experience, rather than being the “norm” or standard for the majority of the population.

It’s hard if you’re a sociopath, which is a prereq to being CEO

in my experience, ive had to remind a lot of my IT colleagues to have empathy, and quite often.

also, what may be natural to you isnt necessairly easy for others.

I don’t say this to be edgy or confrontational, but it’s not like that for everyone. I am 26 and have no idea how to empathise with people, it’s not an innate thing for me and I have to put a lot of effort into learning it.

Not really here to argue any point, just food for thought.

A lot of people think they have empathy, but for many of them it’s very limited when it comes to other people who are not similar enough to the person themselves (or people close to them). E.g. people from a different background or socioeconomic class.

Empathy often ends wherever a person’s perceived “tribe” ends.

Steve Ballmer era was crazy.

Steve Ballmer was crazy.

Well, they’re paid to ignore it and press on with business.

This year, Microsoft announced they wanted to cut 10,000 jobs. They are in the middle of linked in layoffs right now.

Its pretty telling how difficult it was for him to develop empathy for his son’s health struggles instead of bemoaning his lost plans. I wonder how difficult he’d find learning the concept of personal accountability