Alternate theory: being less empathetic makes it more likely you'll get rich
People are nicer to you if you're a jerk (I say this from my personal experience having being both a nice guy and a jerk).
No one respects nice people.
Nice people don't get promoted, they don't get funding, they just don't get invited places.
As much as people try to pretend that they're rational human beings, the laws of nature are still running the show. Unfortunately, we haven't yet evolved enough to view 'intelligence' as an alpha trait when it comes to social hierarchy.
I've more than once witnessed people impress others with their deep "knowledge" about subjects where I was in a situation to discern that they were spouting superficially informed hogwash.
It's one of the central societal problems: How can I know who's expertise I can trust unless I have that expertise myself?
I only made money when I was prepared to push really hard and be obnoxious. These days I refer to the behavior mockingly as 'all caps' and lots of exclamation points. It translates into shouting over people and steamrollering them with enthusiasm, as engagingly as possible. It also sharply limited what I could do: I had to couple the hyped enthusiasm thing with market choices that were extremely 'safe'.
It becomes a numbers game like internet advertising. Once you're intentionally shooting for statistical positions and backing it with aggressive, emotional dominating, you're a jerk and the best you can hope for is that you can be a jerk with a heart of gold who keeps their promises.
In order to get a large enough proportion of the market listening that you can do that, there is no 'nice' option and no way to be cooperative or coexist with others: the first order of business is to shut everybody else up, dominate them so that you are heard.
Funny thing is, now I am leveraging frugality and some private capital sources like I was a startup again, in order to plausibly make the impresson that I'm like some zombie movie adversary: can't be killed now that I'm Patreon-funded, and expressing this determination to plow onwards producing frighteningly huge quantities of product for 'nothing'. I'm looking to be an existential threat to the companies I used to have to be a jerk alongside. So I am being a jerk to them, while professing how great it is to not have to be a jerk to customers and regular humans.
So EVEN THEN people are nicer to you if you're a jerk, so long as you're a jerk towards the right entities :)
That hasn't been my experience. Being a jerk can only get you so far and makes people much less inclined to help you.
Building consensus, being friendly, doing favors to build good-will works wonders.
Perhaps you and I are using different definitions of "nice" and "jerk"? Being nice doesn't mean being a doormat, nor does it mean hiding your true feelings and failing to set boundaries. Perhaps you are mistaking "jerk" for confidence? You can be very confident without being an asshole.
"But it is beginning to seem that the problem isn’t that the kind of people who wind up on the pleasant side of inequality suffer from some moral disability that gives them a market edge. The problem is caused by the inequality itself: It triggers a chemical reaction in the privileged few. It tilts their brains."
I most assuredly do not work in finance.
You do not have to be a callous jackass...
Same happens with education.