That company hierarchy pyramid really made me feel depressed. Someone list me some CEOs that aren’t sociopaths. Is Bezos one? Yvon Chouinard, the Patagonia guy definitely isn’t it seems like.
Basic hospitality is important. Most folks are rightfully indignant when an interviewing company haven't read their resume, while virtually all companies want interviewees to have read the company public website.
People are not props.
Akin to giving a Chinese guest a watch and white flowers as a present - sure, he might not know that it's a faux pas [1], but he should have structures in place to prevent basic slip-ups.
[1] both associated with death/funeral
That's an oversimplification.
Sociopaths are not just "in it to win". They will do whatever it takes to win, and trample as many people under foot as it takes takes them to get ahead without a twinge of conscience.
The clueless in the article aren't merely working hard, they're also true believers in the organization who "build up a perverse sense of loyalty to the firm, even when events make it abundantly clear that the firm is not loyal to them."
Unlike the clueless, the losers see clearly and do the bare minimum to get by and will (like the sociopaths) abandon the ship when it starts to sink, unlike the clueless, who will loyally sink right along with it. While they're in the organization, "they traded freedom for a paycheck .. mortgage their lives away, and hope to die before their money runs out."
While the losers have no more loyalty to the company 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."
To that point, GPs characterization of chug-along, work-hard, and in-it-to-win-it rings just as true without pigeonholing people and better maps to the attitudes of people I've known well enough to have a deeper understanding of their psychology. Some specifics:
"Doing whatever it takes to win [...] without a twinge of conscience" does not describe the majority of C and VP levels I've known. Certainly a lot of the unpleasant decisions that need to be made (eg. layoffs) are easier if one is truly a sociopath, but in practice how do you know? The reality is that upper level management has huge orgs where most individuals don't know them personally and yet is impacted by their decisions. When the impact is negative it's often easier to believe that management doesn't care about them versus understanding why it might be the best thing for the company.
I also think that loyalty is much more orthogonal to archetype or effort level, and the idea that "clueless in the article aren't merely working hard, they're also true believers in the organization" does not really ring true. In reality, people at all levels can have varying degrees of loyalty to a company. A better model is the Dead Sea Effect—people will tend to stay if they don't believe they have better options. This is naturally going to affect middle-management more because they have achieved a higher status, and it's subject to all the noise of imposter syndrome and Dunning-Kruger, but it still applies to all levels.
Finally, I disagree that "Unlike the clueless, the losers see clearly". The losers don't necessarily see anything more clearly, they just aren't playing the same game. Manager tells them what to do, they put in the minimum effort to do it, punch the clock and go home. Are they wise because harder work never would have earned them any extra reward? Or are they creating a self-fulfilling prophecy through poor performance? Honestly it could go either way.
I think our current economic/social climate forces the kind of gervais principle balance over a long enough timeline. The gervais principle generates predictable profits.
Another thing I've learned is that the more time you spend with executives, the easier it becomes to recognize this behavior. Go to any large chamber meeting in any large-ish city in the U.S., and I'm sure you will find plenty of sociopaths (in both the literal and the Gervais Principle sense).