> That’s probably because we know consciously or subconsciously that in order to get and maintain a position of power at a multibillion dollar firm the person either never had a moral compass or quickly had to find ways to justify ignoring or compromising it.

Maybe. But I suspect that we tend to view those people that way because they play the I Am A Special Human game in public, especially around those they want to impress / are afraid of, and they really aren't very different from the rest of us at any time. We do the same shit when we're around people we want to impress / are afraid of.

I do agree that the situations such people are in will influence them. They'll have to get used to making decisions that make a big impact on a lot of people's lives, and they'll start thinking that such things are more normal than you and I ever will. I just don't think it changes them all that much.

> Any one of us who has worked for one of those companies is pretty confident the person running it views other humans not in the way you describe, but as numbers in a spreadsheet who can either justify their continued employment by other numbers in a spreadsheet or not.

Okay. But I would do the same, and I'm farther from being a CEO than anyone I know. I can afford to care. If I were thrust into such a position, I would have to squash that caring in order to not cause a great deal of harm to those people I care about. Don't let a doctor operate on his/her own children.

But get me and the CEO sitting in comfy chairs and shooting the shit after work, and I don't think there'll be much of a difference between us. My jokes will be a little funnier, and he'll be more confident and less awkward. But that's just me, not blue CEO blood.

Tell you what. Give me a billion or two dollars and I'll go to a billionaire's hangout. I bet they'll make the same stupid wisecracks, talk about basically the same crap the rest of us do, and get indigestion from eating the too-rich food.

I don't exactly disagree with you. Power changes people. It is tempting and easier to become amoral and accustomed to some pretty messed up stuff. It just doesn't change everything about them. In particular, they have the same dysfunctional thought patterns, they make the same sort of cognitive errors, they struggle with the same shit.

> Most of us can’t imagine viewing and treating our fellow humans that way.

I can.

Perhaps it's not that I have a higher opinion of the CEO/billionaire class, it's that I have a lower opinion of all of us. Nazis were not uniquely evil. I think that's become even more obviously true of late. (Did I just invoke Godwin's Law? So be it.)