success as abnormality — Tarik Yildirim

Normality does not breed success, extremity does. This is essentially due to the fact that every activity favors certain character traits and the people who have extreme doses of these traits end up being extraordinarily successful. Of course, not all mentally sick people gain crazy amounts of fame, power or wealth, but those who do are often mentally sick.

Here are some traits I have noticed over the years:

Autism

As brain science unravels the roots of investors’ underlying behaviors, it may well find new evidence that the conception of Homo economicus is fundamentally flawed. The rational investor should not care whether she has $10 million and then loses $8 million or, alternatively, whether she has nothing and ends up with $2 million. In either case, the end result is the same.

But behavioral economics experiments routinely show that despite similar outcomes, people (and other primates) hate a loss more than they desire a gain, an evolutionary hand-me-down that encourages organisms to preserve food supplies or to weigh a situation carefully before risking encounters with predators.

One group that does not value perceived losses differently than gains are individuals with autism, a disorder characterized by problems with social interaction. When tested, autistics often demonstrate strict logic when balancing gains and losses, but this seeming rationality may itself denote abnormal behavior. “Adhering to logical, rational principles of ideal economic choice may be biologically unnatural,” says Colin F. Camerer, a professor of behavioral economics at Caltech. Better insight into human psychology gleaned by neuroscientists holds the promise of changing forever our fundamental assumptions about the way entire economies function—and our understanding of the motivations of the individual participants therein, who buy homes or stocks and who have trouble judging whether a dollar is worth as much today as it was yesterday.

Gary Stix - The Science of Economic Bubbles and Busts

Assuming that rational investors always beat the irrational ones in the long run, we can conclude that fortune favors the autistic. On a related note, being successful in business also requires a lack of empathy to the degree of being autistic.

Obsessive Compulsiveness

This disorder can fake passion when it is absent and fuel grit when it is low, and thereby tremendously help a budding entrepreneur. Obsessing over details can sometimes cause dead-locks but can also act as a pillar for the kind of perfectionism that distinguishes the best entrepreneurs and designers.

Narcissism

"Appear as you are. Be as you appear." said Rumi. Good advice for humans, but horrible for corporations. There is an entire department called brand management, dedicated to make sure that this does not happen. Same goes for modesty etc. In fact, ideal corporations are expected to display all the defining features of narcissism. (e.g. an inflated sense of self-importance, a lack of empathy for others, a fiercely independent attitude)

According to object relations theory, narcissistic people find the experience of need and dependency to be unbearable; as a result, they develop a set of psychological defences that embody an extreme form of anti-dependency. I don't need anyone. I can take care of myself because I already have what I need.

The Narcissist You Know - Joseph Burgo (Page 106)

That is why narcissist CEOs are the best. They envisage the whole company as an extension of themselves and do their best to minimize their dependency on employees so that no one can exert independent political power. To achieve this, such CEOs employ all sorts of operational software to suck any remnants of unique and valuable information the moment they are generated, meanwhile using all sorts of tricks to ease employees' existential anxieties and fool them into thinking that they are unique and valuable.

Bipolarity

It is no surprise that bipolar disorder is very common among successful entrepreneurs. It is the biological embodiment of the following two best-practices in business:

Growth periods (manias) should be followed by pruning periods (depressions).
Every important decision should be evaluated from both a best-case (manic) and a worst-case (depressive) perspective.

Also bipolarity gives one an ability to freely trade energy across time. One can enjoy additional bouts of positive energy today by creating equal amounts of negative energy in the future. (Imagine an asynchronous version of the matter-antimatter creation process in physics.) Bipolar entrepreneurs can better navigate the highs and lows of the business landscape because they can gear up during the low periods and gear down during the high ones. (Entrepreneurs absorb external variations to create internal constancy for their team members who can then build the necessary functionalities.)

Psychotism

Apparently there exists some studies backing the common belief that insanity and creativity are closely associated. If so, why are so few of the successful scientists psychotic? After all science is a very creative discipline, isn't it? Here is a possible explanation:

Why are so many leading modern scientists so dull and lacking in scientific ambition? Answer: because the science selection process ruthlessly weeds-out interesting and imaginative people. At each level in education, training and career progression there is a tendency to exclude smart and creative people by preferring Conscientious and Agreeable people. The progressive lengthening of scientific training and the reduced independence of career scientists have tended to deter vocational ‘revolutionary’ scientists in favour of industrious and socially adept individuals better suited to incremental ‘normal’ science. High general intelligence (IQ) is required for revolutionary science. But educational attainment depends on a combination of intelligence and the personality trait of Conscientiousness; and these attributes do not correlate closely. Therefore elite scientific institutions seeking potential revolutionary scientists need to use IQ tests as well as examination results to pick out high IQ ‘under-achievers’. As well as high IQ, revolutionary science requires high creativity. Creativity is probably associated with moderately high levels of Eysenck’s personality trait of ‘Psychoticism’. Psychoticism combines qualities such as selfishness, independence from group norms, impulsivity and sensation-seeking; with a style of cognition that involves fluent, associative and rapid production of many ideas. But modern science selects for high Conscientiousness and high Agreeableness; therefore it enforces low Psychoticism and low creativity.

Bruce G. Charlton - Why are Modern Scientists so Dull?