It’s the standard narcissistic downward spiral more likely.

One of the sadly interchangeable bozos who inherited a lot of money and/or lucked his way into a fortune can keep the spastic ego weasels in their heads in control for a while. Or has a team of people to both manage their companies and public presence.

But as one starts to bridle under all of this undue control from outside forces, the madness comes to fore. They begin to lash out at the perceived slights, which ironically were always for them and their company’s protection, and it all snowballs from there. Worse, seeing another such oligarch do the mad jig seems to encourage the others that THEY shouldn’t be shackled either!

Musk was always a giant pile of shit. He was just well managed and in control of his inner demons enough to present a ‘pleasing’ facade. And being forced to buy twitter completely unmoored him from reality.

Zuckbot is an odd case… he’s an unmitigated monster, but seems to be enough in control that the downward slide hasn’t started. Yet.

Bezos was fine until Amazon became mega profitable and he got to live out his corrupt CEO dreams. Look at not only the legions of shattered humans left in the wake of Amazon, from drivers all the way to corporate, but what he did to William Shatner. While Shatner has been a weapons grade asshole for much of his life, seeing him humbled to the point of tears from finally going to ‘space’ only for Bezos to frat bro it up to make sure that HE was in the limelight was grotesque.

Spez has always wanted a seat at the big boy table. And has a long, long, long history of douchebaggery.

Trump isn’t even worth mentioning. I was an teen when he came to prominence in the 80s and even then it was absolutely fucking obvious that he was large mouth, larger ego all wrapped in an empty suit.

This isn’t all to say that there isn’t a conspiracy to destroy these services. Only that the more logical takeaway is that these awful men have always wanted to be the garbage fire they’ve become… and it was just a matter of time.

I guess I’ve been ‘lucky’ to be formerly part of an almost completely outsourced profession (IT) since right around when it was getting outsourced. So it’s all sadly old hat to me… not an endorsement, simply a tired observation.

In a similar vein, I vaguely remember a sociological tract detailing the value of psychopathy in ye olden times (think at the tribal level) as they both want power and are willing to make the hard choices that others might be too empathetic to do.

But their continued existence and proliferation among certain sectors (business, politics, religion) has become a detriment.

I recently listened to a delightful pair of Behind the Bastards episodes (a podcast I can’t possibly recommend enough) about Jack Welch, the darling of the modern C-suite and those aspiring to such.

The way he shaped modern capitalism to the detriment of all is terrifying. But the hilarious aside is much he was like Trump, Musk, Zuckbot, spez and all the rest. A raging little boy who has been dealt some insignificant slight, generally imagined, who wants to burn down the world as a result.

But, since this was entirely in the pre-Internet era, and he was mostly a darling of the press when interviewed for his pithy anecdotes about how to business, it mostly flew under the radar. The modern hyper toxic tech bro CEO or his presumptively dumber and louder counterparts who have still stumbled into social media is nothing new. They are just airing their dirty laundry in the public square with a much bigger megaphone.