this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2026
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A finance expert and Fortune 500 therapist examine the potential motivations of billionaire cheater Steve Ballmer and his subordinates. Unsurprisingly, people who have enough money to do literally anything they want do not evaluate risk the same way as the rest of us. Just another sign that wealth hoarding is a mental illness, imo.

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[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 41 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Hate to break it to the noobs, but Ballmer has ALWAYS been an asshole, I mean like from the first day. He probably punched his mama in the face once he was out. That's why Gates put him in charge, mistaking sheer arrogance (which he had) as managerial ability (which he absolutely did not have).

He's been a brutal bastard for as long as he's been in business, and had the authors talked to anyone that worked at Microsoft in the 90s they'd have known it. Instead, they write the entire article as though this is just recently happening, which is odd as fuck. It makes me wonder who they are trying to convince, and why.

It's hard to blame acquired wealth when a motherfucker never had an ethic beyond bullying and "fuck you I got mine" anyway.

[–] jestho@lemmy.zip 11 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah, I think they got it in the wrong order. All billionaires are psychopaths, but not all psychopaths are billionaires.

[–] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Gates was also an asshole. Fucker bought the rights to what was literally called (internally) as QDOS, or Quick and Dirty Operating System, then turned around and sold it to IBM, as if it was theirs. We got stuck with that shitty foundation for decades, with the many iterations of DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 9x, etc.

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

No argument there. Those two were best friends for a long time, and Gates' daughter is following in her daddy's amoral footsteps. It's not accidental Gates was friends with Epstein. They're all alike.

[–] artifex@piefed.zip 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

So maybe it’s a cyclic problem. You have to act like a psychopath to become a billionaire. And becoming a billionaire makes you act like a psychopath.

[–] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 weeks ago

Yep, pretty much. It's made even worse with peer re-enforcement.