That tingly feeling you get, the sense of nerves, the goosebumps that pierce your skin... All things Hollywood tells us we are meant to feel when we instinctively sense the untrustworthy amongst us. Hollywood of course, isn’t real life, and worse still, people you really shouldn’t trust can sometimes even confuse your biology.
By now, the story of Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), which feels crafted from the mind of Hollywood scriptwriter, is well known amongst businesspeople. The curly haired wonder kid who appeared like he would help old ladies cross the road, turned out to be one of modern history’s greatest fraudsters, a twist straight out of La La Land. And while he was busy confusing our collective biology and psychology he was secretly at home, practicing how to smile[i].
How can you spot then, someone who is so convincing that his ‘fake’ version of a moral personality was enough to scam people out of billions?
Well, like any good movie, hints and tells are subtly left before the final act. As it turns out, SBF’s biggest hint was left by his language. When you analyse his words, you can learn about the real Bankman-Fried.
Taking transcripts from Sam’s podcasts and interviews before he committed his fraud and comparing him to other CEOs unveils some shocking truths about where SBF measures up on various measures of empathy and sociality. In his case, his scores corresponded disturbingly close to some measures of psychopathic behaviour.
Breaking Down The Real SBF
On a linguistic measure of Cognitive Empathy (how well individuals internalise the feelings of others), SBF is considerably lower than the average CEO (who are already lower than the general public). This implies he less frequently internalises how others feel. In short, SBF isn't very empathetic.
When measured against a psychological marker called Low Emotional Empathy (how callous or socially detached someone can be) SBF is higher than the average CEO. The small appearing difference in the graph here, translates to a large behavioural difference. SBF for instance has a score that corresponds very closely to someone who might make a statement like: ‘I don’t care and don’t have time for other people’s problems’. Again another score and behavioural subset that errs towards a considerable lack of empathy.
It gets worse, when measured against High Emotional Empathy (how compassionate someone is), SBF is again much lower than the average CEO. Worse still, the average CEO already is much lower than say, the type of person who regularly volunteers at a children’s hospital. Notwithstanding that CEOs may speak more directly in public (they may in fact use more charitable language at home for example), it is still extremely concerning that SBF is much lower than an already relatively low scoring cohort of people on this measure.
The irony here is that, empathy measures, when you have the ‘right’ scores, are strongly connected to altruism. SBF of course, was famed in part for his championing of the Effective Altruism movement, a theoretically more intelligent way of allocating charitable time and resources. Interestingly, some of the main critics of this movement describe Effective Altruism as a more cold blooded approach to issues that are intrinsically human[ii]. It has been claimed the movement sometimes priorities raw numbers over human experiences. We could make the argument that this altruism approach may actually be more appealing to those who struggle with empathy measures. These bizarre twists and turns of SBF’s personality make him feel like he could only be crafted by a fiction writer.
It still doesn’t stop there either. SBF is also far lower than other CEOs in his usage of social language. For instance, he uses considerably less references to people generally (Social measure) and equally, less references to interpersonal relationships (Affiliation measure). Collectively, SBF is someone who’s language highlights a man who appears to care a lot less about people and interpersonal relationships, another veritable plot hint, left by his language. Other CEOs interestingly enough are well above the average on these measures, and it might point to their ability at being highly social that partly helps elevate them to major positions of leadership.
If you thought this thriller was finished, there is more character development to come. SBF also uses far more ‘I’ words (e.g., I, me, my) and far less ‘we’ words (e.g., we, us, our) than the average CEO. Adding more weight to the idea that SBF is less focused on others and much more internally interested.
When you take this data collectively, you have a person who indexes in all the wrong ways on measures that relate to empathy. And when you have this many deficits in empathy, psychopathic behaviour is no longer a fantasy. While the data certainly isn’t saying ‘SBF is definitely a psychopath,’ it does indicate a proclivity towards behaviours that show real challenge with empathy. There is also a well-studied literature demonstrating that a lack of empathy is directly connected to psychopathy which in turn leads to behaviour where people can comfortably take advantage of others for their own benefit, without feeling any empathy[iii].
What’s curious about SBF and likely others who share similar linguistic psychometric markers, is the manipulation element. Like many brilliant fictional antagonists, SBF was so effective at disguising his lack of empathy. As a result, it seems that only tools like a language investigation actually have the sensitivity to map his unconscious give aways (save for perhaps a comprehensive psychological assessment by a clinician screening him directly over time).
So what do you do?
This is the harder part, sometimes people with mildly ‘dark’ traits, can be very effective in certain environments. Surgeons for example, can over index on measures like these as well[iv], but of course, we need surgeons and indeed being a surgeon is probably a very societally effective way of utilising these traits in a seemingly highly regulated and safe way.
If you come across types like this, firstly, identifying them is crucial – so you know what is at stake. But once you know who they might be, the choice is ultimately yours. Do you reject them outright, or create a system that maximises their skills to your organisation or society writ at large? Or, do you set the scene for next year’s big summer movie and let the next SBF run free.
And that’s the beauty of understanding people more effectively, once you have the knowledge, you get to decide how the story ends.
References:
[ii] Olumekor, M., Mohiuddin, M. and Su, Z., 2023. Effective altruism and the dark side of entrepreneurship. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, p.1247331.
[iii] Lamm, C., Bukowski, H. and Silani, G., 2016. From shared to distinct self–other representations in empathy: evidence from neurotypical function and socio-cognitive disorders. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1686), p.20150083.