Sublime

A Sociopath with an idea recruits just enough Losers to kick off the cycle. As it grows, it requires a Clueless layer to turn it into a controlled reaction, rather than a runaway explosion. Eventually, as value hits diminishing returns, both the Sociopaths and Losers make their exits, and the Clueless start to dominate. Finally, the hollow brittle

Assuming Weber’s central insight to have been correct, then in the face of the dramatic transformation in the forms of contemporary capitalism, some new ethos ought to be unfolding right before our eyes.

These types fall roughly along the lines described by Weber: the rational and expressive dimensions. In the rational dimension, one finds a rational-economic man (Homo economicus) and a rational-ethical man (following in the tradition of a Kantian ethical imperative),7 while in the expressive dimension, one finds an antimodernist, mystical type and

Many factors play a role in bringing these goals into harmony, but one has a preeminent position: the ratio of junior, middle-level, and senior staff in the firm’s organization, referred to here as the firm’s leverage.

Dennis went from zero to sixty on the MidAm in record time, and no one knew how he learned to do what he was doing. He knew that traders had a tendency to self-destruct. The battle with self was where he focused his energies: “I think it’s far more important to know what Freud thinks about death wishes than what Milton Friedman thinks about deficit