WordPress - Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Why do so many vastly-wealthy tech personalities go mad?

My ideal job involves being employed by a millionaire tech-bro. Just before they get on stage, or moments before they file a lawsuit, or an instant before they publish their thought leadership - I will appear to them. I will be dressed in rags, body smeared with excrement, weeping sores blotching my face. I will sidle up to them, lean down, and whisper into their ear "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi!"

This used to be the way, of course. When a new Pope or Emperor was paraded through the streets, the people cheered and the acolytes coo'd. But someone would chant at them in Latin, "Thus passes all Earthly glory."

The sun sets on every empire. Each god-king was eventually proved to be mortal. The evil that men do lives after them and the good is oft interred within their bones. And so on. We know this. No one is perfect all the time. Every genius has a moment of idiocy.

For small projects, it makes sense to have only one gaffer. All the work passes through him. Too many cooks poison the well.

As projects get bigger, one person doesn't scale. It is functionally impossible to know everything, see everything, please everyone. Yet the sole arbiter remains. We (almost-jokingly) call this position BDFL. The Benevolent Dictator For Life.

But BDFL only works if the D is genuinely B. Otherwise the FL becomes FML.

It must be psychologically difficult being responsible for a mega-project. I certainly couldn't do it. If you're wasting time reading this blog post, you almost certainly couldn't do it. I like my friends to challenge my occasional missteps. I want people to be somewhat honest to my face. I can't imagine what it would do to my ego to receive endless praise. Of course I'd tune out the negative voices.

This isn't to excuse their excesses. Nor to fully demystify their demagoguery. I just want them to have good mental health so their public meltdowns don't reverberate through the æther, infecting us all with their psychic fallout.

*sigh* I'd rather not be blogging about blogging.