[neutralino1]

I wouldn't go as far as to say business executives have good social skills. They are often ruthless, cunning, and deceiving, which makes them successful. If by good social skills you mean the ability to convince (read deceive) a lot of people, then sure they have good social skills. But who wants to have a beer with their CEO, VP of Sales, or other top exec? They are often depicted as wolves or sharks for a reason. It is true that they are good at networking with other people like them, but not really good at empathizing, helping, or caring for others.

[polygamous_bat]

I assume OP means social skill in the sense of “skill with society as the instrument/playground” rather than “skills that benefit social bond”. Same way as a 10x dev at a nonprofit and a Russian hacker can both have “computer skills” while doing vastly different things with their skills.

[marcosdumay]

> If by good social skills you mean the ability to convince (read deceive) a lot of people

In a thread about people being rich or not, yes, of course he meant that. There isn't any alternative way to define this.

[TheOtherHobbes]

They're persuasive, which is probably the most important social skill. Having a beer may be a means to that end, but it usually isn't.

Politics, law, finance, the arts, advertising, religion, and the media all rely on persuasion. And because narcissists and sociopaths are so much more credible and charming than introverts and tech nerds, these professions are full of people who make a living selling stories - about themselves, others, and related brands and products.

This is why we have such problems with the constraints of physical or social reality. These people believe their stories. They experience any suggestion they're objectively wrong as an unreasonable threat to their status and self-image.

They feel the same way about any suggestion that other people's stories matter. To them, they don't. If they did matter they'd show some hesitation and nuance, and the persuasion magic would evaporate.

[jacobolus]

> narcissists and sociopaths are so much more credible and charming than introverts and tech nerds

A big part of this comes down to practice. Anyone who practices chitchat (or "persuasion") all day gets pretty good at it, at least in a narrow niche. Those "tech nerds" who spend a lot of time going to parties can also get good at it; however, many of the introverted tech nerds would rather be writing code or reading a book or whatever, and end up not practicing these skills starting from a young age, and by the time they reach adulthood are far behind. (In just the same way that someone who never spends time exercising ends up far behind in playing sports, or someone who never spends time solving technical problems ends up far behind in technical skill/expertise, etc.)

Beyond that, if the main goal incentivized is just to "make the sale", the methods used aren't going to necessarily ethical. There's a reason that pick-up artists, used car salesmen, carnival barkers, and social-climber middle managers use deception and burn people in the process of getting ahead: it works. If you have a system that selects for "what works" and doesn't negatively select away "causes collateral damage", then you end up (a) making ethical people play with a huge handicap, and (b) chasing them out of the field.

[smugglerFlynn]

Is there some research that would suggest % of ruthless, cunning, and deceiving people among execs is statistically different from any other professions?

[digging]

Yes, there is some research suggesting that CEOs exhibit "dark triad" traits more then the general population.

[naasking]

Not just CEOs, all people in leadership positions tend to express dark triad traits more strongly, including politicians and the president.

[smugglerFlynn]

"Ruthless, cunning, deceiving" are very different from "machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy" of the dark triad. And are we saying that definitive driver of execs success is due to having all these traits?

I am not trying to nitpick, and this is totally offtopic from the rest of the thread, but suggesting that huge group of people is more "successful" due to being evil, narcissistic, deceiving, [insert any other trait] seems to be a major bias in itself. Especially if the root cause is having strong emotions due to that group's role in modern society.

OP even jumps from averages and statistics down to making personalised conclusions ("who wants to have a beer with their CEO?"), which is textbook confirmation bias[0].

Unfortunately, I see this kind of argument often here on hacker news.

0 - https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/confirmation-bias

[digging]

> "Ruthless, cunning, deceiving" are very different from "machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy"

That doesn't sound true to me at all, though. How are you defining these terms that there's no overlap between the first set and the second?

> And are we saying that definitive driver of execs success is due to having all these traits?

Mmm no, that's not what I'm asserting. I can't speak for the other poster.