Summary of Psychopaths at work • Michael Wood • PlatformCon 2022

00:00:00 - 00:25:00

In this video, Michael Wood discusses how psychopaths work in the workplace. They are able to be very successful by exploiting others, hiding their true motives, and manipulating the environment to their advantage. In order to create more balanced teams, Wood recommends taking a step back and focusing on empathy along with detachment.

• 00:00:00 Michael Wood discusses culture and how it can be used to cultivate psychopaths, as well as how developer platforms can help reduce their presence. He also lays out some ground rules for the discussion.
• 00:05:00 In this video, Michael Wood describes how psychopaths work in the workplace. They are able to be very successful by exploiting others, hiding their true motives, and manipulating the environment to their advantage. In order to create more balanced teams, Wood recommends taking a step back and focusing on empathy along with detachment. This will help to minimize the effects of psychopaths in the workplace and create more productive teams.
• 00:10:00 In this clip, Michael Wood discusses the different incentives that drive people in different professions. He points out that, in some cases, the sociopathy that is desired can breed toughness in individuals. He also notes that, in some cases, the psychopathy that is desired can lead to a hardened hierarchy where politics is highly charged and backstabbing is common.
• 00:15:00 In this video, Michael Wood discusses how psychopathic behavior can be found in developers working on a software project. He argues that these incentives (such as bonuses and job security) work to drive developers towards sociopathic behavior, which can lead to tension and conflict on a team. In order to reduce the negative effects of these incentives, Wood suggests that companies adopt a devops mentality, which focuses on innovation and delivery over timelines.
• 00:20:00 The video discusses the idea of empowering developers to focus on the business problem they need to solve, rather than every conceivable problem that the problem they're solving could cause in any other system. It also discusses the idea of a developer platform, which would allow developers to focus on their work while keeping the complexity of their environment below a certain threshold.
• 00:25:00 The speaker discusses how psychopaths thrive in environments where teams are at odds with each other, and how to create an environment where different ideas are welcome and not afraid of being challenged. He suggests building incentives out so that people are incented to enable others and make others successful.