It is not just Tech, but similar in every other industry. Only those industries with cut throat competition would have better leadership ( Because they are forced to compete ).

The problem with Tech is that they are the primary beneficial of hyper growth with zero interest rate era and Smartphone revolution. In the space of 10+ years tech have grown from an unthinkable Trillion dollar market cap to now we have a single company with close to 3 trillion, two other company with close to 2 trillion and other rushing to trillion dollar club. And this is unlike previous bubble they have actual profits and cash backing for their market valuation.

People working in tech, especially within BigTech are not only partly dictating the world and media's attention, they are also so out of touch they became aristocracy in the old era.

They are also insulated from a) the impact of their decisions, and b) actively refuse to hear anything that goes against the narrative that their riches could have possibly come from unethical behavior.

I went from high prestige academic position to a high level at Big Tech where I was regularly interacting at the Director level and holy shit the step down in intelligence was jarring. Literally went from having coworkers with Turing awards to trying to convince incredibly wealthy, and incredibly stupid, people to not break the law on an industrial scale.

And likewise the degree to which these people think of their wealth is evidence is their moral judgment, intelligence, and work ethic is so out of whack with reality I was just floored. We’re talking some real fucking idiots pulling $1-2M year.

I wouldn’t say it’s so much “greed” as business models that don’t actually make money. Take investor money until you’ve gotten as big as you can with billions in valuation while making little to no profit, change business models to try to make yourself actually profitable, and in doing so “ruin” what was only possible while being supported by hopeful patient investors.

Thus begins your decline and the gamble for who gets stuck holding the bag.

I think that qualifies.

Yes, but you can flush billions down the drain and if you get a nice title along the way it doesn’t matter in Silicon Valley.

A VP who oversaw a billion being set on fire will still be hired as a VP at the next company as long as that money was burned on the tech trend of the moment.

I wouldn't want to say that "he's at the top in tech", I'd want to reserve that for good programmers, engineers and researchers

Maybe more: "he's trying to be at the top in business/value extraction/rent seeking"

top of org charts?

That’s what I was referring to. What I’d call “top talent” is rarely the same as “top of the org”.