I disagree: The real goal is to get others to endorse and support their worldview about how the world works and what their own place within it is.
That doesn't come from the organizer enjoying pain/harm, but from desperately seeking to avoid experiencing a certain kind of it, emotional pain or harm to their ego.
That said, if someone else is willing to harm themselves (physically, financially, legal jeopardy) to "prove" their allegiance to the narrative, that may be considered a more powerful and pleasurable endorsement. Also a sunk-cost also makes it harder for the person to change their mind later.
In other words, more like "messianic cult-leader" and less "Pinhead from Hellraiser."
> That doesn't come from the organizer enjoying pain/harm, but from desperately seeking to avoid experiencing a certain kind of it, emotional pain or harm to their ego.
I think you actually describe a good picture of sado-masochism, the protective mechanism against emotions of unworthiness, though maybe you assumed I was emphasising the sadism side.
Of course no actual tech leaders are exactly like that (they're real people with their own subtle issues that are personal, private and none of our business - even if they would not allow the same dignity for everyone else). We are talking about archetypes here. Jobs was paradigmatic. And not limited to tech, things like drugs (and the media/arts) are a space where you can achieve mass-reach much more easily. For me, the portrayal of Richard Sackler (Michael Stuhlbar) in Dopesick [0] is an even better depiction of the tech leader archetype than the fictional Peter Isherwood (Mark Rylance) in Don't Look Up [1].
We talk about "disruption" as if it were a synonym for progress but what I see is how many tech-obsessed "creator types" actually delight in destruction, and the pain experienced by others who they affect.
Of course they would say, with that twisted Nietzschian faux-Christian 'compassion', that they "love" humanity and don't want to see anyone "left behind" (whether they want to be left out of an insane project or not).
The recent Apple advert was a timely expression of this. I'm glad they made it. Its better to have this "out" than ignored.
Not misanthropic. Masochistic. I will to be writing something more substantial on this soon, but the gist is; a lot of these projects are knowingly self-destructive, and what their leaders crave is for others to join them in their expressins of self-harm.