Gervais Principle

A cynical take on how the world operates. It categorizes people in companies as sociopaths, clueless, and losers.

Sociopaths

Sociopaths in the sense that they see the hollowness of the social matrix and take it upon themselves to create meaning-games for others to play. In Venkatesh Rao's usage this term doesn't strike me as having a necessarily negative moral connotation. Elon Musk creating a game of "establishing human civilization on Mars" allows a huge swath of people to participate in an exciting meaning-making endeavor, for instance.

Clueless

The classic "company man". Typically middle management. Promoted in order to create an insulating layer between the sociopaths and the losers. Clueless managed to "believe" in the company to a degree that keeps them bought into the system.

Losers

Losers because they willingly make a bad economic bargain, these people often have rich and interesting lives outside of work and derive their meaning from other meaning games. Despite that, they actually do the vast majority of real work within the company.