Raised by wolves — Cathal Harte

14 July 2026<br>Raised by wolves

Having worked in the startup world for the best part of a decade, I've met a lot of people that believe they were born to be entrepreneurs, but in reality most are simply bred for it, told a thousand times before they're 10 that they're destined to be great.<br>They respond quickly, and correctly, when prompted with "fetch": their dogged determination kicks in.<br>They're diligent, admirably so, because they've been assured of their success.

For others, for those raised a little more wild, it can take time for them to come around to realising their potential.<br>So I wouldn't be afraid if the mantras of self-belief haven't yet been installed in your head.<br>As soon as the wilder sort of person does arrive, they discredit the bred entrepreneurs, in the same way that a wolf discredits a dog, even a pedigree dog, by their mere existence.

…Or at least that's what I hope for, for the shaggy underdog to turn out to be a wolf.<br>Some years back, at a job fair, I overheard a student ask a founder (who shall remain nameless) "how can I become like you?"<br>They responded with "you've either got it or you don't", being typically cagey about what "it" is.<br>Supporting parents?<br>A trust fund?<br>Grandiose delusions?

The trick is a good one.<br>I suppose it made that student feel that instead of asking for advice, he was asking for permission, and that his permission was denied (on what grounds, because of his humility maybe?)<br>The lesson to learn here is not to avoid talking to successful people, clearly there is much to gain from this.<br>Just don't fall for that trick.<br>You were never asking for permission, you were trying to learn, to further your own goal.

Successful, powerful people play tricks in the name of acquiring and maintaining power, the more often they've been told how great they are, the more likely they are to be narcissistic.

Competition and the desire to win no matter what

At a time in my career when I felt overexposed to political manoeuvring I decided that I needed to educate myself on people's behaviours.<br>I found myself re-reading the tired old Myers-Briggs theories.<br>I acquired the book Surrounded by Idiots.<br>The Culture Map found its way to my desk.<br>Each offered easy, memorable categories to label people with.<br>The more I read, the more enraged and indignant I became.

In the midst of all this, I was reading another book, The 48 Laws of Power.<br>Hundreds of stories of the most scheming, power-hungry people in history, and an in-depth analysis of the many techniques they trialed in pursuit of their goals.<br>Many people refuse to open its pages, deciding instead that they'd rather leave their faith in humanity intact.<br>I thought I'd be better off well informed, and rolled the dice.<br>Weirdly, it didn't trigger a sense of injustice in me, at least not on the scale of the other books.

I think what helped most was the framing.<br>The other books, especially Surrounded by Idiots, presented maladjusted characters as entirely mundane.<br>The author of that one even penned a sequel called Surrounded by Narcissists, thinking he needed to drive the point home.<br>The 48 Laws of Power on the other hand benefits from distance.<br>The stories it tells typically happened long ago and in places where the average person has simply never been: war councils, king's courts, aristocratic tea-parties.

He decides to kill the lot of them. So far, so what.

From the list of laws, number 25 is Re-Create Yourself : be the master of your own identity, don't let others define you.<br>From the founder's point of view, when asking for advice on how to be an entrepreneur, that student was stepping into the arena.<br>The game had begun, and confronting this student with the assertion "you are not founder material" was a quick check to see if he knew the rules.

The Green Goblin

Norman Osborn starts his story as a good candidate for the archetypal cutthroat CEO.<br>In the first Spider-Man movie we're presented with a man who is trying everything in his power to win.<br>Research on a new performance-enhancing drug is moving too slowly so he resorts to self-experimentation.<br>He learns that the board is planning to sell his company to a rival weapons dealer so he decides to kill the lot of them.<br>So far, so what.<br>As before the distance helps: we as a viewer are not going to end up unintentionally as a war profiteer, so their deaths are not especially concerning.

What really sets the story in motion is the danger Norman causes to innocent lives in the process, and he afterwards finds himself locked in a battle of principles.<br>For Norman, this is a newly minted set of principles, one that accommodates collateral damage as unavoidable and unimportant, because the weak are worthless.<br>If he can get us to accept that, he can protect his reputation as a successful man, as a winner.<br>It's not cheating if everyone does it.

The problem is that he doesn't keep the fighting in the ring.<br>That pulls in more variables than he knows how to...