Jimmy Wales: evaluation

Transcript context

…How happy are people who have power? That’s a good question. Even the word happy — what immediately comes to mind is President Trump. I don’t know. Does he seem happy? I don’t know. It’s an interesting question. I think different people have different personalities around power. Some people have it because they want to do constructive things in the world, and they like having power and so on, and they’re probably pretty happy. Other people — I think they’re just lost souls, and they just want power and then attempt to be happy, and maybe it doesn’t make them happy. It’s a hard question. I remember a few years ago, I was on a street corner in New York City. I was just about to go into the UN. It was during General Assembly. The street was blocked off, and then an enormous motorcade went by: hundreds of motorcycles, New York police, then the Secret Service, Trump, and more hundreds of more motorcycles. I thought, for a man who probably — and I don’t believe in diagnosing people with medical conditions without knowing — but probably qualifies for some sort of medical diagnosis of narcissism, “This can’t be good for him, but he must fucking love it.” [laughs] How happy are people who seem to have power but cannot, in fact, exercise it, due to constraints?…

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