Executives 'Are Legally Obligated To Act Like Sociopaths,' Former Corporate Lawyer Says

"Jamie Gamble spent most of his career as a partner at the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, which counts virtually every major company in the United States — including Facebook, General Motors, Google and JPMorgan Chase — among its clients.

"A longtime lawyer for the insurance giant American International Group, Mr. Gamble worked alongside Richard Beattie, Simpson Thacher’s chairman at the time, to advise A.I.G. during the financial crisis of 2008 and in the years of litigation that followed.

"Mr. Gamble has had an epiphany since retiring nearly a decade ago that is so damning of his former life that it is likely to give his ex-partners a case of agita.

"He has concluded that corporate executives — the people who hired him and that his firm sought to protect — 'are legally obligated to act like sociopaths.'

"He made that determination about five years ago when he started to work on a novel that recently inspired him to compose a provocative essay elucidating what he calls, based on his firsthand experience, a 'complex network of horribles' in corporate America. He recently shared a draft with a small number of colleagues, seeking their comments.

"'The corporate entity is obligated to care only about itself and to define what is good as what makes it more money,' he writes in the essay. 'Pretty close to a textbook case of antisocial personality disorder. And corporate persons are the most powerful people in our world.'