Word: megalomaniac
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...egomaniac. He knows this and frequently apologizes for it. When he disobeys the instructions of his manager, he scolds himself--"Naughty pop star"--which allows him to comment on the ridiculousness of pop stardom while reminding himself that he is indeed a pop star. He would be a megalomaniac if his preoccupation with power were delusional, but it's not. Less than a month ago, at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, he sat on a dais with Bill Gates and discussed ways to save a continent; two days later he sang for a TV audience...
...egomaniac. He knows this and frequently apologizes for it. When he disobeys the instructions of his manager, he scolds himself?"Naughty pop star"?which allows him to comment on the ridiculousness of pop stardom while reminding himself that he is indeed a pop star. He would be a megalomaniac if his preoccupation with power were delusional, but it's not. Less than a month ago, at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, he sat on a dais with Bill Gates and discussed ways to save a continent; two days later he sang for a TV audience...
That backstabbing, rule-breaking megalomaniac who would gladly use you as a doormat is less and less tolerated across a range of industries. "It used to be that aggressiveness--the Type A personality--was valued," observes Steven Berglas, author of The Success Syndrome: Hitting Bottom When You Reach the Top. "Our culture built a Ben Franklinesque doctrine: Hustle; don't lose a minute...
...implicit logic of the 1933 film of H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man, of which Paul Verhoeven's new movie is an entirely unacknowledged remake. Both Caine and Claude Rains' Jack Griffin find it easier to attain the ectoplasmic state than to return from it; both become increasingly megalomaniac as a result of the scientific process they embrace. The big difference between the two pictures is attitude. James Whale, who directed the first movie, made a kind of moral comedy of the situation--lots of befuddled English country types doing dialect jokes--but with some nicely put thoughts about messing with...
Given this remarkable record, why are so few of Venter's fellow scientists trumpeting his success? Or talking him up for a Nobel Prize? Why, in fact, is this cherubic-looking, blue-eyed ex-surfer hated by so many colleagues, who have called him everything from a greedy megalomaniac to a Hitler? Forget about easy explanations, such as his outsize ego (yes, one of the samples he is analyzing is rumored to contain his own DNA) or his penchant for doing science by press release (yes, he keeps his door open to reporters) or his tendency to do not science...