Does Longevity Dim Vigilance?

The Weight of Eminence

This appears to be the third in a series of blogs I have written on the use of power.

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

Imagine you are the co-founder and head of the second most valuable company in the world by market capitalisation. In fact, your company is the first to breach the $5 trillion mark.

Today, that company sits at the forefront of the AI revolution, manufacturing the kind of product that defines the technological rivalry of the global superpowers military, political, and economic to the extent that the product itself is highly secretive and closely protected.

Power Confers No Immunity

There are very few people in this position of power, and with that power comes great responsibility, both personal and public. The need to be aware and wary of the associations and friendships you keep must be uppermost in your mind, besides the counsel you keep to remind you of that Latin phrase, 'memento mori'.

To be the master of all you survey does not automatically exempt you from the travails of our humanity, with the vulnerabilities and lapses in judgement this entails. The quantum of power that dogs us is such that it is sometimes necessary to understand how associations and persuasions present a risk to all involved.

Consider, for instance, which of those involved has the most to gain or lose when presented with a situation that, in the bright light of day, would create such suspicion and concern that all that power is put at risk.

Samson, Joseph and Desire

Yet it is the oldest lure in human history, the one of desire, the appeal to our vanity that leads to a momentary loss of control. We have a name for it now, the honey trap, though only the name is modern; the method is ancient. It has needed no refinement in three thousand years, because the weakness it works upon has not changed.

It is the Samson and Delilah dynamic, where she prevailed on her lover to reveal the secret of his strength, then disclosed it to her kinsmen, who had paid handsomely for it. That betrayal led to his capture and to his suicide.

Then consider the Joseph and Potiphar's wife situation, where he resisted the lure, the desire and the urge, and ended up in prison for his trouble. Yet in that act of integrity he met with such good fortune that a man sold into slavery became second in command to the Pharaoh of Egypt.

The moral here is to be careful rather than carefree or careless. In the theme song of the James Bond film 'The Spy Who Loved Me', we hear the words 'Nobody Does It Better', and we see how easily we can be swept away in the mist of that delusion.

The Confession

So, here is the issue. The CEO of Nvidia in the United States has just confessed to an affair with a businesswoman whom US intelligence officials are reported to have designated a Chinese spy; an allegation Beijing dismisses as unsubstantiated.

We are assured that no secrets have been lost, but no one can say what is exchanged in the nonsensical incomprehensibilities of sweet nothings whispered into the ear of a paramour; the pillow talk in which the man desires the liaison and the woman, apparently, aspires to the information. It is a black box which, if opened, might reveal more of the lurid than of the facts.

What gives the matter its particular sting is that nothing of the sort has attached to him before. In 33 years at the helm of the company he founded, there has been no whisper of impropriety, nothing to suggest a man careless of his position or his name.

At risk is a 41-year marriage to a woman he fell in love with 46 years ago, a position he hopes to keep for a long time to come, a fortune, should this lapse lead to an ultimate schism, and reputations well beyond the principal dramatis personae.

Does Longevity Dim Vigilance?

Which raises a question I cannot answer but am unwilling to leave alone. Does longevity in power dim one's vigilance to susceptibility and temptation? Three decades of unblemished conduct might be read as evidence of character, and perhaps it should be. Yet it might equally be read as three decades of accumulated confidence in one's own judgement, which is a very different thing and a far more fragile one.

The man who has never fallen may simply never have been pushed, and he may come to mistake the absence of a test for the possession of immunity. Deference compounds the problem. The longer one is unquestioned, the fewer the people willing to ask the awkward question, and the easier it becomes to believe that it does not apply. Vigilance, after all, is a discipline, and disciplines atrophy when they are never called upon.

Perhaps that is the real lesson of eminence. The hazard is not the temptation, which anyone can see coming. It is the quiet erosion of the instinct that would have recognised it in time.

Stewardship, Not Invincibility

Power does not confer invincibility, even if you seem all-powerful; neither does it preclude accountability, even if none can question you. The board keeps faith with its founding CEO, but an investigation is necessary to ensure that a weakness in resolve has not done more damage than an unfortunate fling.

Power is a great responsibility. Its stewardship demands both discipline and the humility to appreciate its transience. Above all, to whom much is given, much more is expected.

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