I have felt this too and it turns out I leave my startups around 200 people -- when I can no longer remember everybody's name instantly.<p>(but where's the line? I worked with a guy who wouldn't work for a company of more than a dozen people. I've looked at his linkedin over the years and indeed he worked for some phenomenal startups...but always left when the started to grow).
I do wonder if it isn't necessarily that the 'generalized person' loses empathy as their place in our economic power structures change, but instead that they are more empathetic with the people in their current position in the power structure? It seems natural that a person might do so.<p>I went on a quick search to see if such a thing as "Winner's guilt" exists, and while it does appear to be a thing to some extent, I found not studies on it in a larger context. It seems to me that relating to people that are like your current state would probably be a good defense against that, psychologically.
I've read about this before, and I think it's true. But has the phenomenon been examined in context? By that I mean: let's say someone becomes wealthy or powerful, and they are known to be wealthy or powerful. The nature of their position allocating resources means that others (not every one, but a significant number) seek to instrumentalize them; i.e. try to get the resources flowing in their direction. I wonder what portion of the decrease in empathy is a response to instrumentalization.
I feel like power is an issue often solved by education or something. The more you understand about what is going on in the world, what has gone on in the world, humanity, how people work, etc. the more you realize the guy in front of you isn’t shit (and neither are you). Of course reasonable prudence means monitoring your behavior so you don’t end up broke or homeless. But this may include long-term life approaches as much as (more than) what your boss thinks of you (in my opinion)
I can't speak to "most founders", but those who have impacted me the most (like Jimmy Treybig) or even my own experience ... I have not found this to be true. Maybe I just need to get out more...
One of the things that sickened me most about myself happened about a year ago when I took a trip to Philadelphia as a tourist. My wife and I were walking around, and I make the comment of "there doesn't appear to be any homeless people here", after which my wife immediately pointed to a homeless guy that we just walked past.<p>Somehow, I'd managed to shelter myself enough and live comfortably enough to where I <i>stopped noticing less-fortunate people</i>. It really depressed me, because I had previously thought of myself as a fairly empathetic person.<p>To help combat this I donate a fair amount of money ($50/month) to mental-health research and make a conscious effort to pay attention a bit more when I'm walking around.<p>I'm hardly a hyper-successful person, so I can't imagine how hard it would be to empathize if you're a multi-millionaire/billionaire.<p>EDIT: I know throwing money at a problem hardly counts as "solving" the empathy problem, but it does help me assuage some guilt.