Yes, there is some research suggesting that CEOs exhibit "dark triad" traits more then the general population.

Not just CEOs, all people in leadership positions tend to express dark triad traits more strongly, including politicians and the president.

"Ruthless, cunning, deceiving" are very different from "machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy" of the dark triad. And are we saying that definitive driver of execs success is due to having all these traits?

I am not trying to nitpick, and this is totally offtopic from the rest of the thread, but suggesting that huge group of people is more "successful" due to being evil, narcissistic, deceiving, [insert any other trait] seems to be a major bias in itself. Especially if the root cause is having strong emotions due to that group's role in modern society.

OP even jumps from averages and statistics down to making personalised conclusions ("who wants to have a beer with their CEO?"), which is textbook confirmation bias[0].

Unfortunately, I see this kind of argument often here on hacker news.

0 - https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/confirmation-bias

> "Ruthless, cunning, deceiving" are very different from "machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy"

That doesn't sound true to me at all, though. How are you defining these terms that there's no overlap between the first set and the second?

> And are we saying that definitive driver of execs success is due to having all these traits?

Mmm no, that's not what I'm asserting. I can't speak for the other poster.