By Ultra-Greedy I mean individuals whose accumulation of wealth has passed any practical or defensible use and extreme greed has become an end in itself, sustained by the position they occupy within reinforcing networks. The term is descriptive rather than rhetorical. It points to a condition, the persistence of hoarding, well beyond any need, driven by the structure that enables it.
The starting point is unequal entry. People begin with differing resources, education, capital, introductions, early opportunities. What matters is not each element on its own, but the position it confers within a web of firms, investors, institutions, and acquaintances. From that position, further opportunities arise.
These networks, webs of power, influence and money, are not neutral. Connections tend to gather around those who already have them; information travels along established paths; trust follows familiarity. The result is a dense arrangement of reinforcing relations, financial, social, reputational, informational, each strengthening the others. Early advantages are therefore not merely retained but amplified.
It is a mistake to reduce this to “position and timing” alone. The entire configuration matters: who is connected, who overlaps with whom, who is visible, who is vouched for, and how circles intersect. An individual candidate for the equivalent of a ‘viral tweet’ is embedded in a structure that generates further advantage across several dimensions at once. Accumulation follows from that structure.
For example, two equally able, equally connected, founders may begin different companies, in similar circumstances; one by network happenstance, gains entry to a circle that brings investors, skilled colleagues, and favourable terms, while the other does not. The initial difference is then widened by subsequent rounds of hiring, financing, and exposure. Skill and effort are common requirements, of course, but they do not account for the huge size of the eventual gap.
Familiar cases illustrate the mechanism. Early backers of Google or Facebook entered networks that yielded continuing advantage, such as co-investment, access to scarce talent, preferential terms, that are well beyond the initial decision. Firms such as Myspace, though not devoid of competence, did not sustain such reinforcing ties. The contrast is structural rather than purely personal.
Those who become Ultra-Greedy often recognise, at least, to themselves, sometimes privately, the arbitrary nature of their path. That recognition does not moderate accumulation but drives extreme greed. Wealth that arrives arbitrarily can disappear just as arbitrarily. Fear produces anxiety, and anxiety produces overcompensation in the form of persistent, pathological greed. This also explains why so many Ultra-Greedies make catastrophic errors when they mistake their accidental position for genuine skill and attempt to extend their competence into domains, such as politics, epidemiology, and city design, where the fractal network does not favour them. These repeated failures while publicly denied or ignored, drive the cycle of fear, anxiety and compensatory greed even more strongly. This hoarding disorder is discussed in Canale, A. and Klontz, B. T. (2013). Hoarding disorder: It’s more than just an obsession – implications for financial therapists and planners. Journal of Financial Therapy [1]
Fear drives other behaviour as well, positions are defended, access is controlled, and known associates are preferred. Public certainty is maintained because confidence secures standing within the network. What appears as individual disposition is, to a large extent, an adaptation to a very unusual situation. Others unaffected by the fear of failure, and thus the extreme greed, select themselves out by retiring, taking up a more rewarding pursuit than hoarding. A benefit from understanding the fractal aetiology is that even Ultra-Greedies may stop being surprised by the arbitrariness, and normal people will stop blaming themselves for not being one of them.
The result is a tiny group whose behaviour is not explained by need, utility, or even ambition. Continued extreme hoarding serves to preserve position within the network that produced it. The Ultra-Greedy are best understood as products of a system of reinforcement than as particularly unusual agents.
If such outcomes are routinely generated, then the structure that produces them is the proper object of attention. The question is not how to admonish individuals, but how to alter the conditions under which extreme hoarding proceeds unchecked. Possible remedies include:
Where investment, appointments, or contracts are confined to narrow circles, widening the field can admit capable outsiders. Clear criteria, published in advance, and a requirement to consider a broader set of candidates would change patterns of entry. Where applicants are many and broadly comparable, selection by lot among those who meet the standard could serve as a corrective.
When the same small set of people accumulate roles, sitting across multiple statutory bodies and advisory groups, influence becomes self-reinforcing. Fixed terms and intervals before reappointment would reduce these overlaps without excluding experience.
Where terms of business, hiring practices, and procurement decisions remain obscure, those already inside retain a decisive edge, inside information. Requiring disclosure above a reasonable threshold—bounded in scope and time—would allow others to learn and compete more effectively.
Regional funds, co-operative ventures, and pools for first-time founders could create additional centres of activity. They do not displace existing arrangements, but they reduce dependence on a single set of connections.
Where large public decisions are influenced by private wealth, independent scrutiny is warranted, genuine independence, not one that might take reputation as a bona fide. External assessment of claims, would raise the standard and limit the substitution of status for substance.
Each of these possible measures has costs. They can, though, all be seen as extensions of sustainability, and sound governance. The sensible course is to proceed in a bounded and observable manner, defining the change, enabling it within clear limits, and assessing results. Some adjustments will fail, others may show that modest changes to access and information can alter outcomes.
The ‘butterfly effect, where a tiny, remote event, a butterfly flapping its wings, can cause a hurricane thousands of kilometres away is famous, in a fractal network, very small nudges, if in the right direction, can make major changes to the result. That’s how small changes can result in very different outcomes to the benefit of human thriving.
Ultra-Greedies are not a puzzle to be explained away by psychology. They are an output of a particular network geometry. Change the geometry, and the outcome changes. Leave it untouched, and the next Ultra-Greedy is already in the basin
Since existing networks consistently produce Ultra-Greedy individuals, these are outcome of the system rather than its justification. Improving the system, to limit the extreme outcomes and close the wealth gap is the only durable remedy.
References
- Canale, A. and Klontz, B. T. (2013). Hoarding disorder: It’s more than just an obsession – implications for financial therapists and planners. Journal of Financial Therapy, 4, p. 4. Available at: https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:55044977
- Yashiro R, et al. Networks, power and inequality: mechanisms and interventions. Nature Communications. 2026. https://www.nature.com/articles/s44260-026-00077-z
- Smith A, et al. Modelling elite amplification and networked advantage. PLOS ONE. 2024. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11193797/
- Zhang Kimberly “The Mind of a Billionaire: Traits of Narcissism and Risk Appetite Revealed” https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/35496498/8844295415271052296#
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