Why Your Friend’s Promotion Feels Like a Personal Attack
What envy, evolution, and your friend's promotion reveal about the human mind.
In this issue
• Why we love to see others fail and what it says about our evolutionary wiring
• How envy works like a pneumatic ladder (and why pushing others down lifts us up)
• The real reason underdogs capture our hearts, even when we have nothing to gain
• Our summer-refer-a-thon continues, with the most referrals winning a pack for Neuro Gum blessed by the founders themselves in our upcoming podcast
I’ve interviewed 550+ CEOs and one thing I’ve learned is that getting to the top rarely feels like what you imagined from the bottom.
Top dogs may lead the pack, but the upper echelons are windier than you’d think, and much, much, lonelier. The air gets thin up there and so does the company, and what I’m learning to appreciate is this: if you didn’t carry an intrinsic source of meaning with you on the way up, you’re unlikely to find it waiting at the summit.
This isn’t to say money and power aren’t great. Let me be clear: I saw no tears sitting across from Warren Buffett, and certainly not while touring the sprawling compound of the Rothschilds. But there are decided tradeoffs to landing in the corner office, and much of those have to do with how others see you once you’re there.
More decidedly, I’m not asking you to feel bad for your friendly neighborhood CEO making approximately 198 times what their lowest-paid team members do (and 1,085% more than since 1978). They’re doing just fine, and if they aren’t, I’m sure there’s a therapist right in their price range that can help them sort things out.
What I am asking is that you reflect with me about how curious it actually is that we so routinely want to see others who have made it knocked down a perch or two.
The higher someone climbs, the more visceral the public instinct to bring them down seems to get. This isn’t because they’ve wronged us personally in any way. Even with Elon Musk’s élan vital you’d find it hard to piss off half of the globe on a first-names-basis.
Instead, we have evolutionary psychology to thank for what amounts to our instinctive distaste at the sight of success that isn’t ours.
You know this instinct personally, and I am quite sure you’ve lived it even if you might not have noticed it.
You’ve rooted for the underdog sportsing around in games you didn’t care about whatsoever. You’ve smirked when the teacher’s pet got tongue-tied in front of the class, and you’ve most likely wished for rain on someone else’s parade, even if deep down you know the celebrations were duly deserved. At least I know I have.
In fact, I become that person rather predictably every summer when colleagues announce tenured positions while I quietly stack another Ivy League adjunct gig onto my already Frankenstein’d academic existence. And while I’ve learned to convert envy into weaponized ambition (more on that in a post once my therapist signs off on it), at least I no longer pretend that the impulse to hate on someone else’s success isn’t there.
Instead, I’ve spent an entirely unreasonable amount of time thinking about where the impulse comes from and why it is such a reliable human universal across cultures.
And now let me waste your time with thinking about it too, if for no other reason than to make sure you don’t go and win a Nobel prize on me in the meanwhile.
The hateration is so natural to our species that we forget to ask why should someone else’s success, someone who is often entirely unrelated to us, feel like it comes straight out of our own pocket?
And why does it sting so much more when that success belongs to someone close to us? A friend, a sibling or colleague we actually care about and spend our own time and resources to improve the lives of.
No one’s out here losing sleep over Rockefeller's net worth a century ago, and let me tell you, whatever version of the American dream you might be running on, there’s nothing you can do to even touch what the old man Roc’ accomplished. Likewise, relatively few Americans confess to waking up fuming about Alisher Usmanov or some Uzbek oligarch stacking palaces upon palaces on the Caspian. Their wealth is abstract, sufficiently far away and blissfully irrelevant to our own place in the world.
And in that distance we find the entire point of it all.
Our inner hater doesn’t get activated by ghosts or strangers across the globe for the same reason it flares up when someone in our own orbit starts pulling ahead.
What we’re really reacting to isn’t success itself as an objective accomplishment, but the gradient of it that paints us in a worse light. Our inner hater comes out when we perceive someone else’s success as a threat to our perceived social position, either by raising the bar of success higher (the CEOs and their salaries) or by outdoing us in whatever race we’re vested in ourselves (the friends and siblings).
The path all of this trickles down from Darwin’s evolution revolution is how the fate of the genes we carry is intrinsically tied to our social status. For as long as humans have been humaning a lack of social status has been one of the great filters of genetic progression. If you weren’t admired, protected, groomed or at a minimum accepted as a part of the tribe, your reproductive odds nosedived. The unlucky ancestors we have who found no allies or mates left no one to carry their DNA forward.
In that ancient evolutionary context, anyone who outshines you is a threat and so we evolved a set of sensors, highly attuned to relative success. These sensors still guide our modern brains, even if we now measure status with LinkedIn posts and board seats rather than loincloths and woolly mammoth kill counts.
Crucially, the closer someone is to you, in physical proximity, age group, background, ability and ambition, the more threatening their success feels. That’s why you’re unbothered by a distant oligarch’s fortune or, if you’re iron willed enough, even Jeff Bezos’ yacht.
But let your college roommate raise a seed round or get profiled in Forbes 30 Under 30, and suddenly your blood pressure lets you know no peace.
We don’t process our envy in Darwinian terms, of course. Evolution made sure our rational minds dress up our instincts in much more moral terms. We say things like, “It’s unfair,” or “She’s changed after the YC application,” or “That company’s vibe feels off.” But beneath the commentary lies the same old calculus that’s as simple as if they’re up, I must be down.
And so, when someone falls, we rise. What’s even better is that we don’t need them to actually fall. Just thinking less of them is enough to buoy our self-image, and if others think that way too, all the greater. The social ladder, it turns out, is pneumatic: push someone down, and you float up, no matter how imaginary the push.
This explains why we hate on those above us, and why so many CEOs I talk to rightfully get wary of those around them not being entirely authentic, or at peace, with them.
What it leaves unexplained is the curious case of why we so often root for the underdog, even when we ourselves have no skin in the game.
It’s one thing to dislike the reigning champ (who doesn’t hate a showboat). But why do we cheer when a nobody comes from behind to win? Why is it so satisfying to see Goliath lose to David, even when neither of them owes us anything?
Psychologists have floated plenty of theories from schadenfreude to justice sensitivity and moral righteousness. But none quite close the loop in a way that I’d feel satisfied with.
The strand I find most convincing has to do with strategic social investment.
Think of it this way. If you're not already aligned with the winner, your evolved brain quietly whispers that there’s more upside in backing the upstart. In our ancestral environment, if you weren’t in the alpha’s inner circle already, their continued dominance would have brought you no new perks.
But if you could bet early on the next alpha, and they won? You’d ride the status wave right alongside them to the top of the totem pole. Backing the underdog is nothing more than smart social hedging that worked out often enough in our ancestor’s lives to leave a permanent imprint on how we see the world today.
Of course, all of this reverses if you’re already linked to the top dog or vice versa. Suddenly, cheering for the challenger feels like betrayal. That’s why underdog cheering isn’t a universal fact as much as it’s contextual. Our instinct isn’t one that maximizes fairness as mandated by some deity, it’s simply a matter of social ROI.
We like to think we’re fair-minded people, that our rooting for the underdog reflects some innate belief in justice or balance. And surely it does that too.
But the argument I’m most persuaded with is that we’re simply wired to recalibrate status hierarchies in ways that make us feel less small.
Who we root for often reveals more about us than about them, which is why I find the asymmetric returns theory so rewarding as a tool of introspection as well. It accounts for both our pettiness and our pragmatism and it lets us hold our envy without pretending it’s virtue.
Ok, so that’s two curious things knocked out in one post which quite honestly qualifies this one for an instant referral to the biggest hater in your crew.
And if you notice your own crab bucket mentality spiraling out of control, just know that just because our instincts are ancient doesn’t mean they’re useless, or unchangeable. Even the most toxic negative emotions can be weaponized as fuel for our own development if you’re crafty enough.
When you notice your inner hater stirring next, try asking: Why does this bother me? What about their success feels threatening? You might find an insecurity worth working on, or a direction worth sprinting toward.
And when you next cheer for the underdog, ask: What am I hoping this win will prove? Maybe it’s fairness or maybe it’s hope. Or perhaps it’s just an ancestral set of wiring deep in your lizard brain betting on someone else getting on top and taking you with them.
Whatever you do, don’t ever close the books on a topic you find curious enough to keep you reading this far into a non-tenured, self-professed hater’s unsolicited email. Who knows, maybe one day you and I will draft our own grand theory on the underdog effect for some future undergrad to tear apart in a footnote thirty years from now.
Enjoy the weekend and weaponize that curiosity of yours! And if you’re a former student looking to get back into our research work, skip to the bottom for our range study or reach out - there’s a few fun projects on leadership and AI kicking up!
A book to read
Everything Is Obvious (Once You Know the Answer) by Duncan J. Watts
A punchy antidote to armchair logic and hindsight bias. Watts tears through the idea that common sense is a reliable guide to complex problems and shows just how much we mistake intuition for understanding.
If you’ve ever nodded along in a meeting thinking, “That just makes sense,” this is your reality check. Required reading for anyone serious about strategy, systems, or not sounding like a fool in retrospect.
A thing to do
Weaponize your envy
You already feel it. Now do something with it. Use that pang when someone posts a win to push your own work forward. Let it focus you. Channel it into motion. Envy’s only toxic when ignored or denied. Used well, it’s a compass pointing to what you really want. Just don’t forget to shower after.
A thought to have
That little pull you feel when rooting for the losing team is by no means random.
Instead, it’s ancestral calculus that’s shaped by social survival and status hedging. I invite you to recognize it, sit with it and learn from it. Whether it’s your cousin’s startup success or Sweden in Eurovision (unless, of course, its Finland’s Kaj representing them), the underdog effect says more about your instincts than you think.
Don’t suppress it, study it.
A product to love
LinkedIn (hear me out)
It gets way more hate than it deserves.
Some of that is earned, sure, but much of it is the crown-of-thorns version of the halo effect where our envy and the hateration we bring distorts our objective judgment of the platform.
We dunk on it because it reminds us we’re not where we want to be.
But if you zoom out, LinkedIn is one of the few platforms that actually rewards substance, shares ideas, and builds careers. I’m learning to love it for entirely self-promotional reasons. You probably should too if you want to go places others already are at.
Recent writings on Forbes and beyond
Latest: Why This AI Entrepreneur Paid Six Figures For A Lunch With Benioff (Forbes)
The Power of "No": How Rejection Builds a Life Worth Having (Psychology Today)
What’s Holding Back Sustainable Business? The Challenges That Matter Most (Forbes)
What’s Next For Beverages In 2025? CEOs Predict The Path Forward (Forbes)
Why This Nasdaq Listed CEO Changed His Mind About AI, And What It Took (Forbes)
From Serendipity To Startup: Meeting Venus Williams And Other Lucky Strikes (Forbes)
What’s Next In Philanthropy? Decentralized Models And Smarter Giving (Forbes)
Declining Birthrates Are Breaking The Economy. Can We Fix It In Time? (Forbes)
In Defense of Intuition: Why Gut Feelings Deserve Respect (Psychology Today)
Your Brain Hates Your Cubicle—Here’s How to Thrive Anyway (Psychology Today)
Arvind Jain: The Humble Builder Behind Glean And The Future Of Agentic AI (Forbes)
The Outsider Advantage: How Naïveté Fuels Billion-Dollar Startups (Forbes)
Never Make a Bad Choice Again by Embracing Self-Nudging (Psychology Today)
The Psychology Of Better Choices: How Startups Are Rewiring Our Habits (Forbes)
Staying Curious Is the Most Dangerous Thing You Can Do (Psychology Today)
After Arkansas: The Future Of FEMA And U.S. Disaster Relief (Forbes)
Ryan Gellert on Building a Future Where Sustainability Is Not Optional (Forbes)
Why Struggling (the Right Way) Helps You Learn (Psychology Today)
Want to Make Better Decisions? Copy the Slime Mold (Psychology Today)
Your Brain Was Built to Forget—Make It Work For You (Psychology Today)
The Case For Terminal Optimism In An Unpredictable World (Forbes)
The AI Coordination Revolution You Haven’t Heard About Yet (Forbes)
Where and how to get involved
A book is coming.
The Curiosity Code (yes, the book) is officially in motion. I’ll be drafting chapters this fall, weaving together insights from CEO interviews, classroom sessions, and conversations like the one we’re having here. If you have stories about range, curiosity, or unorthodox paths — I’d love to hear them in the chat or comments.
A podcast is brewing
We’ve started taping episodes for the first season of The Curiosity Code podcast. Early guests include the CEOs of Turnitin, Lovesac, Grindr, NOVOS, Front, and Aampe. Can’t wait to launch the season in late 2025.
I am currently conducting a study on range and how it impacts people’s career trajectories. Ten questions and a name will get you on the hall of fame as we pump up the n on the study. Link below - thanks for considering it!
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Curiosity is best when enjoyed in great company.
Refer this issue and grab a chance to get a tester package of Neuro blessed by the founders themselves (randomly selected from all referrals made). I’m connecting with the duo for a longer chat, recorded for the upcoming Curiosity Code podcast, and will be grilling them on their curious path to setting up the company. If you want your question included in the mix, hit me up via the Substack chat or email.
