And Shkreli was moving money between companies and lying to investors, neither of which is relevant here.
More importantly, none of that explains what is sociopathic here.
> He easily could have lost that bet, and that money could have reimbursed credit card bills for his employees.
But would it have been used that way? Or would it have kept propping the company up for a bit longer until total collapse?
> How that isn't reckless and malfeasance, I don't understand. "We're screwed. I can use the last of this money to try to do something right, or fuck it, I'm going to Vegas!" isn't leadership.
I never said it wasn't reckless. But he got the business out of being screwed. If he failed, the business would have gone from screwed to... also screwed. What "do something right" do you have in mind that was so important it becomes sociopathic if he doesn't do it? And it has to be something that would have happened if he didn't gamble, but wouldn't have happened if he lost.
In other words, if your claim is right then there has to be a big human-impacting difference between the "he does nothing" outcome and the "he loses the gamble" outcome. And I'm not really seeing that difference. If both scenarios involve total shutdown and the only difference is a few days, that ain't it.