> A lot of companies I know have "kindness/empathy" in their value or even promote it as part of the company philosophy to the point it has already become a cliché (and so new companies explicitly avoid to put it explicitly)

That’s purely performative, though. As sincere as the net zero goals from last year that were dropped as soon as Trump provided some cover. It is not empathy, it is a façade.

I think that's what he means when he says

> its institutionalization has become pathological.

Empathy isn't strong for people you don't know personally and near nonexistent for people you don't even know exist. That's why we are just fine with buying products made my near slave labor to save a bit of money. It's also why those cringe DEI trainings can never rise above the level of performative empathy. Empathy just isn't capable of generating enough cohesion in large organizations and you need to use the more rational and transactional tool of incentive alignment of self interest to corporate goals. But most people have trouble accepting that sort of lever of control on an emotional level because purely transactional relationships feel cold and unnatural. That's why you get cringe attempts to inject empathy into the corporate world where it clearly doesn't belong.