This might come across as jaded, but this is my opinion:
Schloss is a narcissist. He's a liar and Machiavellian. He's sociopathic.
Those kinds of people, once exposed, are very easy to see for who they are. However, until they are exposed, it's hard to see it. Especially if you are close to them.
I just lost one of my best friends because his issues finally came to light after years. It's embarrassing the stuff that he was able to convince me of or let me believe, ESPECIALLY about other people or situations.
People like this are masters at manipulating people and situations towards their end goal which is the elevation of self above all others. They consume others and use others for personal gratification and gain. They don't care about anything but feeding their need for self-exaltation. But it can be extremely hard to see. They can manipulate so well that they can create a desired outcome by telling lies knowing your response to that lie and how you will react to it, especially in interpersonal relationships with others (i.e. between you and another friend, not the Narc.) And then they are always "there to clean up the mess."
They typically exhibit destructive behavior across almost every aspect of life: work, fun, business, relationships, etc. They torch friendships, marriages, they are bad business partners and they exploit every relationship.
They are successful because of how good they are at manipulating other people and manipulating results and the complete CONTROL they exert on every aspect of life.
It would not surprise me one bit if Early, Cain and Weiner have had their eyes opened to how he operates through this process.
Once people who are caught up in the orbit of the Dark Triad finally recognize what's happening they unfortunately are often involved in these people's lives in significant ways. It's hard to extricate yourselves from it because in order to be effective, the predator must get very close to his prey.
They all 3 may be complete jackwads, but I seriously doubt that. What probably happened is they are 3 young up and comers who could give Schloss what he needs, and he thought he could own them. He could have easily enslaved them to himself through lies, manipulation, and charm. They may not have known the truth about the situation at Texas A&M. They may have been under the impression that the A&M brass was going to screw them over. Schloss may have kept them in the dark, or worse, lied to generate a desired response from them based on what he knew what their reaction would be to that lie.
Those guys didn't look like they took their dream job. It looks like they just left it aboard the HMS Satan.
Just my opinion.
