The Vulture Personality
Vulture Characteristics: Opportunistic • Patient • Greedy
Scientific Name: Gyps Africanus
Collective Term: A coven of vultures
The Awkward Vulture
The vulture personality is no angel and those wings on its back have no connection to the divine. Physically and socially, the vulture is a clumsy creature and its unusual features border on homeliness. Its somewhat bloated body is unusual for a creature of the air, since most birds can't afford excess ballast when they're flying around. So vultures are forced to soar at the mercy of the currents and wait for opportunities to present themselves and -- unlike smaller birds -- are less able to control their own destinies.
Like most birds of prey, vultures love to travel. They particularly favor long trips and are always on the lookout for business opportunities. Even when vacationing with family, a vulture would interrupt the trip if they spied a chance to make money.
The Vulture Personality in the Workplace
Vultures hate to work, preferring to shadow other aggressive characters until opportunities arise. They circle these situations with impressive patience and have an uncanny ability to determine when the moment is ripe. Only when assured of a reward will they swoop in and take control. They can be extremely possessive with their prize and will defend it against all intruders. However, vultures won't risk injury, and will take flight if the situation becomes volatile.
Don't make the mistake of underestimating the vulture though, for its awkward outward appearance masks an intensely sharp mind capable of long range vision. Most people only encounter the vulture's devious mind when it's feeding at the carcass of their dreams. Nope, the
Vulture Personalities are Crafty
When others observe vultures circling they can be confident that an opportunity is at hand. Always alert to the opportunity to buy or sell, they make excellent stockbrokers and trade their services for a percentage of the profits. The species also earns a living by buying up ailing businesses and selling off their assets to make a quick buck. With their excellent vision, vultures are also able to provide far-sighted leadership as business advisers, lawyers or company directors.
Vultures in the Wild
Vultures soar effortlessly for hours on their powerful wings and, using their keen eyesight, can detect carrion from vast distances by watching the behavior of other animals approaching the carcass.
The vulture's neck is practically naked and comes in handy when thrusting its head deep into the steamy carcass of a freshly killed animal, but they are not entirely scavengers and will even hunt small rodents and flamingo chicks.
The Egyptian vulture is one of the few animals that has learned to use tools and is able to smash the tough shells of ostrich eggs by throwing stones at them. It will even make a special trip to find a suitable stone and then sling it repeatedly at the egg with its mouth until it breaks.
Careers & Hobbies
Stockbroker • Lawyer • Company director • Corporate raider
Hunting • Gambling • Making money • Gossiping
Love & Friendship
Vultures are not the most appetizing of creatures so they make a special effort to be as attractive for their lover as possible, and can be quite appealing when they wear their finest clothes and brightest smiles . . . for a while, at least. For even the vulture can't maintain this charade forever and when its true colors emerge, the relationship often disintegrates.
So the vulture prefers to maintain its distance and keep its relationships on a superficial level, which further adds to its reputation as a creature that swoops in, takes what it needs, and disappears.
The vulture has a unique definition of allegiance. Its loyalty is binding for as long as its partner actively contributes to its well-being. Any weakness in the relationship is the signal for the vulture to swoop in for the kill, and woe betide the poor soul whose vulture mate hires a weasel divorce lawyer!
Famous Vulture Personalities

Martin Shkreli
Swooped in on sick patients' drug prices for profit.
Shkreli became infamous for acquiring Daraprim, a life-saving drug, and raising its price 5,500% overnight — the textbook vulture move of circling others' desperation and capitalizing on vulnerability. He displayed zero remorse publicly, smirking through congressional hearings and broadcasting his own controversy on social media for attention. His entire career pattern — buying distressed assets, exploiting captive markets, and thriving on others' misfortune — defines the vulture archetype precisely.
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Linda Tripp
Secretly Recorded Her Friend Then Circled for the Kill
Linda Tripp embodies the Vulture's calculating patience and opportunistic instincts — she secretly recorded private phone conversations with Monica Lewinsky over months, waiting for the perfect moment to deliver maximum impact. Like a vulture who doesn't create the carnage but profits from it, Tripp handed the tapes to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, triggering the Clinton impeachment scandal while positioning herself as a reluctant whistleblower. Her ability to maintain a facade of friendship while methodically gathering leverage is quintessentially Vulture: cold, strategic, and thriving on others' downfall.
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Bernie Madoff
Patient predator who fed on trust for decades.
For over four decades, he presided over Wall Street with the calm, unhurried confidence of a creature that never needed to chase its prey — because the prey came willingly to him. Like the vulture, Madoff was a master of patience and positioning, building his reputation as a NASDAQ chairman and exclusive fund manager to lure thousands of investors into his fraudulent orbit, feeding on their trust rather than their flesh. His famous air of exclusivity — making clients *beg* to invest with him — mirrors the vulture's calculated stillness, conserving energy while others scramble, striking only when the moment is optimal. When his $65 billion Ponzi scheme finally collapsed in 2008, it revealed the vulture's defining truth: what appeared to be prosperity was always, in reality, feeding on the already-dead.
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Kenneth Lay
Circled Enron's carcass while insisting nothing was wrong.
Kenneth Lay, the disgraced CEO of Enron, epitomizes the vulture's opportunistic patience — building an empire by picking over deregulated markets while maintaining a veneer of respectability. He allowed Enron's fraudulent house of cards to collapse around thousands of employees and shareholders while he and insiders cashed out, swooping in on opportunity and then distancing himself from the carnage. His public insistence of ignorance even as the evidence mounted is the defining trait of a creature that profits from others' misfortune.
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