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Comment by smallnamespace | Hacker News Reader

OTOH, you can make a pretty strong argument that for, say, MS, Oracle, or Apple, it's precisely the 'jerk-y' qualities of their founders and CEOs that led to their success today.

Say what you like about MS's business practices during the 90s, but I think the history shows that a large reason they were able to continue their dominance was because of the unfair and frankly anticompetitive practices that they embraced back then. Bill Gate's willingness to be a jerk was what kept their company on top.

Of course, that was directed productively and outward, not destructively inward.

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> I think the history shows that a large reason they were able to continue their dominance was because of the unfair and frankly anticompetitive practices that they embraced back then

While there might be a correlation, I don't think you can entirely extrapolate between "ruthless business practices" and "toxic interpersonal interactions". You can have either without the other, and I wouldn't automatically assume that skill at one implies skill at the other.

It was directed inward, too. "That's the dumbest fucking idea I've ever heard," was a common phrase at MS in the 90s.

>"That's the dumbest fucking idea I've ever heard,"

How ironic.

fwiw that kind of phrase isn't necessarily 'jerky.' As long as the person you are saying it to understands that you respect him/her, and are just disagreeing with their idea, then it can be fine.

It's a risky communication strategy, but I wouldn't condemn everyone who uses it.

> As long as the person you are saying it to understands that you respect him/her

what kind of person would say that with full vitriolic sincerity to someone they respect? Why say that when you could say, "I strongly disagree for the following reasons..." or something else similarly diplomatic and actually productive?

Oh right, and I forgot Marc Andreesen. This was from The Hard Thing About Hard Things:

    To: Marc Andreessen
    Cc: Mike Homer
    From: Ben Horowitz
    Subject : Launch

I guess we’re not going to wait until the 5th to launch the strategy.

— Ben

    To: Ben Horowitz
    Cc: Mike Homer, Jim Barksdale (CEO), Jim Clark (Chairman)
    From: Marc Andreessen
    Subject: Re: Launch

Apparently you do not understand how serious the situation is.We are getting killed killed killed out there. Our current product is radically worse than the competition. We’ve had nothing to say for months. As a result, we’ve lost over $3B in market capitalization. We are now in danger of losing the entire company and it’s all server product management’s fault.
Next time do the fucking interview yourself.
Fuck you,

Marc

Most people can see through "I strongly disagree for the following reasons..." as a euphemism for "your idea is stupid, and this is why..." And the more you emphasize "strongly" in the former, the more likely "fucking" materializes between "is" and "stupid" in the latter.

That kind of bland vocabulary makes one's statements sound like limp static. Corporate dialect is contrived to remove strong (corporate-environment-inappropriate) emotion from your speech. If you're well acquainted with your colleagues, then I'd hope you could express yourself more genuinely. You're probably more relatable than a peppy talking head who never offends anyone.

In this cases, shouldn't the discussion be purely about the technical merits of the idea, rather than emotions of the people speaking about it? I would count removing unneeded emotions from the conversation as a positive thing.

I'm a machine learning engineer so "unneeded input" is something I rarely consider as a valid statement. Oftentimes when you're arguing the merits of one approach versus a different one, you have to use your rhetorical skills to influence another party. You both believe you have the best solution. You believe your logic is consistent and complete.

Emotion is a very powerful signal during discussion. It's a counterpoint to logic; they work together. Rarely does logic by itself win anyone over. Trying to remove "unneeded" (who decides what an unneeded emotion is) emotion is folly. We're not Vulcans.

So, all things being equal and arguments having the same merit, the less polite and less rational person wins. If i am able to contain emotions and argue by facts only, I will be at disadvantage.

That is not meritocracy and pretty bad workplace.

Diplomacy is not always necessary to get productivity.

Tip-toeing around the issue can make things much worse.

It is much easier to say, "Stop. That's stupid, try again."

Than to try and cherrypick what they've done right, because often times, there isn't anything useful there.

Considering that Gates, Jobs, and Torvalds all have stories where they tell someone what they're doing is stupid, and actually get a decent product out at the end of the day, it doesn't seem like diplomacy is necessary at all.

> "Stop. That's stupid, try again."

If you can't say ~why~ it's "stupid," your comment is not useful. And if you do say why it's stupid, those reasons are much more important than the inflammatory adjective "stupid," so just say those instead.

It's hard to feel respected when you're constantly hearing all about how "fucking stupid" your ideas are. I know in theory you're supposed to separate criticism of your ideas from criticism of you, but in reality that isn't always easy when the statements being made are so strong.

Yeah, it's a risky strategy. I recently interviewed with a company that had "thick skin" as one of their hiring criteria, and told candidates that they insulted each other, and someone getting hired couldn't take things to seriously.

Context is everything. Profanity and hyperbole are as far from the aloof and stuffy professional language one uses with unfamiliar people or those in higher positions. It's something that becomes appropriate in personally close and comfortable quarters, and it can be a signal of comradery.

I'm willing to bet that there is a correlation, to some extent, of level of jerkiness one can tolerate and income. The more jerk you can tolerate, in many types of companies, the higher you can move up. (to a certain extent, above a certain threshold; and the correlation is probably stronger among larger companies.) Mostly due to shifting upwards and towards the business side of things; management, strategy/biz development, or what have you.

For example, the person who wrote this article, is less of a fit for a cutthroat, decisive, business-minded management position; and might maximize their relative potential (in their current situation and state) by reaching a level that's below any business-minded interactions.(captain of a development team, answers to a manager who isolates them from business/mean/jerkish discussions.)

Edit:grammar

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