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Comment by gaius | Hacker News Reader

Linus is extremely lucky to have found his niche, as he is otherwise unemployable. One of his sweary rants at a cow-orker in any normal company would see him fired for gross misconduct and probably a restraining order taken out. Much of the toxic behaviour in the tech industry can be traced back to Linus "getting away with it".

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Oh, please. I know people in multiple sectors and Linus' top ten of the decade is "Tuesday" on many workplaces. They just don't publish all their conversations online for the world to see.

I'm not saying it's acceptable or not, just that I don't buy your claim that the tech industry is special in that regard, let alone that Linus is somehow the source of it.

The idea of toxic behavior in tech deriving from Linus is completely hyperbolic. If you want to pick someone to hang that on, look more to the Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmers of the industry.

>Much of the toxic behaviour in the tech industry can be traced back to Linus "getting away with it".

I think you're grossly overestimating the impact Linus' rants have on the industry.

It's the "designated asshole" archetype, the role can have a purpose in large companies in some rare circumstances.

the "designated asshole" archetype

A previous employer had someone in that "role", I don't think he will ever be able to work at any company that employs a former cow-orker of his. It may be fun for a short while for a certain kind of person, but it's career suicide.

I don't think it's fun actually. It's just the job.

There are some roles, like the one Linux has, where a critical aspect of the work is to tell NO to people and reject most of their requests.

It's perfectly possible to say "no" without being obnoxious. But some people revel in it.

Almost all the people I worked with (developers, QAs and managers) have no idea that Linus rants occasionally.

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