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Comment by Estragon | Hacker News Reader

It's actually Bob Sutton's rule.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule

Incidentally, we don't call it a "no asshole rule." I think what I originally said to Robert was that we try not to accept jerks, and since he'd heard the phrase "no asshole rule" he used that to describe it.

Our criteria aren't the ones listed in this article, either. We're not trying to avoid people who make other people feel bad so much as those who are bogus, or dishonest. That's what we mean by a jerk: someone you can't trust.

Thanks for the clarification.

> someone you can't trust.

Judging who you can trust, especially based on brief, early impressions, is quite a skill. Some have a natural intuition for it, others don't, but like many things I bet that intuition can be deconstructed into a series of learnable techniques. Would you consider writing an essay deconstructing how you and Robert judge who you can trust in business?

He's said in previous interviews that they all just ask Jessica, who is extremely good at judging character, because the rest of them aren't very good.

She must be their Counselor Troy :)

Ah, she's one of the intuitive ones. Some of it is probably due to women being more perceptive to body language and non-verbal communication than men are, on average. I wonder what else there is.

Did I miss something, or was that awkward way the interviewer was interrupting pg real? At one point pg is saying something, and the interviewer interrupts him (while he's explaining) with some unintelligible thing, and pg goes "... <rage face> <swig>"

That is scoble's style. He is friendly, gregarious, abd excitable which makes him great and horrible for interviews. His eagerness is net positive though. Often it makes interviews with more boring people tolerable.

Ah, thanks. I don't know him, and I didn't watch the entire interview, that part just looked too awkward to be serious...

For anyone who is interested in interpersonal relationships at work, Bob Sutton is pretty much required reading. I especially enjoy his blog. http://bobsutton.typepad.com/

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