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Comment by DannyBee | Hacker News Reader

No, actually (at least, IMHO). Jobs organization failed more than once due to him?

Remember that Apple (etc) have been troubled at many times through their history with him at the helm :)

Gates also eventually left in part because he was doing more harm than good (and has tried to turn himself into a more reasonable person it seems).

Compare that to the organization that MS is now under a leader who isn't an asshole?

I'm certainly not going to claim you can't make a successful company or organization by being a brilliant asshole. I'm only claiming it eventually catches up with you, and over time, ends up a net negative for the organization.

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So you think Steve Jobs was a net negative to Apple? They'd be better off if e.g. he'd never come back to run it?

No, as I said, i think it eventually would have caught up with them and ended up a net negative compared to not being an asshole. It did in the past, why would it not in the future?

To give an example: Elon clearly drives tesla in it's current position. Do you think at some point he will not be a clear net negative to the organization?

(It's also interesting to me that essentially the only counterexamples people have tried to raise are CEO's - i'm curious if this means people believe what i say is true for lower levels but not founders/ceos/etc, or what)

Suggesting the largest philanthropic donor in history (Bill Gates at 27 billion USD) is an asshole ('MS is now under a leader who isn't an asshole') seems like an oversimplification.

I don't have the time to find the comment now, but being the largest philanthropic donor does NOT infact make up for being an asshole or the amount of damage microsoft has done to the computing industry.

Am I downplaying his donations? Not at all. It's just that doing a good thing does not cancel out the bad.

Doing a good thing doesn't cancel out the bad, but I don't think it's fair to anonymously call people assholes on the Internet when they are actively trying, and succeeding, at doing good in the world. Especially when their sins are immaterial things like whatever damage you think MS did to the computer industry.

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