Terrible managers are the bane of our industry. OTOH, many startups owe their existence to their founders having had to deal with terrible managers in their previous jobs. The story of the traitorous eight and Fairchild semiconductors comes to mind. In my own life, if it weren't for getting a non-technical but political and vindictive manager in my last job, I probably wouldn't have had the motivation to start my own startup. In hindsight, I wish I'd been assigned a manager as bad as the last one I had, earlier in my career. :)