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Comment by atmosx | Hacker News Reader

Woz wrote that it was the board's decision and not Job's. But if you take a depiction of Jobs , Zuckerberg and Gates who are the most prominent examples of tech entrepreneurship, you get back-stabbing friends, socially unacceptable behaviors,a huge ego, etc. Given the fact that most of the times we get the sugar version of the story via Hollywood or books... I wonder if you have to be like that in order to get so high and what example all these important people had set for the ones who will come.

Were/Are Twitter's, FourSquare's, Google's, Paypall's, etc. Owners like that?

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> Given the fact that most of the times we get the sugar version of the story via Hollywood or books...

Do we? I'd expect to get the version of the story that sells, which is likely to have added drama.

Might it be that Jobs, Zuckerberg and Gates are more prominent than Page and Brin, precisely because of all the stuff we criticise them for?

Don't forget Bezos. My friend who was an early Amazon employee who worked down the hall from him tells me Bezos is a fucking psychopath.

Worth keeping in mind that the nicest people will still have a few people who hate them, and the worst people will still have a few people who love them - whether they're top CEOs or just anyone in life. That said your friend's opinion may well be in the majority, I've no idea.

Yes, but when someone is a nice guy - like Wozniak - there are always around him people who will let us know how nice he was ... as with Woz. No one ever pictured Wozniak as an egomaniac workaholic, although his skill-set was (apparently) extremely above the average programmer at the time and an ego-centric behavior would (probably) be acceptable by him also.. Since he was the one who crated Apple 1 and ][ after all :-)

Yes, Woz was and still is truly humble, kind and accessible, to the core.

When I was a kid, he autographed my Apple ][ reference manual (the new spiral bound one that replaced the old Red Book, with the fold-out schematics and 6502 assembly monitor rom listings in the back), "Have fun with your Apple ][. -Woz".

A short, to the point, motivational, practical call to action. I sure did!

Perhaps people do these things all the time, but it only seems consequential / makes the news headlines if the person doing it makes billions of dollars.

Wikileaks's founder falls under the huge ego/back-stabbing friends, socially unacceptable behaviors category too.

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