Hacker News Reader

Comment by lutusp | Hacker News Reader

> Is it just me or does it seem like the new cool thing to do is talk about how much of a prick Steve was and how amazing Woz is?

It's now new for me -- I've been saying it for years. After a brief exposure to Jobs in the late 1970s when Apple was a new company, I refused to work with him thereafter. I turned down a number of job offers from Apple over the years because I knew I would have to work with Jobs, or near him, or some approximation thereof. Unacceptable.

Some people found it possible to work with him, but IMHO that marked them as born narcissistic enablers.

View on HN

Oh. Well that's fair. You actually met him. So you can make a judgment. I'm sorry to hear that.

I just find it a bit annoying how people that never met him find it cool to dog him. I've found that among people that actually met him they either looked up to him and saw him as a bold and charismatic character or they hated him with a passion.

> I've found that among people that actually met him they either looked up to him and saw him as a bold and charismatic character or they hated him with a passion.

That's a common description of how people react to a narcissist. Consider Jim Jones (the French Guyana Jim Jones, the poisoned Kool-Aid Jim Jones) -- his followers thought he was the greatest, and it seemed as though they would die for him. Oh, wait, they did die for him. But others saw him as dangerous.

Consider David Koresh. Same blind devotion among his followers and complete disgust elsewhere.

My point is that a narcissistic enabler is as deeply twisted as a narcissist, but with a different focus.

More here: http://arachnoid.com/ChildrenOfNarcissus

Not saying you're not correct, it sounds like from your, and many other stories this is generally pretty accurate.

However, for this particular story? I honestly would have loved to work with/for someone who would just cut the bullshit, stop with the nice words, and just tell you exactly where you stand. If that means tearing up a contract and swearing at me, that sounds wonderful - it would not hurt my feelings in the least. If it did, I'd quickly get over it unless it was obviously personal vs. business.

Can that be done without being an asshole? Yes, of course. However, I haven't really seen it in action. I've generally either been around 'assholes' who seem to get things done via a blunt style I enjoy, or 'nice guys' who get steamrolled and thus churn out a shit product as they are more concerned with feelings than results.

> I just find it a bit annoying how people that never met him find it cool to dog him.

I don't need to talk to an asshole personally to know that they're an asshole. If it quacks like a duck...etc.

If you don't talk to someone personally, aren't you relying on a third-party(known or unknown) to provide insight? That you are willing to believe someone you've never met is an asshole based solely on somebody else telling you it's true doesn't seem very fair.

That's true of pretty much any knowledge you don't gather first-hand, though.

It's not a binary thing, it's a spectrum. I don't have any first-hand knowledge that black holes exist, but there's a great deal of evidence that pushes me into the "95% sure they exist" column.

Similarly if multiple people tell me someone is an asshole, that pushes my needle on the spectrum to "66% sure this person is an asshole."

You can, and should, maintain skepticism about any conclusions you draw. But that doesn't mean you can't draw conclusions at all until you verify the information yourself and are 99% sure of something.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com