Why it pays to be a jerk (2011) | Hacker News Reader

Why it pays to be a jerk (2011)

canadianbusiness.com

45 pointsdamian200044 comments

> Accounts of former Oracle employees paint a picture of a boss with an infectious energy, and a propensity to elevate his charges to incredible heights only to dump them later. As one journalist put it, “He’s like a juicer, he squeezes people dry and then discards them.”

> Ellison, who before the crash, was known to brag about playing tennis on company time, and was so seldom at the office that, when he was spotted, employees joked about “Elvis sightings,”

It sounds like he got good employees to run his company and then treated them like shit. It's the sort of behavior that can work well for a few ceo's if only a few of them do it. But if every ceo were to behave like that, the pool of experienced employees out there would be nothing but bitter, cynical dried up husks who had sworn to themselves never to get exploited like that again.

This isn't a fair comparison to Mr. Ellison, but imagine if you will, an article in praise of a mob boss. "Well, he was horrible and he murdered people, but he made a lot of money." And it's true, mob bosses can accumulate great wealth. But mob bosses can only thrive two conditions are met: 1) there are people who don't engage in those behaviors for them to exploit. 2) society doesn't fight back effectively against their bull shit.

So, no I don't think Ellison is the equivalent of a mobster. But I do wonder why so many people put up with that sort of bull shit.

Most shareholders of most companies are absentee landlords too; what's the difference other than ostenibly being CEO on top of owner?

That is the difference. A CEO, unlike "most shareholders", is being paid to run the company. S/he is supposed to be an executive: one who executes: one who does things. A CEO who's never at the office is anomalous in a way that a shareholder who's never at the office isn't.

(Quite separately from the Larry Ellison question, it's worth observing that working and being at the office are entirely different matters. A hard-working CEO might spend most of his or her time sat at home thinking deep strategic thoughts, or touring around potential investors or customers trying to understand and/or impress them, or something. So a CEO who's seldom at the office isn't necessarily slacking off. Again, I am not claiming that this observation has any particular applicability to Larry Ellison.)

> his office is plastered with Japanese art, certainly compounds his image as a wannabe Mongol warlord

Japanese art to Mongol warlord! What a conclusion!!! This makes as much sense as saying he has an Eiffel Tower poster so he'd like to live in Greece.

Being a jerk is not the success factor here. Without actual competence, Ellison would not have gotten far. It's being right and being a jerk in combination which is so powerful.

"he read a paper published by IBM, which outlined a way to make it easier to store and retrieve data — a prototype for the first relational database. 'I saw the paper, and thought that, on the basis of this research, we could build a commercial system.'”

That jumped out at me because I thought Bob Miner brought the paper and its potential ramifications to Ellison's attention. Ellison doesn't strike me as the kind of guy that sits around reading papers out of IBM research. Can anyone confirm one way or another? I'm pretty sure it's technically true, but also a good example of how he lies.

From wikipedia: It was at this time that Ed Oates[4] introduced Miner and Ellison to a paper by E. F. Codd on the relational model for database management.

yet the PDF it references says ellison did it. i think this is one of those things that will always be up for debate, as everyone is going to have a slightly different recollection of it. it doesn't matter though - no question that IBM wrote it, but oracle as a company decided to pursue it, meaning that everyone was on board.

the book "the difference between god and larry ellison" goes into a lot of this detail. it was basically 3 or 4 guys doing intense technical work for several years, including larry ellison.

in my opinion the book paints him as a fair businessman with a knack for over-the-top personal behavior. i don't remember it saying he ever tried to screw over his cofounders or run-of-the-mill employees.

also, i don't think i've ever read him claim that he invented databases or had the initial idea to commercialize ibm's ideas. that's something that the media projects onto him since he's such a celebrity compared to his co-founders.

It's almost a bigger sin to have unleashed relational DBs though.

The incredible success that he has enjoyed is a marvel to anyone familiar with the accepted literature on what it takes to make a great leader, qualities like empathy, mediation skills and humility. ...

“It’s very unpopular to say in today’s world, where we have these Kumbaya theories of leadership,” says Pfeffer, “but it actually doesn’t work well.”

Exactly. The lesson here is that many management books contain mainly "leadership fantasies."[1] More from Pfeffer at the link.

[1] http://www.overcomingbias.com/2014/03/leadership-fantasies.h...

The thing that's scary about this is that pretty much anyone can be an asshole, and I worry about people doing just that in their attempts to emulate people like Ellison, and Jobs. Odds are, they'll certainly get the jerk part right, but probably won't create a huge company or great products.

You don't have to worry about that, because it's already happening. I see them everywhere. They wear all black. They write in all lowercase. They've seen The Social Network a million times and think that's what life is really like.

The good news is, in a real company this behavior is usually recognized and isolated fairly quickly... unless it's not.

Some of them write in all uppercase. I'm not joking or being sarcastic. If you run across someone who's a little too happy with the caps lock key... run like your life depends on it.

I know those guys too! Although I find it tends to be an age thing. The middle aged asshole writes in all caps, the 20 year old asshole writes in all lowercase.

Stuff like that works until it rather abruptly stops working. Charlie Wang was a genius, until he suddenly wasn't.

Being an asshole doesn't work with knowledge workers. It might for sweatshops and farm hands, but I've worked for a CEO that acted as an asshole while on the job. I was another C level.

When I left so did half the company because everyone knew he was being unreasonable and too much of a bully.

Sweatshop workers know very well how to subtly sabotage production for bad bosses.

Machines break more often, materials go missing, tools are misused or stolen, drawings are creatively interpreted, electricity supplies are disrupted, tea breaks take a bit longer.

People might be at their bench on time, and might look like they're starting work, but they will be doing more "preparation" at the start of the day and more "clean down" at the end of the day.

And once it starts with a couple of people it's hard to stop, especially with bad bosses.

That's the thing. You need to have an awful lot of money that you can throw at people if you want to be an asshole and continue to succeed. Otherwise what happens in any kind of free society is that the best people leave. That's why it's hilarious to watch people who are starting off behaving this way. In general though, those guys usually aren't the brightest.

I'll take the risk of sounding like an overly-idealistic idiot, but if I could choose between billions of dollars and staying an effing human being, I'd probably choose the latter.

Well who needs billions of dollars? A couple millions should be enough.

I've never really thought about this--at present, I think of it as either "one has enough money to avoid thinking about money", or one doesn't. My sociology professor uses to say that "a satiate man has a thousand worries, but a hungry man has only one", and I really do agree.

Being truthful and honest without sugar-coating is the fastest way to be called an asshole. I am not saying LE and SJ are that type, but in general - Assholes are the ones with less or no unnecessary nicety filters.

I agree with your point, but would like to clarify that I'm talking about having some decency and (at a minimum) a basic set of ethics, not being like those "nice guys" who're constantly bitching about how "girls date only assholes". (Just an example that first came to my mind.)

You're assuming that everyone are assholes, and that nice people just put filters on. Not true. And you should probably go see someone about that. Such a world view doesn't come out of nothing.

Lots of people are really nice without any nicety filters.

Thats the difference between knowing and being.

Those that learn how to be good by books, that are not actually good, try to sugarcoat and wonder why being good doesn't work for them.

For it to be effective, it has to be genuine.

This is a symptom of psychopathy. A double edged sword in terms of societal value. While I find the argument in favor of psychological diversity compelling, I can't can't help but be revolted by psychopaths.

Check out: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0374291357

I think you're wrong, and you should go in therapy because I'm obviously right.

I am in therapy, so that's already covered. Any other ways in which you wanted to be funny?

You don't succeed by being a jerk. But if you're a smart entrepreneur, you may succeed despite being one.

tl;dr - if you're rich and powerful enough, you can treat people like shit without consequence.

Sure, it's not called "fuck you money" for nothing.

Funny, I always think of it as money that enables you to tell mean people to fuck off.

I guess the only consequence being resentment from the people close to you, and missed opportunities to develop deep lasting relationships.

I'll agree and disagree. I have lost contracts to people who were willing to flat out lie to customers about their products, but since I moved to the bay area, I've also saved a life and got two people off drugs. That's what power is, you know.

"This is an industry in which basically growth has slowed to a crawl. The only way … you as a company can make progress is by acquisitions."

What a load of bullshit. You can, I dunno, build products and services and compete.

Can't we find even ONE leader who isn't a sociopath?

The Dalai Lama?

I wasn't thinking of that sort of Oracle.

Capitalism is the least bad system we've found of harnessing the efforts of sociopaths like Larry Ellison in a somewhat productive way.

Does he strike you as a happy and fulfilled person, like you would want to be like him?

It's like with Jobs. No parent seriously wants their kids to turn out like Steve. They may mean they wish their kids to be as influential or as successful, but no wants to _be_ Steve Jobs.

The question is did he succeed in spite or because of this side of his personality.

The "A" in Oracle says that. I say selection bias.

> Following the ousting of HP CEO Mark Hurd, [Ellison stated], ...HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago

I don't know about Ellison's personal traits, but his thinking is correct here. Hurd was a great CEO - having brought in Palm - which could have been something. Instead, they fired him, hired Leo Apotheker, who completely and utterly mismanaged the company.

Say what you will about Ellison, but his instincts are right on the money.

Apotheker was a disaster -- everybody agrees about that -- but Hurd had serious problems too. He was all about cutting costs, with little product vision. He gutted R&D and fed, rather than pruning, the HP bureaucracy.

Meg Whitman is a vast, vast improvement over both of them.

(HP employee here.)

It doesn't pay.

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