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Comment by chimeracoder | Hacker News Reader

> “It’s hard to be a disrupter and not be an asshole.”

I really hate this false dichotomy that gets perpetuated. No, being disruptive or innovative does not require being an asshole. And acting like an asshole does not make you more innovative or disruptive.

I hear statements like this all the time - "Well, {Jobs/Zuckerberg/Ellison/<insert figure here>} was an asshole." Being an asshole doesn't make you a better entrepreneur (and even if it did, is that really a pattern you'd want to perpetuate, or is it better to "disrupt" that too?)

Incidentally, Sarah Lacy (founder of PandoDaily) recently wrote a piece about this topic and used Uber as the main example[0]. Though even if she hadn't mentioned Uber, I think the point extends far beyond Uber, and she does too[1].

[0] http://pando.com/2014/10/22/the-horrific-trickle-down-of-ass...

[1] http://pando.com/2014/10/06/venture-capital-and-the-great-bi...

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Nobody agrees on who's an asshole. It's more likely that in order to be successful you need to stop caring so much about whether or not you are liked by everyone.

And stop caring so much about laws. Seriously ignore all laws that don't fit into your self serving reality distortion field. Don't worry, VC's will give you extra props for those "legal hacks."

With all the special interests and the bullshit and the lobbying that goes into making laws in the US (and much of the western world), it's getting pretty tough to blame anyone for having no respect for the law or due process. If the ruling class doesn't like where that could lead (i.e. pitchforks), it's pretty easy to fix, but so far there doesn't seem to be much interest.

I don't think that follows from what I wrote. Laws (at least in theory) are supposed to be consistent. Different people's general opinions of what does and does not constitute an asshole are very inconsistent.

For example, your family might want you to be home in time for dinner and your team might want you to stay at work late and help them finish their project.

It's not false.

There's N options for optimal action, some more in category of "asshole", some more in "non-asshole".

Blanket statement all "asshole" actions are non-optimal is a pretty huge leap of faith.

The real question you should be asking yourself is optimal for what? Your statement (or sentiment at the very least) says you're optimizing for not being an "asshole", in which case, you're correct. That's also the only case where you're fully correct.

OP didn't bring up optimality, nor is it necessary to his argument.

His argument is that success does not hinge on being an asshole - and that one can accomplish one's goals without being an asshole.

There's nothing in there about optimality or minmaxing every one of your decisions.

Whatever your goals may be - unseating a corrupt taxi monopoly, organizing the world's information, whatever - OP's notion is that it can be achieved without being an asshole.

His statement wasn't "all asshole actions are non-optimal", and frankly given that optimality wasn't even hinted at in his post I have to wonder where you're getting it from.

Yes, my statement might be a slight straw man, albeit an honest one - I just think that "being better enterpreneur", "being disruptive", being anything or having any goal implies making optimal actions to reach it, and I've projected that onto OP's statements.

In my book, it's simple - if I have a maxim "do not be an asshole", then I won't be. If I do not, but instead "unseat a corrupt taxi monopoly", then I'm bound to be an asshole in some of my actions. If I have both, they're bound to clash in some subset - there's no synergy of limitations.

And, like my thread sibling stated, paraphrased, you're bound to be marked an asshole by some anyways, whether you're Gandhi or Zuckerberg.

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