Comment by sillysaurus3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sillysaurus3 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

And yet while there are clearly a lot of mean people out there, there are next to none among the most successful people I know. What's going on here?

You live in a society where successful people aren't mean. That's different from the rest of the world.

Maybe a more accurate title would be "Mean People Fail in Silicon Valley"

But there are at least big chunks of the world that mean people don't rule, and that territory seems to be growing.

I wish more of the essay was devoted to evidence of this, because it'd be amazing if true. But I don't personally see any evidence that mean people are becoming less influential.

When you think of successful people from history who weren't ruthless, you get mathematicians and writers and artists.

One specific counterexample: Gauss was extremely mean. And not only mean, but mean to his family:

Gauss eventually had conflicts with his sons. He did not want any of his sons to enter mathematics or science for "fear of lowering the family name".[36] Gauss wanted Eugene to become a lawyer, but Eugene wanted to study languages. They had an argument over a party Eugene held, which Gauss refused to pay for. The son left in anger and, in about 1832, emigrated to the United States, where he was quite successful. Wilhelm also settled in Missouri, starting as a farmer and later becoming wealthy in the shoe business in St. Louis. It took many years for Eugene's success to counteract his reputation among Gauss's friends and colleagues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Friedrich_Gauss

I feel bad pointing out a counterexample like this, because it's easy to cherrypick an example of a mean person here, a mean act there. More difficult to show a general trend. But isn't the difficulty of finding examples of nice people evidence that niceness isn't very pervasive, especially throughout history?

I believe you can find quite a few "mean" people who is just working in the Silicon Valley as happy as ever. The correct rephrasal would be "Mean People Fail More".

It would be naive to think that getting along with people well, while being a remarkable trait, isn't the only thing that leads to success. There are a lot of variables controlling that. It's just common sense that if you are good with people, you are more likely to be successful.

Lastly, I believe a lot of people will be spraying this thread with counterexamples as you did, but the greatest example of PG's argument is the one of the people who gave the world the Silicon Valley [1]. He could have been one of the most cherished person of the past century, he could have all the wealth he wanted, but instead he practically died alone, leaving many people with hatred towards him. Because he was "mean".

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley

I was wondering about pg's use of the word ruthless in this context - wouldn't one equate 'ruthless' to the extremity of meanness? There was a link here to The Loneliest Genius [1] about Newton - The servants celebrated his parting, not because they were happy for him, but because he had always treated them harshly. His personality was, they declared, fit for nothing but the university... Didn't the eccentricity of many intellectuals manifest itself as cruelty or meanness?

[1] http://nautil.us/issue/19/illusions/the-loneliest-genius (paywall)

Your examples hardly show that Gauss was mean. He disagreed with his children about the path they should take in life. Most parents do. Gauss probably had a realistic appreciation of his sons' abilities. And why should parents be expected unconditionally to pay for their childrens' extravagances. Maybe the money was needed for something more important?

Specifically the last sentence: It took many years for Eugene's success to counteract his reputation among Gauss's friends and colleagues.

As a parent, you just don't do that to your children. Apparently Gauss badmouthed him regularly, to the point where he acquired a reputation outside of the family.

I think part of the general confusion is that "mean" and "fail" are both hard to define.

Maybe CF Gauss had a realistic appreciation of his son's personality. I don't know. Why should parents lie about their children?

You are projecting contemporary parental attitudes where little darling cannot possibly do / be wrong on somebody who lived more than 2 centuries earlier, and had six children.

>Maybe a more accurate title would be "Mean People Fail in Silicon Valley"

Silicon Valley has the same proportion of mean, nasty, ugly people as anywhere else in the world. And some of these people are successful, just like everywhere else in the world.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com