Some people are assholes. Based largely on my observations of high-profile individuals in the tech world, at some point I developed a theory: there are two types of assholes.
Type 1 assholes are people who are on a mission, and the most important thing is that mission. If people get hurt along the way, that's acceptable collateral damage. You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. The ends justify the means. (Et cetera.)
Type 2 assholes are people who are just plain mean. Maybe they are sadists who enjoy stepping on others. Maybe punching down helps prop up their ego. Maybe they are just drunk on power. They might be on a mission as well, but that's not why they're assholes — they would still be assholes without the mission.
In the tech world there seem to be a lot of high-profile assholes. Some of these people are famous and highly respected (by some), despite their behavior. In my experience, most of them are Type 1 assholes. In spite of tropes like "the no asshole rule", the industry has a fair bit of tolerance for these people, as long as they are effective. If you can change the world and make a billion dollars, apparently nobody cares if you're a jerk. In fact there are blog posts and books devoted to how to achieve the right level of assholery to be optimally effective. (This movement is called EA, for Effective Assholery — oh, wait, no, EA stands for Effective Altruism, my mistake.)
I don't believe in being an asshole, even a Type 1 asshole, but I can see the perspective: it is easier to get things done when you don't think twice about breaking some eggs. I would certainly be more effective in certain ways if I were less worried about what other people think of me. And the line between "not worried what other people think" and "an asshole" is razor thin (and sometimes a matter of your point of view in a given situation). So I'm willing to give this type of asshole a certain amount of benefit of the doubt. (I'll have more to say about the ethics of being a Type 1 asshole in a future post.)
I have much less sympathy for Type 2 assholes. Not zero sympathy, because I'm sure they got to be that way somehow, and it probably wasn't pretty. But if you make a habit of tearing people down — people with less power than you — just because you can? I don't want to work with you, I don't think other people should want to work with you, and I don't want your company to succeed. Even if you are changing the world and making a billion dollars.
In conclusion: don't be an asshole. Especially not a Type 2 asshole. Thank you.