
Man and Uber Man - r0h1n
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2014/12/uber-travis-kalanick-controversy
======
chimeracoder
> “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...](http://pando.com/2014/10/22/the-horrific-trickle-down-of-asshole-
culture-at-a-company-like-uber/)

[1] [http://pando.com/2014/10/06/venture-capital-and-the-great-
bi...](http://pando.com/2014/10/06/venture-capital-and-the-great-big-silicon-
valley-asshole-game/)

~~~
jiggy2011
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.

~~~
breakinggood
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."

~~~
deciplex
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.

