
The Great Asshole Fallacy - shawndumas
https://500ish.com/the-great-asshole-fallacy-82e108a755c7
======
heymijo
Some of this thread is conflating being an asshole (subjective) with being
abusive. Jordan was abusive and thought that was the way to get the best out
of those around him.

So it's worth remembering that The Last Dance wasn't Jordan's last time in the
NBA.

MJ came out of retirement to play for the Wizards. Acted just as he did when
he was Air Jordan with the Bulls, but could no longer back up his abusive
behavior with his play [0]. Instead of elevating the Wizards, Jordan being an
asshole now hurt the team in a number of different ways.

A person may be deemed an asshole for having high standards. They don't have
to be abusive to hold those high standards though.

Ed Catmull and Pixar have high standards but are not abusive in the mold of
Jordan or Jobs [1]. Kim Scott wrote an entire book, Radical Candor, about how
to demand excellence without being abusive [2].

[0] [https://slate.com/culture/2020/05/the-last-dance-michael-
jor...](https://slate.com/culture/2020/05/the-last-dance-michael-jordan-bulls-
wizards.html) [1] [http://www.bugaj.com/blog/2014/9/14/you-sir-are-no-ed-
catmul...](http://www.bugaj.com/blog/2014/9/14/you-sir-are-no-ed-catmull) [2]
[https://www.radicalcandor.com/](https://www.radicalcandor.com/)

~~~
gustavo-fring
Just a reminder that the environment at Pixar was abusive in other ways,
notably in the other major figure being a serial harrasser that had moves
designed after him to avoid his advances. I think that says a lot about
Catmull and the leadership there that they tolerated that kind of abusive
behavior to get greatness.

But yeah, to get to your other point, I recall Jerry Stackhouse saying he
hated playing with Jordan (was sorry he did) and I figure Kwame Brown's career
certainly wasn't helped. The repeated belittling of Krause by Jordan that
comes up in the doc (height, weight) was that of a small mean person. His
interactions with Kerr suggest that Jordan valued people standing up to him
above all, which was also something he had in common with Jobs. I think this
meanness is something that we should watch out for in leaders, it is a sign
that something is broken and that brokenness can hurt others. Jobs, Jordan,
and Musk all display it, the small ugly pettiness. It is destructive and
dehumanizing to both the victim and the person doing it.

Phil Jackson (as others have pointed out) shows you don't need it. There's no
way he is the coach he was without the humility and empathy he had. Jordan et
al saw someone like Rodman as talent to be used for a time, Jackson genuinely
cared about him. It's what drives me crazy when people ignore the destructive
behavior of Musk - he's the kind of personality that has shown time and time
again that peole are disposable, even his biggest fans. He'll dispose of you
as soon as it is convenient. We should dispose of that leadership style.

~~~
heymijo
Agree 100 percent about Catmull and Pixar ignoring and enabling John
Lasseter's sexual harassment/abuse of women at the company.

Appreciate you bringing it up and contrasting with the "small ugly pettiness"
of the MJ/Jobs/Musk ilk.

------
subsubzero
Contrast Jordan's greatness and being an asshole with Lebron James's greatness
and being a nice guy. Sure Lebron has not won as many championships as Jordan
(Lebron's 3 to Jordan's 6) but he is an atypical pro athlete in that he wants
to see his teammates score vs. himself score [1] . Also Lebron has never
gotten in a fight with his own teammates like Jordan did twice, or maybe more?
Jordan also had the benefit of Scottie Pippen who is a all-pro/50 greatest
player [2] and far exceeded the skill of any of Lebron James teammates(Dwayne
Wade prb being the closest to Pippen.) Sure Lebron is demanding and has
extremely high standards, but there are different ways to influence greatness
from your teammates other than being an extreme asshole.

[1] - [https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/lebron-james-says-he-
and-...](https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/lebron-james-says-he-and-michael-
jordan-wouldve-been-ideal-teammates-my-assets-work-perfectly-with-mike/) [2] -
[https://www.nba.com/history/nba-
at-50/top-50-players](https://www.nba.com/history/nba-at-50/top-50-players)

~~~
adventured
> Sure Lebron has not won as many championships as Jordan (Lebron's 3 to
> Jordan's 6)

Your sure statement is quite the qualification. Three versus six rings is an
enormous difference in the NBA. That's a Larry Bird of a difference. Charles
Barkley, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Reggie Miller, Patrick Ewing, Chris
Mullin and Dominique Wilkins won zero rings.

> but he is an atypical pro athlete in that he wants to see his teammates
> score vs. himself score

Jordan's average was 5.3 assists per game (as a shooting guard, emphasis).
That's good enough for #29 in the NBA this season and #28 last season. He was
winning scoring titles while simultaneously out-competing some starting point
guards when it came to assists.

Jordan ranks #45 all-time in assists, in 14 equivalent full seasons, ahead of
a large list of point guards.

He averaged 8 assists and 32.5 points in the same season in 1989, during the
height of his scoring capabilities. 8 assists per game is good enough for #5
this season (for those that don't know basketball well, that's typically elite
point guard territory).

Lebron is #4 all-time in points per game. Your argument is pretty amusing to
make given the numbers. He wants to see his teammates score vs himself? He has
led his team in scoring for 16 years in a row, including his rookie season.

Lebron's scoring average per game is 27.1, Jordan's was 30.1. Lebron has
averaged 20 shots per game, Jordan averaged 23. Your premise is plainly false,
the gulf between them on scoring behavior is simply not that great. Scottie
Pippen and Horace Grant won championships with Jordan and became renowned
players - with Pippen being named to the all-time 50 list - precisely because
Jordan had no problem with them scoring as well.

The scoring label was only partially true in the early years of Jordan's
career where he was on a very mediocre Bulls team and attempted to do too much
of the scoring out of necessity.

Lebron averaged 31.4 points and took 23 shots per game, with 6.6 assists, his
third season in the league as a reference. Lebron clearly wasn't lacking in
aggressive scoring behavior in his early years either.

~~~
tech-historian
Jordan was blessed with having the greatest NBA coach of all time to guide his
team. After coaching Jordan to 6 titles, Phil Jackson went on to win another 5
with the Lakers.

Lebron's coaches have been pedestrian in comparison. That's one reason the
comparison is so difficult between the two.

~~~
rumanator
> Lebron's coaches have been pedestrian in comparison.

LeBron has been hand-picking his whole team for a decade now. If he was unable
to find a decent coach, which is not subject to the same restrictions as
stacking the team with all-star players, then that shortcoming is also
entirely on LeBron.

And Phil Jackson's championships were on team's featuring arguably three of
the greatest players of all times: Jordan, O'Neal, and Briant. I wouldn't
argue that O'Neal and Briant's rings were a result of Phil Jackson.

------
croon
Excellence awards you the choice of being an asshole.

It also allows you to be revisionist in excusing you being an asshole as
necessary in retrospect, even if it wasn't.

Some people will be assholes if allowed to, but I don't think it's
(positively) correlated with success.

I imagine few people work better for/with an asshole, and if someone
excellent/smart/1000x developer is pleasant to work with (but perhaps
assertive) the results are probably even better.

~~~
base698
I wonder. You look at someone like Linus that has created untold trillions of
wealth and given a lot of that wealth away. Yet, there are also many very
public asshole blow ups.

Are there counter examples of success like that which don't have a severe
asshole at the epicenter? Carmack and Tim Sweeney?

~~~
zozbot234
Torvalds's "public blow ups" are not really about being an asshole though,
it's just a playful style of communication. Maybe it shows more confidence and
assertiveness, but that's not a bad thing.

~~~
tachyonbeam
I don't know about that. He's said some incredibly mean and offensive things.
It is detrimental IMO. There is basically no way I would want to collaborate
with him. You couldn't pay me to contribute to the Linux kernel, and I'm sure
I'm not the only one who feels that way. He gets away with it because the
world has become very dependent on Linux.

~~~
zozbot234
His thing is being "mean and offensive" to the inner circle of kernel
maintainers, not to random contributors. It's all about not being collectively
wishy-washy, and making it clear what is expected of that inner circle. Some
people might call it a bit unprofessional and be bothered by that kind of
style, but many are clearly fine with it.

~~~
LiquidSky
But that's the classic defense for asshole behavior in the workplace (or, in
this case, the collaborative space). Are many "clear fine with it", or is it
just accepted as what you had to put up with to operate in that space? And, as
the center of that space, was Linus's behavior and attitude setting
expectations about how people should act if they wanted to participate, and
consequently what people just had to deal with as "the culture"?

To go back to Jobs, obviously many people worked with him and he had his inner
circle. Was everyone fine with him being an asshole, or did they just put up
with it because he's the boss and that's what you had to deal with if you
wanted to work at Apple?

------
mabbo
I think it's reverse causality.

If you're incredibly talented and have enormous success for most of your life
then you probably have gotten away with being an asshole time and time again.
What are you going to do, fire Michael Jordan because he's mean? You're going
to kick Ellen off your TV channel because she's rude to her people? Over time
they get reinforcement that being an asshole is acceptable for them. And it's
so convenient to be a jerk.

Later on when someone asks about it, well, that was my secret to success of
course. You have to be an asshole to get ahead. To heck with that!

Successful people being assholes is a sign of their weakness, not their
strength.

~~~
Someone1234
Related: That's why I think physically attractive people often (but not
always) have worse personalities. They can get away with more.

Studies show this too[0]:

> When the defendant was attractive, there was a shift in judgments toward
> acquittal, but when the defendant was unattractive, there was no such shift.
> As a result, mock juries were more likely to acquit the attractive defendant
> than the unattractive defendant.

If people are more likely to acquit attractive defendants in criminal trials,
they're certainly going to let more social "crimes" pass.

[0]
[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/009385489001700...](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093854890017003005)

~~~
thrav
I find it amusing how often attractive women get two words that sound similar,
mixed up. Things like, “for all intensive purposes” or others — I think you
know what I mean.

My hypothesis is that no one wants to correct them, the way they would someone
they don’t fear retribution from. Their friends might fear being ostracized
for implying they’re stupid. Their suitors might fear pushing them away for
the same reason. They just say it wrong for years while everyone nods and
smiles.

I’ve made a habit of noting them in meetings and then privately informing them
after. Have heard replies like, “Wait, really!? That’s so embarrassing, I’ve
been saying that wrong for YEARS.”

Constantly getting a pass cuts both ways. It’s also harder to stand on their
own, since they grow so accustomed to people constantly offering help, and
free stuff.

~~~
scollet
> how often attractive women get two words that sound similar, mixed up.

> I’ve made a habit of noting them in meetings and then privately informing
> them after.

You have an unhealthy bias and condescension is not a solution.

~~~
thrav
I don’t just do it for women, I just made a comment about how it feels more
frequent with attractive women, shared my observation, and attempted to
explain why I think that might be the case. There is a difference.

I don’t believe it’s condescending to recognize a error, and offer assistance.
We all make mistakes. It’s literally the first thing I ask every new manager
to do for me if they observe something less than ideal in an interaction.

------
nogabebop23
Everyone focuses on Jordan but Jerry Krause is the one who makes the best case
for being an asshole leading to great success.

Many people seem to interpret being an asshole as causal for success, but
they're not even corelated. Michael Jordan may or may not be an asshole
depending on when and who interacted with him, but he demanded the same
absolute perfection from others that he did of himself. The problem was no one
was as good as him so he essentially asked for more than they could ever
deliver, leading to him taking it all on his shoulders. This inevitably lead
to tensions with the "second tier" stars on the team like Pipen and Grant who
likely felt they could handle both the burden and benefit of the spotlight.

If there's a lesson here it's likely more on delegation and success of the
team over individuals. Phil Jackson gets discounted as they guy who sat and
watched Jordan do all the work, but he's won more NBA titles than anyone on
the Bulls dream squad. He is someone who definitely does not present as an
asshole.

~~~
dvtrn
_Jerry Krause is the one who makes the best case for being an asshole leading
to great success._

I agree with this summation fully, having said as much in many conversations
on the topic since "The Last Dance" documentary aired and I discovered many of
my friends were suddenly experts on the 90's era Bulls. Even the fans who
swore they hated professional sports and couldn't separate Tony Kukoč from
Tony Parker

 _Phil Jackson gets discounted as they guy who sat and watched Jordan do all
the work...He is someone who definitely does not present as an asshole._

That's because the people who do this probably haven't bothered themselves to
know anything more about Phil Jackson than the one they see on the court; a
common malady of critiquing the human machinations of sports and sports
personalities.

Read _any_ of his books (but maybe especially "Sacred Hoops"), enter his head
space and see his motivations as player turned coach-they're amazing. Phil
Jackson the younger wasn't quite the same man, but in 'Sacred Hoops' it's
really interesting how Phil Jackson the older didn't rebuke his younger self,
merely embraced him, molded him and constantly reflected back on that young
man while coaching Mike. Phil says as much and cites especially when his
father passed away, as the moment that allowed him a certain "freedom" to be
himself. I'm taking a lot of these same lessons and applying them to my team
at work, while reading my second Phil Jackson book, "More than a Game".

Even taking his philosophies out of it, Phil Jackson was and I think still is
an enormous _student_ of the game-going all the way back even before his days
playing for the Knicks, like you said-the man didn't just happen upon success
because he found himself coaching stellar players, his willingness to buck
traditional thought at the time in the NBA and embrace his assistant coaches
"Triangle Offense" and successful integration of that into the Bulls played
just as much a part in that team becoming who they did as Air Jordan's ability
to defy gravity and hit buckets from just about anywhere on the court (except
from the perimeter[1], consistently at least).

\---

[1] [https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/5/18/21260106/michael-
jor...](https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/5/18/21260106/michael-jordan-the-
last-dance-evolution)

~~~
jimbokun
Just read the Ringer link.

It's an interesting take. But give Jordan one or two off seasons to adapt to
the modern game, and he would be a good to great 3-point shooter. The article
even mentions the NBA Finals game where he made 6 threes in the first half,
just because.

There are no DNA mutations between the players in the 90s and players today
that made so many current NBA players better 3-point shooters. The owners and
coaches favoring demanding those skill sets led to players practicing them
more in order to increase their value.

(And I've considered before blogging a take on Jordan-Pippen-Rodman playing
the 3-4-5 could be the core of an amazing modern small-ball line up.)

~~~
papeda
> > The article even mentions the NBA Finals game where he made 6 threes in
> the first half, just because.

The 6 threes are a little weird because Portland insisted on guarding him with
tons of space, essentially daring him to take what they viewed as a low-
percentage shot. It's doubly weird to watch them repeatedly concede open 3s
now -- it's not even a result of scrambled defensive rotations, they just
watch him spot up and shoot.

I think I agree with you though. The fact that he had such a lovely midrange
game suggests he'd have picked up the 3 if he tried. Plus that first step and
the need to pack the paint to guard against those weird hanging double clutch
layups, he would have had space to shoot too.

So I guess I'm making the tiresome argument that "your claim is probably
right, but one specific bit of evidence is weak".

~~~
dvtrn
I mean you’re not wrong, I think it’s fair to say the three-point shooter was
kind of a specialist position in that era of the NBA, which is what allowed
guys like Steve Kerr to steal games in the final seconds (like he did against
Utah in 97) BECAUSE nobody chased out to the perimeter, but this _combined_
with the novelty of the Triangle Offense which exploited defenses eager to
keep Mike out of the paint and kept the ball moving so that (yep, I’m going
back to Phil Jackson here) “nobody felt like a spectator” just created those
opportunities naturally, I think.

Game is completely different now, guys like Kerr (current all time leader) and
most recently Steph Curry has made perimeter defense more important than it
ever has been.

(Holy crap basketball analysis on HN, I’m loving this thread)

~~~
papeda
Heh. I also wonder if Jordan's mentality would have let him take full
advantage of the 3. This is pretty much just conjecture, but it's hard for me
to square staying out and playing the math on 3s with Jordan's aggression and
insistence on _beating_ people.

~~~
dvtrn
Now _THAT_ is a good question!

He certainly wasn’t above taking a shot right in your face if you dilly
dally’d around from the field. First time I saw Jordan just rip one off after
toying around with a 20 year old Kobe Bryant struggling to keep pace, then
stop dead in his tracks to put one up from what felt like MILES behind the
line I knew I was watching peak basketball

------
jpwright
I'd add that lessons from sports leadership don't always apply in other
contexts. Sports at the highest levels require extreme competitiveness and
aggression. A Jordan-style asshole leader might succeed by motivating the
development of those traits in their teammates, but those same traits are
probably toxic and unhelpful in other environments.

~~~
jrumbut
Yeah, also to be an effective leader in that mold you should start by being a
generational talent like Michael Jordan.

When all those Steve Jobs biographies came out there was a population who
thought if they just became really picky about design and impulsive about
personnel decisions their business would become another Apple.

Just being a jerk isn't really a strategy, even in sports.

~~~
GVIrish
This is always my answer to people trying to justify being an asshole by
comparing themselves to Steve Jobs or Michael Jordan. If you are as talented
as them, maybe you can make that argument. But if you are not literally the
best in the world at something and/or arguably the best of all time at
something, you can't use their examples.

An NBA bench player can't behave like Michael Jordan and expect to stay in the
league, even though an NBA bench player is probably one of the best 400
basketball players in the world.

Even then, I would argue that guys like Jordan and Jobs succeeded in spite of
being assholes, not necessarily because of it.

------
TrackerFF
If anyone wants to see how asshole management works in reality, just visit any
random retail store, franchise or independent. Or worse, call centers.

These places typically have very limited upward mobility, and their only
requirement for future operational (i.e, not corporate) "leaders" would be
results from working at the ground floor.

This means that they tend to hire people that aren't necessarily the best
leaders, but the best sellers. It's basically the Peter Principle in action,
but often with only one step up on the ladder.

And because these people, or leaders, have very limited training or exposure
to good leadership (their old leaders got to the same place, the same way),
they perpetuate the same sh!tty anti-leadership practices - which is very much
something one could call asshole management. And what's more, there's often
such a extreme level of power asymmetry / imbalance, that lower-level workers
are completely at the mercy of their middle-managers.

It is something you can draw parallels to in sports. You're being measured by
KPI / performance measures, and get more responsibilities the better you
perform. Everyone who's ever played any competitive team sports knows or has
experiences this - some star player(s) that have can rein freely, because they
exceed at some important measure (score goals, or whatever) - while rest of
their teammates are walking on eggshells.

But to tie it all together: The problem is that entities (businesses, sports
teams, whatever) become dependent on these stars, even though it could
completely destroy morale, and create toxic cultures within.

I think that if you identify these following points in some environment,
there's a great chance you'll meet on great asshole bosses / leaders

1) Great power imbalance between worker and leader.

2) Leadership compensation is dependent on worker performance.

3) Levels of compensation is driven by a very few measures / KPI.

4) Upward mobility is squarely tied to your KPI performance (from 3).

Basically - if the only way to succeed within is to be a rainmaker, and being
a rainmaker makes you the king, then that could easily foster assholes.

------
TheCowboy
I've had one boss who was terrible at basically everything, and he actually
justified his behavior using Steve Jobs as an example. His company was only
successful because he was in the right place at the right time, but the
company was failing to maximize its full potential because of him.

Would anyone try to claim there is a shortage of asshole managers, owners, or
bosses out there? It's just a fact that many jerks exist, and a portion will
inevitably end up at the top despite this behavior.

Would YC have been more successful if it better emphasized seeking out this
behavior in founders? If this behavior is critical to success then shouldn't
we be training people to be jerks?

~~~
shadowgovt
The most impressive managerial implosion I've ever heard of was one of those
bosses. He'd been hired on to be a whip-cracker; he did get results, but was
remarkably unliked by staff.

Company got purchased and it became clear some team members were not going to
be hired by the new owning company. Team was trying to knock out a few last
big-ticket TODOs before the handoff of projects. So the boss is going around
the room in the scrum, and the DB lead announces he missed his target on some
work remaining to be done. Conversation went something like this:

Boss: "How are the DB changes?"

DB guy: "Not done yet. I should be able to knock them out this week."

Boss: "You had them on the calendar as ready by Monday."

DB guy: "I know."

Boss: "Didn't knock them out this weekend?"

DB guy: "Nope."

Boss: "What happened?"

DB guy: _crosses arms behind the back of his head and leans back in his chair_
"I spent the time polishing my résumé and setting up interviews for new
opportunities this week."

The whip-cracking approach to project management utterly collapses if the whip
no longer stings.

------
Intermernet
I try very hard not to be an asshole, but I see assholes somehow being
respected for being assholes.

Is this similar to patio11 saying that charging more for a service makes it
easier for people to value the service? Is this an innate property of the way
some people think? Can we change our system of values to appreciate value
based on non monetary terms, and leadership based on non degrading terms?

I don't have answers for these questions, but I think they're important...

~~~
ryandvm
People aren't attracted to assholes, people are attracted to confidence and
assertiveness. The problem is that while not all confident people are
assholes, all assholes are confident.

~~~
WJW
You just don't notice the non-confident assholes because they don't seek the
spotlight.

~~~
nogabebop23
to tie it back to the netflix series this is Phil Jackson in a nutshell. He
appears to quietly fade into the background but is busy coaching and letting
these guys do their thing, tweaking and making small incremental changes - and
winning championships.

Steve Kerr (who played for him) had success with a similar coaching style in
Golden State (at least up until this season!). These guys are known as a
player's coach because they are most definitely not assholes.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I wouldn't say that about Phil Jackson. Over and over I have heard about how
incredibly manipulative he was, playing games with his players' heads. Sure,
he's doing it to try to get 1% more out of them, which is also good for the
player, but... I wouldn't put him in the non-a-hole category.

------
keeptrying
Relentlessly upping a teams standards in everything - strategy, execution,
effort etc, tires out everyone on that team. But that’s usually what you need
to win or succeed in a competitive system.

People who push for this will always be called assholes because they force
team members to stretch themselves which is never a comfortable proposition.

The corollary to this is that to win by not being an asshole, find something
that is needed/wanted but no one else does or that which you can do 10x better
than everyone else. Without competition you won’t need to push you or your
team that hard.

(The only catch with having no competition, is that, having no competition
will slow down the rate at which you can improve or stop all improvement in
most people.)

~~~
0d9eooo
I think raising standards or changing things is different from being an
asshole. Having dealt with this in a big way recently, it's very much on my
mind.

It's entirely possible to say "we need to work harder, or take a risk, or be
bold" while understanding where your colleagues are at in terms of what they
need to do that, or what has or hasn't been communicated to them about how
that will happen, or how things have been done in the past to change them.

Too often bad management or administration is justified by saying "well things
needed change" or "things needed to be shaken up." There's a way to implement
that while bringing others on board, giving credit where things are due, etc.

Put another way, it's easy to ruthlessly level an organization and rebuild it
in the way you want to if you have the power to do that, but it doesn't mean
the fairy tale you tell yourself about it having been necessary is actually
true. More often than not you're just rationalizing away being inhumane and
destructive, and probably even losing out on even better possibilities in the
process.

~~~
ra1n85
>It's entirely possible to say "we need to work harder, or take a risk, or be
bold" while understanding where your colleagues are at in terms of what they
need to do that, or what has or hasn't been communicated to them about how
that will happen, or how things have been done in the past to change them.

Great leaders, in my experience, haven't asked these questions or pushed
performance in this way - they led their reports through soft management to
come to the conclusion that it was necessary to increase performance. They
framed questions that led people to the conclusions they had already made. Of
course, this also requires that the reports are capable enough of being led in
the right direction.

~~~
keeptrying
There’s no soft way to say - “you’re not good. You need to get better.”

It is hurtful and painful to hear however put.

------
KKKKkkkk1
US business culture has two leadership archetypes: The brilliant asshole and
the kind uncle who leads by example (think Steve Jobs and Tim Cook). Despite
there being _two_ archetypes, asshole culture is endemic in American business.
Why is that? My theory is that more often than not, the kind fatherly leader
relies on a cadre of assholes to do his job for him. Elsewhere in this thread
there is the example of Ed Catmull and John Lasseter that reinforces my
impression.

~~~
nemothekid
My theory is that the brilliant asshole just tends to gravitate toward the
limelight. In other words they are also very self-congratulatory and therefore
market themselves better. Look at a FAAMG - of the acronym, I would only
consider Jobs a "brillant" asshole and _maybe_ Bezos (although he seems way
more dogmatic than an asshole). Despite all being incredibly companies, Jobs
is by and far the most famous.

~~~
nickysielicki
What? Bill Gates was ruthless.

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/gates-is-a-
ru...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/gates-is-a-ruthless-
schemer-says-his-microsoft-co-founder-2257843.html)

------
s17n
I think the fallacy is to confuse cause and effect. The characteristics
necessary to achieve greatness are very likely to also make you an asshole.
But, deliberately being an asshole is only going to make you less likely to
achieve greatness.

~~~
Hokusai
> I think the fallacy is to confuse cause and effect. The characteristics
> necessary to achieve greatness are very likely to also make you an asshole.

I would rephrase to: "The characteristics necessary to be _noticed above your
teammates_ are very likely to also make you an asshole."

The best professionals I have ever worked with are kind, willing to help and
growth themselves and their teams. And too often are missed by management, the
self-promoting assholes are noticed and promoted by management.

Great leaders are kind, great leaders are smart, great leaders help you, great
leaders go unnoticed because are one of you working within the team.

------
kelvin0
Some so called 'assholes' are in fact really good mirrors and amplifiers of
our existing insecurities. Is it fun when someone is able to 'push our
buttons' and make us feel worthless? Rarely. Is it useful to further explore
why it made us uncomfortable? Always.

I am not preaching that you should tolerate abuse, far from it. But you should
be aware of your own dark side and recognize it for what it is.

------
jariel
Was he really an a-hole?

It's hard for many people to fathom different environments, but sports,
sometimes startups, the Army for example ... different communication styles.

Even mild 'Military Communication' would make many people uncomfortable,
because of the almost total lack of emotional empathy in most scenarios. But -
it works, really well. To the point that some people (maybe myself included)
feel that we should all learn to be a little more in control of our emotions
and less 'needy' of our peers and managers.

When a manager tries too hard with empathy frankly is feels patronizing, like
I'm a child or diva whose ego needs to be managed. I feel that it's coddling,
and it shouldn't be needed with professionals, other than the very occasional
kudos and only when warranted.

There are instances of Jordan in public life being a 'real jerk' ... and maybe
some instances of him doing that on the court - but this is not unreasonable
for such a long career.

Also, here is a good example: Pippin seemed nice, but then famously refused to
go on the court once after he didn't like the coach's call. Some might argue
that this is the absolute height of arrogance and jerkoffness, because it's
the most self-centered thing possible. I don't think Jordan ever did this.

I watch junior Hockey players get reamed out by their coaches after the 1st
period, and they're just utterly calm, it's just words to them.

We need to contextualize what we consider to be real arrogance from merely
more aggressive communication or communication that is assertive and lacking
in emotional empathy.

After watching the special, I'm not so sure if Jordan was an asshole.
Obviously self-centered, and assertive, but that's not being an asshole. He
was also one part of a unit of other types of characters that seemed to blend.

~~~
the_jeremy
That is... not the take I'd expect on military effectiveness. I think there is
are good reasons the private sector doesn't emulate the military in command
structure.

I know I am more productive with an understanding manager than being screamed
at, and I am more efficient with a manager who values my ideas and encourages
taking risks than one who forces me to do things exactly by the book.
Admittedly, I don't have military experience, but it seems like it's more akin
to a manager I would hate to have than one who would help me grow.

~~~
jariel
This is an understandable position, but one that does not quite grasp at why
the military communicates the way it does.

It's almost entirely not 'yelling and screaming' this is something that exists
in basic training, or maybe in the movies.

The military is _excruciatingly_ more operationally effective than the nearest
civilian entity for the things that it is designed to do.

For most of the things the forces do, there are barely any civilian
counterparts that could even contemplate the job.

That said, for a whole host of regular, garrison tasks, the military is
probably the least suited. I'm thinking of peacetime IT services, etc..

For example, if you want a field hospital built with 100-400 beds? It can
basically be done anywhere, almost instantly. Aside from the operational
limitations of most civilians entities (i.e. they don't have easy access to
Chinooks), it would take them months, and/or extraordinary complexity and
expense. The COVID hospital beds were coming in at $500K each, which is
massive money required to overcome the extreme inefficiency we have normally
in that area. The same thing for an airfield, for example, the Air Force
Engineers are ridiculous, they will build an airstrip, anywhere, in no time
and have operationalized flights in and out ... like in the jungle or
Himalayas.

A few things that make it different:

1) It's existential. It's the most dramatically 'real' operating environment
one can imagine, both in terms of one's own life, but also the lives of
others, civilians (both sides) and in many ways the ultimate consequence of
entire nations being ruined/turned upside down. This is hard to grasp until
one has lived in that world, it's very 'heavy' and I think the issue that
weighs down service members psychologically over time. Your civilian buddies
are having a 'good life' but many service members cannot escape the heavy
consequences of their daily lives.

Can you imagine having to coddle a group of Engineers, balance personalities,
staff reviews, people demanding 'more money and promotions', internal culture
wars etc. when the 'build going out' is really a 'sortie' in support of some
ground forces under fire? No. When the consequences are much bigger, and
people realize this, they start to change their tune.

2) It's the most egoless job. This subject pains me the most, especially when
I hear civilians talking about service people in a negative light when they
see violence in particular. The level of selfless dedication in the service is
incomparable. Though some individuals might be drawn in by salary or 'cheap
college' it's basically impossible to continue to motivate oneself on that
basis. It's the hardest work you'll ever have to do, with by far the least
pay. It's ultra communitarian. On operation and in the field, even money
becomes an abstract concept, almost irrelevant.

You'll see regular people, coming together, putting aside their petty, selfish
desires, doing their absolute best, and it's just remarkable. Sad to say but
it really brings out the best in people.

Having a limited military experience, it pains me that most people have no
idea how self-oriented the civilian world is, and though we are all capable of
greatness, it's very rare that we are in conditions such that we see this come
to the fore. We're seeing it to some extent now with COVID.

In terms of what might be perceived to be 'ugly communication' but which
really is not, consider that rank and role become a function of _group need_
and not individual desire. You play some role, ostensibly because you are
trained and suited to it, not because you are 'competing with others for the
best pay'. You 'respect the rank not necessarily the person' which means an
internalized understanding that it's not 'some petty ego bossing you around',
rather, it's someone communicating the group needs that they are very
legitimately authorized to do, and it's your job to understand and execute
well. It's your team's responsibility to act in kind. Sometimes you're
leading, sometimes you're following, you may go up and down in power depending
on the situation, everyone is just 'playing a role on the team'. Obviously,
most things in the military are done on an operational, time-constrained
basis, and in the field, it's not academic, it's execution-oriented.

So if your 'Michael Jordan' boss was getting intense, there probably was a
very legit reason. "Hey, listen up, there is a company-sized group of Taliban
on patrol less than 1km away fro this waterworks we are building, so we need
to A, B, and C and don't f* it up". It doesn't seem so 'a&&holish' in that
context.

So in a 'very legitimately authoritative, time-constrained environment with
very high stakes' people learn to communicate fairly plainly and effectively,
which means there are no expectations of coddling or need for emotional
empathy because that would an unprofessional expectation.

The 'yelling' might happen in basic training, but outside of that, it would
generally happen in scenarios where you might expect it to happen, and it's
not something that would upset most.

Finally, I would say that most in the service are absolutely not blind
automatons. While operationally, there tends not to be a lot of back and
forth, the focus really is on mission orientation, and always so much the
details. It's initially micromanaged, but once in the field, most commanders
have immense latitude and this implies a kind of 'out of the box' thinking one
might not expect. Even for the tiniest, smallest mission of 'taking a machine
bun position' \- no two approaches are even the same, they vary wildly and
success depends on the training and operational intelligence of the team. On a
bigger scale, your 'mission' may be to build a bridge by a certain time, at
this location so the 5th cavalry can cross a river and join the rearguard or
whatever. You'd actually have a tremendous degree in latitude in pulling that
off, and in some ways, the only thing that matters is that the bridge gets
built and all other things are kind of secondary. You may not have a 'long
strategic back and forth with your manager', but these are generally not the
types of conditions that call for this kind of communication.

In fact, depending on the circumstance, you would have more 'latitude' in
building that bridge than is maybe even comprehensible to most: you may have
to knock down buildings, power lines, infrastructure, you may have to call in
support, you may have to draw a lot of blood to get that thing built. All the
regular, civil aspects of our lives, things like 'driving down the right side
of the road' or 'social rules about private property' go out the window, the
only thing remaining is the chain of command, the communications and the
mission.

Sorry for that long diatribe, but it's an interesting subject that depends
almost entirely on perspective, which is to say seeing the world through an
entirely different lens wherein different operating modes become more obvious.

~~~
mountainboot
This was a very interesting post and I liked a lot of it so I won't talk about
that part. You mention "This subject pains me the most, especially when I hear
civilians talking about service people in a negative light when they see
violence in particular". At least in the US, it is taboo in most circles to
criticize soldiers. All the people I have met who have served in the military,
including my brother in law, are extremely kind, selfless people. But there
are also soldiers who commit war crimes. We need to be more open talking about
the military and the use of violence, not less.

~~~
jariel
Yes, the people in the forces vary as much as any group no doubt.

The thing that 'pains me' \- is that some groups of people simply cannot
comprehend the notion of 'duty'. They have an inner cynicism that is so deep,
that they cannot believe the notion of 'True Boy Scout'. It's not possible in
their worldview.

I'm not referring to civilians legitimately concerned about 'war crimes', I
mean to say, civilians who think that 'soldering = murdering' and that's it,
i.e. the 'only people who sign up must just want to be killers' or something
along those lines.

The 'excessive violence' problem - which will happen - this is altogether
another thorny issue. There, it's much more understandable that civilians have
a hard time grasping how 'someone was killed' and that it's not outright
murder, that the situation is more nuanced when you put 19-year olds with guns
1/2 across the planet and ask them to do hard things.

I respect Michael Jordan's style and am willing to give him the benefit of the
doubt from what I saw. He was a hyper-exceptional pushing hyper-exceptionals,
who probably saw himself as the center of the universe ... but I don't see
arbitrary or demeaning behavior, rather, a hyper-competitive attitude.

It takes a different worldview I think to see how his behavior is within the
range of normal.

------
jhwang5
In this thread. Bunch of people who haven't won anything criticizing the
methods of the greatest winner.

------
jacknews
This seems quite wishy-washy to me.

Excellence and leadership requires strength, and determination, no doubt about
it.

But do you then ruthlessly impose those values on everyone else, or help them
get there?

To me, that's the difference between a leader and an ahole.

~~~
slantyyz
I think the tolerance of the a-hole also depends on whether that a-hole is a
unicorn.

MJ, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk etc. They're not everyday a-holes. These
guys are/were arguably at the top of their game during the peak of their
a-holery, so to speak.

The acceptance of their a-holery is going to be much broader than it is for
some random wannabe who thinks they are greater than they really are.

It might be important to note that with the exception of Musk, the examples I
used came up in a different time, and the tolerance for some of their
behaviour would be much lower today.

~~~
paulryanrogers
Consider also survivor bias, luck, and the privilege these may have been born
into.

------
redis_mlc
I read the article and the HN posts, but they all miss the point, calling it
the "Great Asshole Fallacy" is incorrect.

One of Jordan's coaches said in an interview, "[What most people don't
understand about Jordan is that he isn't there to play, he's there to win.]"

Meaning the game of basketball wasn't important, winning was important.

Tiger Woods said the same thing in an interview, "if I can't win, I won't
play,' he said. 'I simply couldn't stand it and I will walk away when I can no
longer play at the highest level."

Winners are there to win, not to enjoy the game. So in that respect they have
no problem acting or being perceived as assholes, since winning is all that
matters.

If you pay attention to the media, you'll see that most champions don't just
play and hope to excel, they are driven to win, regardless of their sport.
Often they'll say, "I wanted to go out at the top."

(I'll let the hard-core sports fans research the Jordan quote and fill in the
verbatim version.)

[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/golf/article-1097074/If-I-...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/golf/article-1097074/If-I-8217-t-win-
I-won-8217-t-play-says-Woods-superstar-eyes-New-Years-comeback.html)

------
switch11
Felix Dennis in his book has a quote related to committing to becoming rich

The people who suffer most are the ones closest to you

It's meant for family and friends

It also applies to an extent to your work colleagues

If you pursue excellence, people around you are going to get pulled along with
you

Some of them will think you are a dick or a jerk or an asshole

 __ __ __

You can 't be nice to everyone

Even if you are, a fraction of people will still think you're a dick

 __ __ __ __ __ __

Now take that same person and give them success

People suddenly have TWO reasons to think they are a dick

A) They are more focused than you

B) They are more successful than you

 __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __*

I don't ever see people complaining about someone they are more successful
than, but almost always about people who did better than them

~~~
cafard
I think that you may lead a sheltered life. Arrogance is by no means always
accompanied by performance.

------
jerf
I think this is the mechanism: Let us hypothesize the nicest possible person
who is willing to do what it takes to be great. Unfailingly polite. Gracious
with the money. Helps out those less fortunate as much as is possible under
the constraints of doing what it takes to be great. An inspiration and a role
model. By definition, by any sensible definition of the term, if you knew this
person well you would agree they are as far from an asshole as it is possible
to be.

There is a non-zero set of people in this person's life who will necessarily
decide this person is an asshole anyhow. In the early days, you invite this
person to social events, and they decline because they're practicing. Maybe
someone's even crushing on this person and consistently asks them out and
consistently gets declined. However polite they are in declining, there's one
person who is going to decide they're an asshole. Whoever it is in second
place on the team, who under normal circumstances would talented enough to be
the star player on the team but is getting shown up by the fact they're on a
team with Michael freakin' Jordan... they're likely to harbor opinions of
assholery, because if we humans are good at anything, it's rationalizing our
pre-existing beliefs and finding reasons why we're right.

When professional and financial success is obtained in later years, people who
want a piece of it but are denied will decide this person is an asshole. A
coach who tries to control this person to take credit for their fame but is
rebuffed because what the coach is saying to do is not what it takes to be
great will decide this guy is an asshole. The reporter who tries to weasel
their way in to hitch themselves to this rising star and asks for interviews
but gets rebuffed because it's not what is necessary to become great may do a
hit piece around convincing everyone they're an asshole.

And so forth and so on.

On the Internet, if you simply express a strong opinion, of any kind, no
matter how politely, some subset of people will take as proof you're an
asshole. If someone posts disagreement and you decline to instantly and
totally agree with that person, a somewhat larger group of people will decide
you're an asshole.

The upshot is that there's two different kinds of assholery; actually being a
jerk, in as objective a sense as possible, and people who will decide you're
being an asshole because you've done things that are (again as objectively as
possible) not assholery, but because you are resisting doing what they want or
some other thing that is really entirely on them.

From where we sit at a distance, it is often difficult to borderline
impossible to tell which is which, or to tell the difference between a
genuinely nice guy and someone who got advised to hire a PR firm.

~~~
Dominisi
I agree with you here.

In a previous career, I was responsible for delivering timely and accurate
information to people who then went and put their lives on the line based off
of that information.

I was regarded as "brash" and an "asshole" because I would correct my
colleagues information as they were giving it to those individuals who were
going to put their life on the line.

I wasn't doing it to demean or belittle the people who I was correcting, I was
doing it because had those operators gone out with wrong information, it could
lead to their deaths. And I would much rather be thought of as an asshole than
quietly and kindly "talk" to my colleagues AFTER they had delivered bad
information and corrected them in private.

------
ak39
I think the writer is correct: there is a meme out there that in order to be
great, a leader, a trailblazer etc you have to become inevitably the arsehole.
So much so, that arseholism is not just tolerated but celebrated.

I wonder why the author did not feel persuaded to mention our current poster
child of arseholism, the quintessential kind: Donald Trump.

Here's a good video essay on the same subject by a filmmaker, Max Joseph:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRRvjZ_XNog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRRvjZ_XNog)

~~~
draw_down
I don’t understand this as an argument _against_ being an asshole. Watch out,
you might become the president or one of the greatest athletes in history!

I find this stuff very suspect to begin with. Sure we can all grew Trump is an
asshole, but in smaller scope, what really matters is who gets to decide who
is an asshole. That’s the whole game.

------
JabavuAdams
Fair enough, but I think it misses the more important point. If we cancel all
the assholes, or demand that they be well-rounded people, we will lose some of
our highest performers.

Most assholes are not great. Many greats are not assholes. Some of the
greatest were assholes.

~~~
ken
There’s an alternate universe where no assholes are allowed to progress, and
someone is saying “If we let people be assholes, think of what great things
they could accomplish”. And another (like the Evil Star Trek universe) where
everyone is a gigantic asshole, and someone is saying “If we weren’t such
assholes all the time, maybe we could still accomplish good things, and not
hate each other”.

Is there anything special about the level of asshood we’re willing to put up
with? Is this some kind of global maximum?

AFAICT, it’s merely a local maximum of “as big of an asshole as you can be
without the general public realizing that you’re an asshole“. Maybe we should
aspire to be better, and ask more of our leaders. That’s a pretty low bar.

~~~
Nasrudith
Really I think the issue is partially a matter of control and subset
constraints. First off if you filter for something goddamn rare in the first
place you are far more likely to squander it no matter how good or bad tbe
criteria.

Of course one thing nobody recognizes about canceling the assholes is tbat the
ability for society to control itself means being worse off. There is now an
additional axis for manipulation by to take out tall poppies deservedly or not
social manipulators will abuse it no matter how pure or reasonable the
original motive or metric may be. Or even just natural culture turnint against
those not fitting with the toxic norms. And the extreme successes are always
outside the norm by definition. Not saying to excuse everything but to have a
sense of proportion for the offenses and that society doesn't know jack shit
about how to regulate itself historically - its attempts to do so have a track
record of causing far more harm than good. "That Semelweiss guy is an asshole
saying surgeons should wash their hands! A gentleman's hands are always
clean!"

------
Sophistifunk
Jobs wasn't great at what he did because he was an asshole, it's just he was
allowed to be an asshole because he was great at what he did. A lot of people
seem to have these things around the wrong way.

------
jtsuken
This is a very anti-postmodernist post, where neither the author nor the
commenters realise that their most insightful thoughts on the topic are
literal quotes from "Crime and Punishment".

------
tech-historian
It boils down to a real challenge in leadership. How to be demanding without
being demeaning? For some, this is straightforward, but for others, it's
nearly impossible.

------
shadowgovt
There's a lot to be said of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's quote about ships and
the love of the sea. Great leaders can find a way to communicate that. It can
be a challenge finding the balance between being driven (and driving a team)
and being an asshole; you have to remember that people can't love the work if
they're starved for something else.

(For my money, personally, the highest praise I can hear of a team leader is
"That person doesn't ask more of the team than they demand of themselves, but
also, be warned that person does not sleep.")

------
joe_the_user
Random website demands Google or Facebook sign-in?

Goes with the topic I suppose...

------
brudgers
Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole...or so I’ve heard.

------
motohagiography
Worth noting this is written by a very successful venture capitalist, with a
firm that is the product of one of the fastest growing companies ever. It's
not a reason to believe him one way or another, but when he writes, "That’s
what i think of when I think of leadership. Someone who is malleable enough to
both know and to react to the different needs of different people on their
team," I'd posit it's pretty clear he's talking his own book.

I do not know the author, and taking shots at him on an internet forum is
small, but as a general principle, Jeffery Pfeffer talks about this
retroactive continuity of virtue in success stories in his books. Everyone
wants to think their luck made them good. Riding growth up to the top is a
different set of skills than setting off the chain reaction that creates the
energy behind it. In fact, malleability is precisely what you need to ride
growth, but I'd argue you need a force of will to be the one to create it.
That carries asshole-risk.

The stories successful people tell about how they became successful are almost
exclusively about how virtuous they were, and how their path was noble. A
critical view of success and its factors is very much the "loser's" view, as
telling it from outside means you don't have it, but it still has some value
because the one told from inside is not the one that will get you there. They
aren't in the business of building (ungated) ladders behind them. The story
successful people don't tell is the one where they leveraged someones trust,
scandalizing, discrediting, and isolating someone who lacked their mendacity,
or put people who trusted them at more personal risk than they may have
perceived.

Nobody likes an asshole, and it's a good thing to build things that select
against them, but the definition has to be better than what the losers just
call the person they lose to, or as a foil for back-fitting a story of skill
and virtue onto some really grisly work and luck.

It's like Ray Dalio saying he's a billionaire because of transcendental
meditation. If that sentence causes your middle finger to involuntarily leap
into the air, you can appreciate how these other auto-hagiographies are
received.

Anyway, not to take pot shots from the cheap seats, but it's better to be
suspicious of free advice that tells you to be nice. Not because being nice is
wrong, but because when someone gives it to you free, it is probably worth
more to them than you.

------
loudtieblahblah
Assholes shake up hive minds

Hive minds create cohesion and work better as teams..but they squash
excellence.

Both are needed

~~~
danaris
This logic doesn't hold up, because there's something very important missing:

Sure, assholes _can_ sometimes shake up hive minds. But it doesn't _require_
an asshole to shake up a hive mind and bring excellence.

What it requires...is a leader. Like the article says, someone who can
recognize what each person or group actually needs to be brought to
excellence, which is _not always an asshole_.

~~~
loudtieblahblah
the problem with the whole leader thing is often the institution and the
culture of a given organization (government, corporate, sports, religious,
etc..) will often avoid putting leaders into place that are like that purely
to preserve things the way they are. People prefer a lack of disruption.

An asshole.. usually just kinda ends up there and elbows people out of the
way. An asshole exists regardless of the organizational culture or the
institutional pressures.

Whereas you have to sit around and wait for said organization to bless you
with such a leader at their discretion.

------
sub7
This idiot has clearly never built anything in his life.

Blogger -> VC blogger.

------
classified
Yikes, it's a Medium site, but disguised. Had I known that, I would not have
clicked that link. With a little bit of imagination that could be interpreted
as a practical demonstration of assholery.

------
fleddr
Those that do try to apply this asshole logic outside this highly specific
context, make 2 very painful mistakes.

One, whatever you do, isn't memorable, and has no glory. 90s Chicago Bulls
took the world by storm. Jordan is perceived as one of the greatest athletes
ever. Him being that asshole may very well have secured multiple
championships. Which is a big thing, something millions of people care about
and still talk about decades later.

Not so much for your soulless corp few even know exists at all. Nobody cares
about your performance but yourself. There is no glory to pushing people to
the very edge, therefore it's not worth it or justifiable. In business, people
shouldn't be expected to deliver super human effort or endure this behavior.

The situations just don't compare.

Two, you're not Jordan. And not Jobs. Nor will you become one by being an
asshole. A handful of people have the character, vision and skill to touch,
change and inspire the world, and you're not it. Not even close.

------
alexashka
Another article from someone who hasn't accomplished anything, talking about
how he/she is _worried_ that somebody is going to _maybe_ misinterpret
_something_ someone else said...

Quality content folks.

There is no fallacy - if you want to work as much as Jordan or Steve Jobs did,
you've gotta be a lunatic to begin with. Why would you expect a lunatic to
_not_ be eccentric, in most cases?

One of the ways a lunatic can be eccentric is being an asshole - media _loves_
to blow them out of proportion. Another way a lunatic can be eccentric is
being extra quiet and extra nice aka Steve Wozniak. It's hard to write blog
posts and get clicks about how nice Steve Wozniak is, people love drama far
more than they love _nice_.

So what do we have, writers _creating_ a myth of these tyrants where in
reality they are just eccentric most of the time, and then other pathetic
writers _writing about_ what another set of writers has created.

Pathetic - journalists are largely such low life, talentless scum, oh well, at
least they're _nice_ , oh wait, or are they, with all the misquotes and poorly
researched trash they publish on a daily basis, is that _nice_?

