
Why it pays to be a jerk (2011) - damian2000
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/business-strategy/larry-ellison-why-it-pays-to-be-a-jerk/
======
rauljara
> Accounts of former Oracle employees paint a picture of a boss with an
> infectious energy, and a propensity to elevate his charges to incredible
> heights only to dump them later. As one journalist put it, “He’s like a
> juicer, he squeezes people dry and then discards them.”

> Ellison, who before the crash, was known to brag about playing tennis on
> company time, and was so seldom at the office that, when he was spotted,
> employees joked about “Elvis sightings,”

It sounds like he got good employees to run his company and then treated them
like shit. It's the sort of behavior that can work well for a few ceo's if
only a few of them do it. But if every ceo were to behave like that, the pool
of experienced employees out there would be nothing but bitter, cynical dried
up husks who had sworn to themselves never to get exploited like that again.

This isn't a fair comparison to Mr. Ellison, but imagine if you will, an
article in praise of a mob boss. "Well, he was horrible and he murdered
people, but he made a lot of money." And it's true, mob bosses can accumulate
great wealth. But mob bosses can only thrive two conditions are met: 1) there
are people who don't engage in those behaviors for them to exploit. 2) society
doesn't fight back effectively against their bull shit.

So, no I don't think Ellison is the equivalent of a mobster. But I do wonder
why so many people put up with that sort of bull shit.

~~~
cma
Most shareholders of most companies are absentee landlords too; what's the
difference other than ostenibly being CEO on top of owner?

~~~
gjm11
That _is_ the difference. A CEO, unlike "most shareholders", is being paid to
run the company. S/he is supposed to be an executive: one who executes: one
who _does things_. A CEO who's never at the office is anomalous in a way that
a shareholder who's never at the office isn't.

(Quite separately from the Larry Ellison question, it's worth observing that
_working_ and _being at the office_ are entirely different matters. A hard-
working CEO might spend most of his or her time sat at home thinking deep
strategic thoughts, or touring around potential investors or customers trying
to understand and/or impress them, or something. So a CEO who's seldom at the
office isn't necessarily slacking off. Again, I am not claiming that this
observation has any particular applicability to Larry Ellison.)

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yawz
_> his office is plastered with Japanese art, certainly compounds his image as
a wannabe Mongol warlord_

Japanese art to Mongol warlord! What a conclusion!!! This makes as much sense
as saying he has an Eiffel Tower poster so he'd like to live in Greece.

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Hermel
Being a jerk is not the success factor here. Without actual competence,
Ellison would not have gotten far. It's being right and being a jerk in
combination which is so powerful.

"he read a paper published by IBM, which outlined a way to make it easier to
store and retrieve data — a prototype for the first relational database. 'I
saw the paper, and thought that, on the basis of this research, we could build
a commercial system.'”

~~~
dave_sullivan
That jumped out at me because I thought Bob Miner brought the paper and its
potential ramifications to Ellison's attention. Ellison doesn't strike me as
the kind of guy that sits around reading papers out of IBM research. Can
anyone confirm one way or another? I'm pretty sure it's _technically_ true,
but also a good example of how he lies.

~~~
beachstartup
From wikipedia: It was at this time that Ed Oates[4] introduced Miner and
Ellison to a paper by E. F. Codd on the relational model for database
management.

yet the PDF it references says ellison did it. i think this is one of those
things that will always be up for debate, as everyone is going to have a
slightly different recollection of it. it doesn't matter though - no question
that IBM wrote it, but oracle as a _company_ decided to pursue it, meaning
that everyone was on board.

the book "the difference between god and larry ellison" goes into a lot of
this detail. it was basically 3 or 4 guys doing intense technical work for
several years, including larry ellison.

in my opinion the book paints him as a fair businessman with a knack for over-
the-top personal behavior. i don't remember it saying he ever tried to screw
over his cofounders or run-of-the-mill employees.

also, i don't think i've ever read him claim that he invented databases or had
the initial idea to commercialize ibm's ideas. that's something that the media
projects onto him since he's such a celebrity compared to his co-founders.

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spindritf
_The incredible success that he has enjoyed is a marvel to anyone familiar
with the accepted literature on what it takes to make a great leader,
qualities like empathy, mediation skills and humility. ..._

 _“It’s very unpopular to say in today’s world, where we have these Kumbaya
theories of leadership,” says Pfeffer, “but it actually doesn’t work well.”_

Exactly. The lesson here is that many management books contain mainly
"leadership fantasies."[1] More from Pfeffer at the link.

[1] [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2014/03/leadership-
fantasies.h...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2014/03/leadership-
fantasies.html)

~~~
3pt14159
Being an asshole doesn't work with knowledge workers. It might for sweatshops
and farm hands, but I've worked for a CEO that acted as an asshole while on
the job. I was another C level.

When I left so did half the company because everyone knew he was being
unreasonable and too much of a bully.

~~~
DanBC
Sweatshop workers know very well how to subtly sabotage production for bad
bosses.

Machines break more often, materials go missing, tools are misused or stolen,
drawings are creatively interpreted, electricity supplies are disrupted, tea
breaks take a bit longer.

People might be at their bench on time, and might look like they're starting
work, but they will be doing more "preparation" at the start of the day and
more "clean down" at the end of the day.

And once it starts with a couple of people it's hard to stop, especially with
bad bosses.

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thegeomaster
I'll take the risk of sounding like an overly-idealistic idiot, but if I could
choose between billions of dollars and staying an effing human being, I'd
probably choose the latter.

~~~
sremani
Being truthful and honest without sugar-coating is the fastest way to be
called an asshole. I am not saying LE and SJ are that type, but in general -
Assholes are the ones with less or no unnecessary nicety filters.

~~~
tormeh
You're assuming that everyone are assholes, and that nice people just put
filters on. Not true. And you should probably go see someone about that. Such
a world view doesn't come out of nothing.

Lots of people are really nice without any nicety filters.

~~~
AYBABTME
I think you're wrong, and you should go in therapy because I'm obviously
right.

~~~
tormeh
I am in therapy, so that's already covered. Any other ways in which you wanted
to be funny?

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waleedka
You don't succeed by being a jerk. But if you're a smart entrepreneur, you may
succeed despite being one.

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krapp
tl;dr - if you're rich and powerful enough, you can treat people like shit
without consequence.

~~~
cylinder
Sure, it's not called "fuck you money" for nothing.

~~~
mtVessel
Funny, I always think of it as money that enables you to tell mean people to
fuck off.

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spiritplumber
I'll agree and disagree. I have lost contracts to people who were willing to
flat out lie to customers about their products, but since I moved to the bay
area, I've also saved a life and got two people off drugs. That's what power
is, you know.

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chris_wot
"This is an industry in which basically growth has slowed to a crawl. The only
way … you as a company can make progress is by acquisitions."

What a load of bullshit. You can, I dunno, build products and services and
_compete_.

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chris_wot
Can't we find even ONE leader who isn't a sociopath?

~~~
dublinben
The Dalai Lama?

~~~
chris_wot
I wasn't thinking of that sort of Oracle.

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thom
Capitalism is the least bad system we've found of harnessing the efforts of
sociopaths like Larry Ellison in a somewhat productive way.

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ElComradio
Does he strike you as a happy and fulfilled person, like you would want to be
like him?

It's like with Jobs. No parent seriously wants their kids to turn out like
Steve. They may mean they wish their kids to be as influential or as
successful, but no wants to _be_ Steve Jobs.

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galuggus
The question is did he succeed in spite or because of this side of his
personality.

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nodata
The "A" in Oracle says that. I say selection bias.

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starik36
> Following the ousting of HP CEO Mark Hurd, [Ellison stated], ...HP board
> just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board
> fired Steve Jobs many years ago

I don't know about Ellison's personal traits, but his thinking is correct
here. Hurd was a great CEO - having brought in Palm - which could have been
something. Instead, they fired him, hired Leo Apotheker, who completely and
utterly mismanaged the company.

Say what you will about Ellison, but his instincts are right on the money.

~~~
ScottBurson
Apotheker was a disaster -- everybody agrees about that -- but Hurd had
serious problems too. He was all about cutting costs, with little product
vision. He gutted R&D and fed, rather than pruning, the HP bureaucracy.

Meg Whitman is a vast, vast improvement over both of them.

(HP employee here.)

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shmerl
It doesn't pay.

