Being on the Internet just means you get to be honest, brutally honest, no polite formalities. It's a wonderful thing, really.
OTOH, working with people face to face means you must keep appearances, and you almost always cannot be brutally honest. Even if you claim your company has a culture where you can be honest about things, no one is actually going to be totally honest, that would be a mistake. And you can never know whether someone who seems 100% authentic and kind isn't going to go online and rip apart things he thinks are dumb/ act "mean."
I think his essay is really more about how successful people just know how to be diplomatic and hold back honest opinions.
I would however be interested for PG to write about whether he thinks selfish and overly narcissistic founders are successful or not. I haven't meant any "mean" people working professionally (with engineers at least), but selfish to the point where you feel like punching them I most certainly have met in the startup world.
OTOH, working with people face to face means you must keep appearances, and you almost always cannot be brutally honest. Even if you claim your company has a culture where you can be honest about things, no one is actually going to be totally honest, that would be a mistake. And you can never know whether someone who seems 100% authentic and kind isn't going to go online and rip apart things he thinks are dumb/ act "mean."
I think his essay is really more about how successful people just know how to be diplomatic and hold back honest opinions.
I would however be interested for PG to write about whether he thinks selfish and overly narcissistic founders are successful or not. I haven't meant any "mean" people working professionally (with engineers at least), but selfish to the point where you feel like punching them I most certainly have met in the startup world.