It has to do with confidence. The nicest scientists are often very old, without anything to prove, and genuinely passionate about their subject.
Hotshots that are mid career have a bimodal distribution - there's some incredibly nice ones, and there are some sharks that enjoy pushing their students to the brink of exhaustion to crank out another paper so they can feel bigger than the person with the office next door.
The meanest people tend to be mean not out of malice or spite, but out of insecurity and a constant need to prove themselves.
If Napoleon was good at judging people, they are driven by 2 things only: greed and fear. The most successful people career wise have to be greed-driven, confident, and mentally strong. The meanest ones are typically fear-driven, insecure and mentally weak. My life lesson is to stay away from those driven too much by fear, who are usually losers in Darwin's game in the long term.
Hotshots that are mid career have a bimodal distribution - there's some incredibly nice ones, and there are some sharks that enjoy pushing their students to the brink of exhaustion to crank out another paper so they can feel bigger than the person with the office next door.
The meanest people tend to be mean not out of malice or spite, but out of insecurity and a constant need to prove themselves.