I don't entirely agree with him. For the startups with big ideas, I can definitely see why they won't work with mean / ruthless people in them, as it is often a shared goal that drives the company. But for your everyday business or company, it seems to me that they succeed by dominating a market, by gaming the economic market they're in.
I have to agree with it. I know a number of successful business owners and all of them are nice people. They will be pretty ruthless, when and only when the situation calls for it, but otherwise, they're very kind. In my day to day job I deal with CEO's and owners of businesses daily and you can almost immediately tell the most successful of them based on their demeanor. The most successful are kind, but direct and are always interested in learning more. If they feel you have nothing to teach/offer them, they'll not suffer you, but if you DO have something to offer them, they'll welcome you in with open arms. I always say that there are two types of business people: 1. Those that want to see how much money they can save 2. Those that want to see how much money they can make. The savers don't do as well, they're far more risk adverse. They tend to be the "mean" ones. The "makers?".... they're awesome.
Re: ruthless: I think this comment bears consideration within the context of a point I made. Mean people may not be mean all the time. What kind of ruthlessness are we talking? Is it the kind that, for instance, could cause competitors to lose jobs? Causing someone to lose their sustenance is pretty mean. I think we are kind of fibbing if we say it is not. We also can't say that such an act "isn't meant/intentioned" that way, either - a savvy business owner is aware his actions may harm competition and should be generally aware of how and how much, to boot. Someone is mean depending on who you are to them: the bug, the car, the windshield. Someone may only be mean to you once but sometimes once is devastating - loss of a job or, if you're the bug, your life. I feel like the very separation and defining of people as belonging to one of two discrete, disparate, opposing entities is problematic for me in regards to this article. You either are mean or you aren't. But who do you know that exists as such a caricature? Not-mean and successful or mean and a failure? Sometimes, I think, we are all mean, or can be, or have been. Maybe what keeps us from being more mean than we are (individually and on average) is not much more than a matter of luck: a few inches there or a few seconds here. Narrowly missing being t-boned at an intersection and left in chronic pain for the rest of your life. Happening to run into a rich investor and catching his ear at the supermarket. A drunk driver damaging your car, your house, or your family. That teacher in undergrad who should have failed you based on attendance but didn't. The friend who loaned you $500 to pay your bills once and never let you pay it back. Some of these life experiences make it easier to be nice. Some make it harder. If you live a blessed existence full of mostly the one it is easy to be nice - but is it true? How true? If you are not nice when push comes to shove then are you nice at all? When push comes to shove is being nice really the best thing for you to do?
It all hinges on the definition of "mean." Much of capitalism is zero-sum. You can't get ahead without putting someone else behind in many, many cases. Choosing to feed your babies instead of your competitor's babies isn't "mean" it's practical and I don't think anyone can really begrudge it. But to be "mean" is to be unnecessarily cruel. Amazon crushes competition in mean-spirited ways. This is Jeff Bezos being mean. And he'll win. There's a pettiness to being "mean", not a thoughtlessness but a malevolent thoughtfulness. To be mean is to go out of your way to fuck with the other guy. And that ethos is rampant in Silicon Valley.
Choosing to feed your babies instead of your competitor's babies isn't "mean" it's practical and I don't think anyone can really begrudge it.
Exactly. Most of the time, there is a determined market size and it's the function of the "business" to grab enough of that market to "feed their babies." I suppose you could classify it as mean when you start taking market share for the sake of being #1 with little consideration for your competition. There are many businesses that will sacrifice margin for market, meaning they get nothing to feed any additional babies, but definitely take food out of their competitors baby's mouths. This is bad news for all the babies ultimately. Think Walmart, or Restaurant Depot. Lots of malnourished babies as a result. end baby metaphor now
But lots of consideration for your annual shareholders' meeting, maybe? So we have established that there can be and are general true villains, and those are people who are mean consistently (most of the time). unnecessarily (they don't have something to lose), and publicly (they don't care who sees it). (OK, so the first and last qualifier are mine but I did extrapolate them from kb's response.) Basically, we're talking about bullies. Walmart's a bully. Amazon's a bully. And yeah, they make their own workers suffer for their success. Maybe I imagine they are so separated from their employees by their mountains of wealth that their meanness is not fully comprehensible to them, but kb says: deliberation. Petty deliberation. Inexplicable, petty deliberation to pull down those around you and use their backs to climb (or whatever - just step on them - so long as it hurts them and doesn't hurt you!). While I believe that inter-personally these individuals surely will suffer in the long run, I don't believe that the business world, the market, or the start-up industry will balance it out on them. I almost believe the market rewards such behavior. And still, I have to repeat myself: if any of these mean start-up founders are smart, they will only be mean to those they can afford to be mean to. That may not include other start-up founders at networking events and conferences and so on, as they're trying to establish their company and their base. I think it can be just as mean to put on a false face and manipulate those around you to your benefit as it can be to - oh, I don't know - (it would help if the author of this article did ANY work defining or illustrating his own point so we didn't have to, but oh well, the conversation is interesting) - be blatantly obvious about the fact that you want everyone around you to suffer, or whatever. I have a big problem with the author's premise that meanness = stupidity. Are dumb people therefore more likely to be mean? Are intelligent people more likely to be nice? That seems like a kind of rude assumption to be honest. It discounts entire, subtle methods of mean-ness: manipulation, social charm/charisma/influence, power plays, turning friends against a target, getting people in your debt and then using it (and their own nice-ness) against them. I guess my problem with the whole article is that it is very black-and-white and simplified and willfully denies subtleties. We all have to be mean sometimes and you know what? It's not always a bad thing to be mean, either. If we were nice all the time we would be other people's doormats and ATMs. Saying "mean people fail" denies the mean-ness inherent in yourself (so long as you think you are succeeding). It is possible to teach your children to be too nice. (I find it almost impossible to say no to a stranger asking me for a favor, so long as it's not money, and twice now I've handed over my phone to one - that's stupid! That's nice being stupid! I need to be meaner to these people, or get better at running!) The man's an idealist and let's respect him for his commitment to good and idealism, but one day something horrible will happen to him and he'll think the universe was out to destroy him instead of taking his knocks for what they are. He'll feel victimized by the random awful things that will happen to him, as they do to most any person. Because he didn't deserve them. Because he was nice. But being nice, or not being mean, doesn't entitle you to much in this universe besides a few friends who respect and cherish and love you for your qualities (and I hope "nice"ness isn't the only one). That's not what the author seems to think though. He definitely is going off the idea that if you are nice, you will succeed in life and get everything you deserve. Your business won't fail. You won't fail. As long as he's nice, he won't fail. Can't always succeed at everything though. Gotta accept that fact. Might not like it but gotta know it. (I may refuse to play Apples to Apples but I admit it's because I'm bad at it.) Certainly, there's no scale up in the sky that tracks any kind of cosmic balance. You won't succeed at life, or in your start-up, by simply being nice at it. Rambling, enjoying the thoughts. Sorry dudes. Looooooong.you start taking market share for the sake of being #1 with little consideration for your competition
I get the feeling that Paul Graham of all people should know what he's talking about when it comes to businesses and startups, but it seems like we're all pointing out how he doesn't. I certainly wish what he was saying was true. The man's an idealist and let's respect him for his commitment to good and idealism, but one day something horrible will happen to him and he'll think the universe was out to destroy him instead of taking his knocks for what they are. He'll feel victimized by the random awful things that will happen to him, as they do to most any person. Because he didn't deserve them. Because he was nice. But being nice, or not being mean, doesn't entitle you to much in this universe besides a few friends who respect and cherish and love you for your qualities (and I hope "nice"ness isn't the only one). That's not what the author seems to think though. He definitely is going off the idea that if you are nice, you will succeed in life and get everything you deserve. Your business won't fail. You won't fail. As long as he's nice, he won't fail.