4 ms·
Even if you're OK with assholes at work, there's a big difference between assholes who break the law for personal gratification (sexual harassment) vs. assholes
by greglindahl 9y ago
Even if you're OK with assholes at work, there's a big difference between assholes who break the law for personal gratification (sexual harassment) vs. assholes who are supposedly advancing business goals (setting overly-aggressive deadlines and overworking employees.)
You don't want the second kind because that's not how you build a sustainable business, but that's still quite different from risking your business so that some person can get personal sexual gratification.
- bwilliams18 9y agoYou don't want either kind. Both prevent you from building a sustainable business.
- emperorcezar 9y agoThat would be great if the point of a startup was to be a sustainable business.
- kareemsabri 9y agoThe former seems obviously true, but the latter not so much. Many ruthless leaders (Gates, Jobs to pull the two obvious tech titans) have built sustainable businesses using these practices. It may not jive with the current narrative around performance espoused by HBR, but I'm not aware of any data around this. Assuming "overworking employees" qualifies you as an asshole (not sure), it's not clear that a culture like that that pushes people to perform almost to their limit is not sustainable.