3 ms·

You can be forceful without being an asshole about it.

• tomohawk 8y ago
  Sure, but can you be successful in the context in which he was successful? He succeeded against all odds, and has done something great. He's no saint, but none of us are. Like it or not, who he was was instrumental in this success. The parts you admire and the parts you disagree with.
• sonnyblarney 8y ago
  In reality, being 'forceful' will almost always be perceived as being kind of an asshole. BUT - there's a world of difference between being 'forceful perceived as jerk' and 'demeaning and needlessly insulting or derogatory'. Never a reason to put people down. In Linus' 2008 speech at Google talking about Git, he said he created it partly to avoid politics - he can just have people copy his stuff into their own repo and go off yonder and not have to deal with them.