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Why is that a necessary quality for smartness? Amazon seems to be doing quite well in spite of it.

• polymatter 15y ago
  "Smartness" itself is a nebulous and subjective concept. But in my book, a smart boss can motivate you without repeated verbal abuse or destroying your self esteem. Of course you can still be a successful boss otherwise.
• j_baker 15y ago
  Just because you can be financially successful being an asshole doesn't make being an asshole ok. I think there's a subtle (but important) distinction. Smart people can get away with having poor people skills: accidentally offending people, putting their foot in their mouth, and forgetting about the human element in technology. That can be forgiven, and may even be an advantage. At the same time, there's a difference between having poor people skills and being an asshole: intentionally offending people, putting others down so you can get ahead, and willfully ignoring the human element make you an asshole. I think this often (but unfortunately not often enough) hurts people more than it helps. Bezos sounds like a bit of a grey area. However, I don't think you can make a decision on this based on the performance of amazon. He's certainly successful at what he does, but there are any number of people who have created success at too high a cost: demoralized people, broken laws, and ultimately a bigger burden is placed on society than the gain that made them successful.