Most of the people you put in there are not mean. In fact they appear very open and friendly. Which is of course the personality type business rewards : superfi

Most of the people you put in there are not mean. In fact they appear very open and friendly. Which is of course the personality type business rewards : superficial openness, fun and friendliness, but always ready to knife you in the back if the numbers say it should be done, without any delay. There's one other attribute they all have : they're programmers (except Marcus Pincus, Travis Kalanic of Uber was a coder). They technically know what they're doing, or asking others to do, a trait I've found incredibly rare in the corporate world. It seems pg simply left something out of his essay : successful people are not mean outward, yet bastards who fuck over everyone who deals with them, or at the very least, they were willing to abandon anyone and take away all support at the drop of a hat. (So were, to be honest, those famous scientists from hundreds of years ago. You should read more about them) Here's another correction to be made in pg's essay : > It seems quite likely that most successful drug lords are mean. Not at all. They're open, approachable, they laugh and make you feel good. They will help you out at the mere asking. And then, suddenly, they'll make working for them a condition of the relationship. I mean, I've only ever met one, and didn't realize it, but still. There's another archetype personality he seems to be describing : > Why? I think there are several reasons. One is that being mean makes you stupid. Here he points out that most people, in fights, lose control of their calculating nature. That's true. > Another reason mean founders lose is that they can't get the best people to work for them. This is not niceness as such, but merely niceness as observed by others, in casual settings (ie. not long-term). > The startup founders who end up richest are not the ones driven by money. This is a very important attribute. So let's see what we know about our startup founders : 1) There is a large difference between outward appearance and inner feelings/thoughts. Outwardly, they are attractive, nice and helpful. 2) They are able to keep control, and maintain composure and execute plans in the face of high emotions. 3) As the parent poster pointed out, they will backstab others, but only to great effect. This mostly means that they are able to plan conflicts ahead of time (when you see this, it's because they cause the conflicts), others don't see them coming (probably because getting into a conflict with them is impossible unless they plan it), and they nearly always win (they don't just plan, they plan well). 4) They are driven by some sort of external impulse that is not money, nor related things like family and the like, but some sort of abstract goal ("improve the world" but applied to a specific field. So their goal is to, make the products with the best UI, or make the best business software, or ...)