This is the first PG essay that I really strongly disagreed with upon reading. I don't think that anyone should aspire to being mean, but PG's arguments seem w

This is the first PG essay that I really strongly disagreed with upon reading. I don't think that anyone should aspire to being mean, but PG's arguments seem way off the mark. PG doesn't stop to define "mean", and from reading his essay, I infer that PG's "mean person" is someone who is insensitive to the feelings of others, abrasive, irascible, and who tends to turn disagreements into knock-down-drag-out-pick-a-side confrontations. I find it odd that PG thinks that people like this don't succeed, because I know quite a few people both within and outside of SV who fit this description to a T and are professionally successful. In fact, some (certainly not all) people who meet this description are GREAT PEOPLE. They're ornery and they don't suffer fools gladly; you're rolling the dice if you take them to a restaurant because they refuse to play the "I'm not going to say anything about the shitty service because I don't want to make a scene" game. That said, they're the first people you call when you need help with something serious, and they have your back even if doing so makes them lose social status. It's especially odd that PG wrote this because in one of his most famous essays [1], he recommends that you only hire "animals" as early employees. When I do a quick mental inventory of the animals I know, the majority of them have a bit of a mean streak. I would be in strong agreement with PG's essay if he defined "mean people" as those who derive pleasure or self-worth in putting down others. Those people are terrible, especially when they use passive-aggressive, plausibly deniable tactics to make other people feel bad. If there's one thing I've learned so far it's to break contact if I catch a whiff of that kind of toxic BS. Give me a productive mean person with a heart of gold over a tactful, toxic politician any day of the week. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html