Why are mean people doomed to failure?

Recently I was very surprised to find that the most successful people I know, the number of mean people is so small. Although there are exceptions, they are very few.

Being mean is not uncommon. In fact, one of the things that the Internet has shown us all along is how mean people can be. A few decades ago, only celebrities and professional writers could express their views, and now everyone can, so we can all see the original hidden, the public mean side.

Despite the fact that there are a lot of mean people, the most successful people I know are almost 0 mean. Why is it? is mean and success negatively correlated?

Part of the reason, of course, is sample selection bias. I only know people who work in certain areas: entrepreneurs, programmers, professors. I would also like to believe that successful people in other fields are mean, maybe some successful hedge fund managers are mean, I don't know much about it, and it's likely that most successful drug lords are mean. But at least in this world, a large part of it is hard to dominate, and the part seems to be expanding.

My wife, Jessica (co-founder of YC), is the rare person who has X-ray insight into human nature, and marries her as if she were standing next to the airport's baggage screening. After switching from investment banks to a world of entrepreneurship, she has been amazed at the consistency of two phenomena: successful entrepreneurs are always proven to be good people, and bad businesses often fail.

Why is it? I think there are a couple of reasons. One reason is that being mean makes you stupid, that's why I hate fights. Battles don't have enough universal meaning, so you can never do the best in your battles. Success always takes the environment and the person in it as the function of the argument.

In battle, you do not rely on the idea of great ideas, but on the idea of a trick that applies to a particular situation to win. And being in a fight and solving real problems requires just as much brain power, which is especially painful for some people who care about the efficiency of their brains: your brain spins fast but vain, like a car with wheels running.

Startups not by attacking others, but by surpassing to win. There are, of course, some exceptions, but the usual way to win is to push forward rather than stop and get caught up in the fight.

Another reason why a caustic founder will fail is that they can't make the best people work for them. They can hire people who can tolerate them, because they need a job, but the best people have other choices. A mean person cannot persuade the best employee to work for him unless it is super-good to be fooled. Having the best employees is helpful to any organization, but it is essential for startups.

There is also a factor in the work: if you want to have great achievements, it will help to be driven by the heart of kindness. The entrepreneurs who later become top-tier millionaires are not those driven by money.

Almost every successful start-up will receive a takeover offer on the way forward, and those who are driven by money will accept it, and those driven by other factors will move on. They may not be able to say it clearly, but they are usually trying to improve the world. In other words, people who want to improve the world have a natural advantage.

What's exciting is that the anti-correlation of caustic and success is not just a case of startups, it's a future trend.

In most of the historical process, success implies the control of scarce resources. People win by fighting, whether nomadic people drive hunters to barren land, or in the Gilded Age the financial giants struggle to form a monopoly on railways. For most of history, success means winning in the 0 and the game, where, in most cases, being mean is not a flaw but probably an advantage.

The situation is changing, and more and more important games are no longer zero-sum games. More and more, you are no longer managing scarce resources, but winning by creating new creations.

There is a long history that people can win through new ventures, and Archimedes did so in Third century BC, at least before an invading Roman soldier killed him. The story shows why this change is taking place: creativity needs to be cared for in a certain social order, just to avoid war is not enough. People need to feel a little: what they create won't be stolen.

For thinkers, they have always been creative, which is why this trend starts with them. When you look back on the history of successful but not callous people, you will think of mathematicians, writers and artists. The excitement is that the range seems to be widening. The non-zero-sum game between the Wise is also moving towards the real world, which is reversing the traditional relationship between caustic and successful.

So I'm glad I don't have to think about it. All along, Jessica and I have tried to teach our children not to be mean. We can tolerate noise, chaos and junk food, but we don't tolerate being mean. Now, I have a serious objection and a new support argument: Being a mean person will make you fail.

Source: Author Blog http://www.paulgraham.com

Why are mean people doomed to failure?