An entrepreneur with a bad character is a big deal.

Recently I have been thinking, as the saying goes, no rape, but why now the success of the few despicable? There are exceptions, of course, but very few.

A mean person is not a minority. In fact, it is the Internet that gives us a sense of how despicable one can be. In the past only celebrities and experts to grasp the public opinion, now the internet for everyone to spread the channel, we can see those who used to be hidden in the long tail of the despicable people and things.

Although there are many despicable people, but there are few winners, is it that meanness and success are mutually exclusive?

My judgment, perhaps, is due to the deviation of my perspective. Because I only know entrepreneurs, programmers, professors of these types of people. I'm pretty sure that the winners in other fields are mean, like I always think the hedge-fund managers are treacherous, but I don't know the area, so I can't make a judgment. For example, the big drug lords give people the feeling that the means is extremely cruel. But at least there is a large part of the world where despicable people will not succeed, and this part of the territory is expanding.

My wife, who is also the founder of YC, Jessica, who has the ability to penetrate other people's behaviour like an X-ray scan, marries her home as if she had married an airport security device. She went from investment banking to entrepreneurship, and she also noticed the same phenomenon:

A good entrepreneur always succeeds, and a man who has a bad character always fails.

What is this? I think there are several reasons for this. First, despicable behavior makes you stupid. That's why I hate competition. In the competition, you can't play to the best. Because the competition does not have the general, wins in the competition, needs to consider the geographical conditions, but also has the man-made factor. Success is often done not by better thinking, but by some trick that is applied in certain situations. It's just as hard to compete and solve real problems as it is for those who cherish their brain cells, it's a very painful thing to do, as if the wheels of a car are slipping, your brain is running fast but nothing really works.

Startups don't win by attacking rivals, they win by surpassing rivals. There are exceptions, of course, but the usual way for entrepreneurs to succeed is to run ahead rather than stop and fight against their opponents.

Another reason why entrepreneurs who play tricks fail is that they cannot recruit the best people to work for them. It is true that someone can tolerate working with them because they really need a job. But the best people have other choices. A mean man cannot persuade the best to work for him unless he is very persuasive. The quality of team members is critical to startups.

The third reason is that the spirit of benevolence is also a driving force for their advancement. If you want to do great things, driving you is usually a kind of benevolent spirit.

The richest entrepreneurs they want most are not money, and money-driven entrepreneurs often choose to sell their companies when they face high-priced acquisitions. Those who continue to adhere to the founders, they have a higher than the desire for money.

Although they may not always be on the tip of the tongue, they have been trying to improve the world. This means that the heart of benevolence is a natural advantage.

More exciting is that the character and success linked to the rules of the game, not just apply in the entrepreneurial field, a new future is coming.

In history, most of the success means controlling scarce resources, and getting it requires intense competition. The nomadic people through the invasion of food collectors to the barren land, Gilded age financiers through fierce competition to achieve a railway monopoly. In the past, if you want to succeed, you have to win 0 and the game (Zero-sum games), the other people's grab, into their own. In this case, meanness is not only a barrier to success, but an advantage.

But now the times have changed, no Life-and-death, success is no longer by robbing scarce resources, but through innovation and creativity.

In fact, the game of innovation-driven success has long existed. In the Third century BC, Archimedes ' rule of success was through constant innovation, at least before he was killed by the broken Roman soldiers. This also shows that innovation as the driving force of the social Survival Law, the need for social order to reach a certain level. It's not just that there's no war, it's about avoiding the economic violence between the giants of the 19th century, and creating a sense of security that my innovation won't be stolen at random.

Creativity has always been the rule of life for thinkers in the past, they are the people on the top of the wave. If you think back to the history of those who did not rely on brutal means to achieve success, you first think of mathematicians, authors and artists. Now, the intellectual rules of the game have begun to permeate the wider real world and are gradually reversing the historical rivalry between success and morality in the past. What an exciting time it is!

My wife and I have been educating our children to be a good person, we can endure the noise, crowded, junk food, but we can't endure despicable character. Now, when I teach my children, I have a more than one story: despicable people will not succeed!