Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

This is a great article. It's a terrific opportunity for introspection.

I do however want to point out that some of these may be less about being an insufferably relentless jerk than other pieces.

> He is late to meetings, ... then looks at his phone or laptop while ignoring everyone around him

This is also a pretty common indicator for ADHD. Not to say that excuses being a "jerk", but there are people out there that have a fundamentally difficult time tracking and arriving at meetings properly, and it's not always easy to account for. It also goes hand in hand with a few other related issues here. It's also somewhat common in the world of software.

I have some semblance of issue arriving at meetings properly, and it takes sincere effort to correct for it. When I started my career (admittedly, not so long ago) I definitely displayed more pieces of what is described as brilliant jerk than I would like to have (though certainly nothing like gaslighting and exploitation of others around me - more those things in line with adhd).

On the other hand, I spent 3 years working especially hard on self improvement here, and I certainly appreciate the patience of those around me in helping me realize my failures. It took me a year of effort to really avoid interrupting others while talking - not as a matter of being a jerk, but simply because my mind gets lost in conversation and feels the need to begin talking with less cognizance than I wish I had that others were speaking. These days, I am quick to apologize upon realizing I've interrupted, and ask the speaker to continue. That's strictly worse than never interrupting, but it both publicly acknowledges that I know this is a problem for me in conversation, and helps move forward.

The best thing for some people who have some of these issues is to give them honest, direct, and proactive feedback regarding it. They may well have no idea the ways in which they're impacting those around them, and they may well be surprisingly proactive in self-improvement upon being spoken to.

It's non-proactivity in self-improvement that you should be far less accepting of, ADHD or not.

Why should everything be terrible forever?

The article is talking about people who are systematically bad for organizations, not people who have a bad day sometimes.

I don't particularly like HTWFAIP so please don't take this is a canonical reply, but I never read it as an outright prohibition on debate. Rather, it seems to argue that you can disagree but that an effective leader should keep a disagreement from becoming an outright argument.

It sounds like a silly distinction, but what if you and I disagree about something. I have two choices. I could:

A.) Get incredibly defensive when you disagree, interrupt you constantly, lose my temper and flat out refuse to listen to your ideas.

B.) Thank you for disagreeing because we're all on the same team and want to avoid mistakes. Then I'd listen to everything you have to say and work hard to find areas where we agree. And, after I understand your argument, I point out all the areas where you are correct (and especially areas where I am wrong).

I'd argue that it's more about learning to disagree respectfully and tamper all the impulses to get defensive and turn it into a series of personal attacks.

Same here, but I'm afraid that might just put me in to the jerk category myself.

This doesn't pass the Torvald test. i.e. Would your startup hire Linus if he hadn't yet created linux and git?