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Be More Unlikeable

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Re: Be More Unlikeable

#61

Post by snowwrestler »

It's astonishing to me that people believe that Steve Jobs was unlikeable or that Elon Musk is unlikeable.

These are people who have consistently been able to recruit, hire, and retain a lot of very high-performing people... the kind of people who can choose where to work. And as leaders, they have been liked and admired by the vast majority of their staff, and millions of customers and fans.

Furthermore these are people for whom being popular is incredibly important, and they have spent a tremendous amount of energy on it. Steve Jobs was famous for how much personal time he put into marketing, press relations, and his own personal brand. Same with Elon Musk, which is why he is so active on Twitter, for example.

Were they nice to every single person they ever met? No, and sure, that's good advice: don't feel like you need to suck up to everyone. But IMO that's very different from the idea that one should strive to be unlikeable.

PLENTY of people are unlikeable already, with not much to show for it. What made Steve Jobs and Elon Musk remarkable was that they were right so often, about complicated and important things. So: maybe we should instead strive to be more right about things that matter.

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#62

Post by rusabd »

> Humans evolved as social creatures and we crave attention from each other

this is not entirely true. Humans evolved to crave attention from their tribe or extended family. Since we don't have tribes anymore we try to please random people who do not care about us. The instinct to be likeable is a correct behavior from evolution point of view, but is bad in a modern society.

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#63

Post by _qulr »

Power differential is everything. Jobs and Musk founded companies. They were always the boss. The boss can afford to be belligerent. Can employees afford that?

Here's my question: Did Jobs and Musk allow their employees to berate them as much as they berated their employees? If so, then good for them! But I suspect not, in which case, they're just hypocrites and bullies. If some belligerence is required for success, who gets to succeed? Only the boss?

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#64

Post by adrianmonk »

Balance. As in most things.

Were you raised to have a pathologically strong need to be liked? Find it prevents you from speaking up when something needs to be said? Does your need to be liked control you?

Then you should probably fix that.

But not by going to the other extreme. The criterion for success shouldn't be whether you are ruffling feathers often enough. It should be whether, when you need to, you are willing and able to do it.

Everybody loves simplicity and certainty, but with social interaction you need to navigate complicated situations and make a lot of judgment calls. If a source of info (whether people respond positively) is weighted too heavily and your response is to completely remove it from the equation, then you've thrown out a simplistic rule that you were taught and replaced it with a simplistic rule that you invented.

Also, whether you are liked is a very self-focused way of evaluating others' reactions. Sometimes being positive/nice/friendly/whatever is about building rapport, encouraging cooperation, etc., not about how it affects your feelings.

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#65

Post by tinco »

Taek wrote: post #11
hrktb wrote: post #5

Money quote: > Personally, I've long idolized Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. But most of our heroes got to where they are by being unlikeable, not likable. I fundamentally disagree with that view of being an asshole as an important part of success, but I also feel it has been rehashed an incredible amount of times already. A slightly different take on this is the "don't rock the boat" mentality. This is usually a counter…

I think a big part of it is being stubborn about rejecting things that aren't good enough. Steve Jobs and Elon Musk both also have a reputation of perfectionism, and lots of stories of telling their employees to start over because they didn't hit the minimum requirements (or in Musk's case, just firing people outright over seemingly small things). Especially when one of your employees is pushing you hard for a featur…

Is Musk really an asshole? The stories I've heard about Jobs show that he was abusive and manipulative. Maybe I'm out of the loop but I haven't heard such stories about Musk. He's said some dumb things that seemed uncalled for on Twitter, but everyone makes mistakes, and if he really believed them when he said them then that doesn't make him an asshole. And firing someone over something seemingly small is not asshole behavior, that's just taking charge, who knows what lays behind a decision like that.

Are there any examples of Musk doing something mean for selfish reasons?

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#66

Post by h_r »

pydry wrote: post #50
BlahGod420 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on the age of the persons involved, this could actually be healthy. When I first learned about logical fallacies I could not keep my mouth shut. Everyone was a moron and dag nabit I knew exactly why. After a few months of pissing everyone off, I settled down in to a "You can be wrong if you want," kind of mentality.

I wish some of this energy could be channeled into creating forum software that explicitly recognized and accounted for logical fallacies. It would help clean up a lot of shit (same as comment voting). It's not a panacea (just as voting isn't) but it would help to be able to flag/confirm/reject logical fallacies in textual online arguments.

Seems like that would require an understanding of language that far exceeds the current state of the art. And much of the time logic doesn't even apply because the text is incoherent.

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#67

Post by finnthehuman »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #4

I don't think the current social climate is conducive to this advice anymore. It was probably helpful in around 2008 to 2015. It's hard to think of a situation where being unlikable is an advantage, today. Even in situations pg likes to point out – for example, if you think for yourself, you often upset others – you can do that privately rather than publicly, and still get the same advantage. EDIT: there is one situa…

>I don't think the current social climate is conducive to this advice anymore.

The advice is at it's most meaningful in uptight times like these.

>it’s probably easier to convince them with social aikido [] not assert dominance.

What about just regular assertiveness? It's neither domineering nor artful to be grouped with something like "aikido."

Sometimes it's just not possible to both get your way when you're right and remain a people pleaser. Which makes me think by "aikido" you're just referring to the kind of passive aggressive or manipulative people that fucked us into the social climate we find ourselves in today.

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#68

Post by pureliquidhw »

melling wrote: post #23
hrktb wrote: post #5

Money quote: > Personally, I've long idolized Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. But most of our heroes got to where they are by being unlikeable, not likable. I fundamentally disagree with that view of being an asshole as an important part of success, but I also feel it has been rehashed an incredible amount of times already. A slightly different take on this is the "don't rock the boat" mentality. This is usually a counter…

Selection bias? Picking 2 people who seem to fit your belief doesn’t prove anything. Maybe a larger study of people?

That and Survivorship bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

They succeed in spite of being jerks, not because they are.

Musk hit big with paypal, then attempted the "impossible" with tenacity. He surrounded himself with the right people and provided a concise, clear vision for his teams to strive towards:

    Build sports car

    Use that money to build an affordable car

    Use that money to build an even more affordable car

    While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options
https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-j...

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#69

Post by waheoo »

uberman wrote: post #36
Minor49er wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is going to be a tough claim to prove

I can accept that. I edited my post to indicate that it is my opinion. That said, I think (again my opinion) that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the behaviors that are deemed to be bold, authoritative, disruptive and direct even bordering on hostile when displayed by men in the workplace are tolerated or even rewarded while such behavior displayed by women are not. "He" will be the tolerated jerk, the lo…

> deemed to be bold, authoritative, disruptive and direct even bordering on hostile

Im not sure where any of that results in you being a jerk.

In your own words, its also just your perspective or "deemed" by you.

You know the lone wolf is just a moniker for office expeletive who no one wants to work with right?

Whether that behaviour is tolerated and condoned seems to have little to do with gender and more to do with your perception and yoyr employers willingness to keep either of these people around I'd want them both to walk.

Im all for introverts working in silos with infrequent checkins if thats how they perform but I have zero tolerance for people who lack basic empathy for others.

But thats a but off topic.

My point is those thigs dont make one a jerk. Abrasive maybe, but I wouldnt call it a "problem". Maybe something they can work on personally? But not something that deserves retaliation thats for sure.

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