As someone who has been screwed by "rapacity", all I can say is be very very careful being "nice".<p>As Pink Floyd said in a song "You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to, so that when they turn their backs on you. You'll get the chance to put the knife in."<p>As someone who lost out on a billion dollar business, be nice, but watch out for knives in the back. Often those knives are in the form of law firms.
What about paying fair share of taxes that are expected to be paid by the society?<p>Just like loopholes are legal, most of the time being not nice to people is legal.<p>Meaning, nothing stops YC companies to sign a treaty that paying taxes is part of being nice and decent citizens of the world. I'm talking about Dropbox, for an example.<p>Very often the moral police stops when it impacts you or your wallet. It's called a sacrifice for a reason.
I can appreciate the article.<p>However, while it may be safe to be nice, I don't think being nice is important to success in business. And I think that's what probably concerns more people. This kind of disappoints me though. I wish it were important to success to be nice, but my experience tells me otherwise. It's more important to right and just nice enough to get that across and be heard.<p>How do you maintain your power and influence while being nice? I feel like you could kill your self by performing really well and setting a stellar track record and then earn the privilege of being able to be nice and still be respected... or you just swing your proverbial dick around and slam anyone who won't listen to you and rule by fear. The net payoff seems to suggest favoring dickish people at the top. And sad to say it seems that way many times.<p>Also being nice can make people think you're weak and so it's harder to run a team with that mindset.<p>I think the more definite path to success is being intelligent, shrewd and a competitive person. If that implies being nice then so be it, otherwise it doesn't seem so relevant.<p>There's also different types of nice. Like superficial nice and genuine nice. Which are we referring to?<p>I do envy those charismatic leaders that are successful and earn the love of their colleagues and employees. That's something I'd love to aspire to.
> I grew up with a cartoon idea of a very successful businessman (in the cartoon it was always a man): a rapacious, cigar-smoking, table-thumping guy in his fifties who wins by exercising power, and isn't too fussy about how.<p>I think when something new comes about it can't _look_ like something old if it wants to succeed. Basically it's hard to build a successful startup by looking like a cartoon businessman from the 80's, wearing a tie, being overtly and openly aggressive etc.<p>If you're building something new and "cool" you had to be playful, dress informally, wear hoodie or t-shirt, on the surface appear to be super nice and friendly. Of course business is business and at the end of the day someone is getting stabbed in the back. But before that day comes it is all hugs, smiles and pats on the back.<p>Anyone remember Google, how they succeeded not just by providing a better search experience, by also by building a "cool" company image -- playful bright colors, the whole "don't be evil" shtick, we'll feed you with gourmet food, etc. They were positioning themselves to be as different as possible from a traditional company.<p>Now the funny thing is, the image of the startup has also become cartoonish with the shows like the "Silicon Valley" running for a few years. So CEOs wearing hoodies, being all informal and superficially nice, open office spaces and so on is getting a bit stale.<p>I wonder what's next. Back to wearing ties and smoking cigars? Probably not. But I have heard people say they'd rather get back to having the previously derided and hated cubicles than doing the "cool" open office plan.<p>Maybe working remotely is the new thing? But some companies have been doing that for a while as well. I hope that's the next revolution, when large giants as Google and Facebook, who sell digital connectivity as their primary product embrace the digital connectivity themselves and don't require workers to be in a physical location to get work done.
When talking to startups as their prospective client, I feel I can often tell which ones are from a Y-combinator batch; they are nice, responsive, and thoughtful.
Why do we believe "nice" is correlated with how much you charge for your product instead of how aggressively you grow?<p>Let's take Uber as an example of a company that a lot of people would call not nice: their prices are great (I think it's widely believed that the prices are VC-subsidized and unsustainable in the long term), but it's their growth strategy that a lot of people have problems with. I have never once heard Travis Kalanick criticized because Uber charged too much.
My take on this: <a href="http://www.yegor256.com/2017/08/22/to-be-nice-or-not.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.yegor256.com/2017/08/22/to-be-nice-or-not.html</a>
5-star cook says: "Cows are much more successful in life when cut in slices and being in a pan."<p>The truth is that you not just need to be cunning, you need to be routine at it, so you can act nice while doing selfish things like removing founders without paying them out, putting competitors out of business, and telling guys who just spent the first three years of their child in your office instead of with their families that they need to clean out their desks. Without that ability what you can do is to sizzle nicely while being turned around in the pan.