Worth noting this is written by a very successful venture capitalist, with a firm that is the product of one of the fastest growing companies ever. It's not a reason to believe him one way or another, but when he writes, "That’s what i think of when I think of leadership. Someone who is malleable enough to both know and to react to the different needs of different people on their team," I'd posit it's pretty clear he's talking his own book.<p>I do not know the author, and taking shots at him on an internet forum is small, but as a general principle, Jeffery Pfeffer talks about this retroactive continuity of virtue in success stories in his books. Everyone wants to think their luck made them good. Riding growth up to the top is a different set of skills than setting off the chain reaction that creates the energy behind it. In fact, malleability is precisely what you need to ride growth, but I'd argue you need a force of will to be the one to create it. That carries asshole-risk.<p>The stories successful people tell about how they became successful are almost exclusively about how virtuous they were, and how their path was noble. A critical view of success and its factors is very much the "loser's" view, as telling it from outside means you don't have it, but it still has some value because the one told from inside is not the one that will get you there. They aren't in the business of building (ungated) ladders behind them. The story successful people don't tell is the one where they leveraged someones trust, scandalizing, discrediting, and isolating someone who lacked their mendacity, or put people who trusted them at more personal risk than they may have perceived.<p>Nobody likes an asshole, and it's a good thing to build things that select against them, but the definition has to be better than what the losers just call the person they lose to, or as a foil for back-fitting a story of skill and virtue onto some really grisly work and luck.<p>It's like Ray Dalio saying he's a billionaire because of transcendental meditation. If that sentence causes your middle finger to involuntarily leap into the air, you can appreciate how these other auto-hagiographies are received.<p>Anyway, not to take pot shots from the cheap seats, but it's better to be suspicious of free advice that tells you to be nice. Not because being nice is wrong, but because when someone gives it to you free, it is probably worth more to them than you.