Why It's Safe for Founders to Be Nice

August 2015

I recently got an email from a founder that helped me understand
something important: why it's safe for startup founders to be nice
people.

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. As I've written before, one of
the things that has surprised me most about startups is
href="mean.html">how few of
the most successful founders are like that. Maybe successful people
in other industries are; I don't know; but not startup founders.
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