It’s something I struggle with. Some bad news comes out about some public persona doing something shitty and they get cancelled. But sometimes I really struggle with giving up the things they’ve made because I like them. There are also occasions where the person has been accused of something and it doesn’t seem true to me, or I think they’re genuinely sorry and have been punished enough, and the context isn’t being considered.
What do you think? Who do you feel conflicted about enjoying?
Yeah people can complain Torvalds was rude all day, but fuck me if the people he yelled at couldn’t be aggressively disrespectful in bringing half-assed work to the table and doing damage or at best wasting other’s people time.
He’s the literal “You’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole”. But if he wasn’t that way, I wonder if we’d have what we have. A nicer developer wouldn’t get the same attention.
He’s self aware and for some reason that bothers me less than an asshole who denies being an asshole.
I argue about this all the time, especially if you have to work with non-coders. People who don’t code do not understand the big picture.
Steve Wozniak is brilliant, and had Steve Jobs explain the vision and sell it to non coders.
For Microsoft. That was Ballmer.
If youre a tech lead who lets a group of marketing folks try to define the course of any application, you need someone really strong at communication to fight for you. Unfortunately, Linus didnt have one and ripping people a new asshole was the next best thing.
You probably needed someone like him in a technical leadership role somewhere, the problem was that he became the face as well.
And when he acts shitty towards somebody, he does it publicly, where he himself can also receive the backlash from what he is doing.
He’s not attempting to build a reputation as being a nice guy or a thought leader or anything. He is getting shit done, and anyone that’s got a problem with it or him can either go do it better than him or stfu
At least the face isn’t steering the brain like most organizations!