There was an interesting comment posted in a TechCrunch story about Oracle’s Larry Ellison:

“I used to work there and can tell you that there were many ‘mini-me’ versions of Ellison running around talking like him, and even dressing up like him. Rest of us used to laugh at them and make fun of them being bozo’s and total losers. They did make lot of money, but still losers in our eyes. I hope Oracle get’s a real leader who can be a good role model.”

The corporate world has many jerks – individuals who proudly think of themselves as ‘Type A’ (hate that phrase). Some of these jerks deliver results, and are tolerated by people around them and their bosses. The combination of their bad behavior and the rewards they get for delivering results, make them more visible in the organization than people who just deliver results. In any organization, especially large organizations, visibility is good (sounds like the DecorMyEyes story?). The visibility results in better opportunities and more rewards. Suddenly, being a jerk starts looking like a good career path. This spawns a number of jerk clones. Many of these jerk clones have none of the intellect and/or capability of the original jerk. Their career strategy backfires – they become the butt of jokes and their career takes a downward spiral.

Being a jerk is never good, even if it makes some people successful. Being a jerk clone is just pathetic.