On being nice

Paul Graham wrote an interesting blog post last month titled, Mean People Fail. Paul’s posts are always great.

In the post, Paul explores the concept that unlike the past, today its going to be a much more difficult to be successful while also being mean. It was easier to be mean in the past for several reasons, including the fact that there are far more options for skilled people today so they don’t have to put up with working for people that don’t treat them well. I’d also add that in the word-of-mouth-on-steroids environment we live in now, its likely much harder to be a jerk and not have the entire world know it.

My experience has always been the same as Paul’s on this topic. I’m a year into my third company (Dragon Army) and, if I can humbly say that I don’t consider myself a mean person, I’m already seeing the positive impacts that “being nice” can have when starting a business. For example, my network is one of the things that has the biggest impact on my success. I can’t imagine my network would be anything like it is today if I was consistently mean to people. And not just people I want to have as future clients and partners, but employees as well.

We spent the first year of Dragon Army at the Atlanta Tech Village – in my opinion the very BEST place to start a company in Atlanta or anywhere else – and the thing that left the biggest impression on me was how genuinely nice the people are in that building. First of all, it was created by perhaps the nicest guy in Atlanta and I’ve always found that nice attracts nice. And when we moved out, the biggest loss I found was leaving all the new friends that I had made there. When I go back to visit, it feels like a family reunion.

“…being mean makes you stupid. That’s why I hate fights. You never do your best work in a fight…” ~ Paul Graham

Paul also talks about the negative impacts that fighting with other people can have on success. And when you’re working with mean people, fights happen more often. When you’re busy fighting, you’re wasting energy on something that isn’t moving your business forward.

I remember at Engauge – a company that was really three businesses mashed together – we eventually had to create a “No A$$holes Rule” because we had so much in-fighting and internal politics that it was prohibiting our ability to make progress. I’d argue that if you’re building your company correctly, you shouldn’t have to create such a rule because the detractors would never make it more than a few months before being asked to head out the door, but Engauge was a uniquely built company.

So now we can add “more likely to be successful in business” to the many benefits of being a nice person. I like that.