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According to Forbes Magazine, Elon Musk, CEO of the electric car manufacturer Tesla, is the world's richest man with a net worth of over $250 billion.
A recent 688-page biography of Musk by Walter Isaacson hit No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In her review of the book, Harvard historian Jill Lepore writes, "The book upholds a core conviction of many executives: Sometimes to get (stuff) done you have to be a (jerk)."
There's little doubt about Musk being a jerk. In the book, Isaacson reports, "(Musk) didn't have the emotional receptors that produce everyday kindness and warmth and a desire to be liked." There's a joke that went around Silicon Valley comparing Musk to the sun: The closer you get, the more you get burned. His subordinates have fallen like redwoods in a clear-cutting operation. In a nine-month period, 44% of his direct reports left compared to a 9% average at peer companies.
In my time in Silicon Valley, I did cross paths with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, the subject of another hefty biography by Isaacson. How did Jobs treat his employees? Isaacson notes, "He could stun an unsuspecting victim with an emotional towel-snap, perfectly aimed." Silicon Valley historian Leslie Berlin wrote, "His management style was dismissive."
Apple is the world's most valuable country with a market cap approaching $3 trillion. No. 2 is Microsoft. Back in 2001, a federal court found that Microsoft, under the leadership of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, had violated U.S. antitrust laws.
Facebook, founded by Mark Zuckerberg, allowed its platform to be used by Russians in an attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election despite warnings. Earlier this year, he laid off more than 10,000 employees from the company. Heidi K. Gardner, distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School, said using email to sack the employees with little or no warning implied Zuckerberg treated employees as "chess pieces that can be moved about and discarded at will."
Are Musk, Jobs, Gates and Zuckerberg, then, the heirs to the robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries? John D. Rockefeller was America's first billionaire. His Standard Oil crushed competitors and was broken up by the trustbusting President Teddy Roosevelt. Henry Ford owned the notoriously antisemitic The Dearborn Independent, disseminated at every Ford franchise in the country.
Andrew Carnegie founded Carnegie Steel, the pioneer in efficient steel production. In July 1892, the company hired Pinkerton detectives armed with rifles to break a union-led strike at a plant in Homestead.
These men (and they) are (all men) mentioned above were CEOs of start-up companies that exploded in size and changed the world. All started or joined their companies when they were young, ranging in age from 19 for Zuckerberg's founding of Facebook to age 39 for Ford starting his car company.
Jessica Grose recently wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times entitled "C.E.O.s Don't Need to Be Monsters." She's right, of course -- in general. However, she appears to be wrong for those few CEOs who can drive a startup into the top 10 in market cap while changing the world.