00:00hi and welcome to the a16z podcast i'm
00:03hannah and we're here today having a
00:04conversation with bob sutton
00:06author of the no [Â __Â ] rule and
00:08professor at stanford
00:09and michael dearing founder of harrison
00:11metal and bob's former colleague at
00:14and you should be aware that there are a
00:16lot of expletives in this episode so do
00:18keep that in mind if you have little
00:19ones listening in the background
00:21we're here today because bob has a brand
00:23new book out the [Â __Â ] survival guide
00:25that takes off from where the no [Â __Â ]
00:27rule left off in other words it really
00:29gets down to the nitty-gritty of
00:31dealing with this kind of person and
00:34everything from assessing whether or not
00:36you're an [Â __Â ] yourself
00:37to coping strategies of protecting
00:39yourself from [Â __Â ] and finally
00:41tactics to actually change or put a stop
00:44to [Â __Â ] behavior
00:45the first guest voice you'll hear is
00:47michael dearing who rumor has it was a
00:49champion of bob writing the second book
00:52we heard that you were i will not say
00:54that you are the inspiration
00:56you're but that you you urged bob to
01:00write this book is that right what's the
01:02what i said to bob after the uh the no
01:04[Â __Â ] rule was so
01:05wildly successful what almost ten years
01:09this is this is lightning in a bottle
01:11you gotta build the whole franchise
01:14the whole franchise around this you
01:15could have a version of this
01:18uh for uh for personal relationships for
01:21work relationships for
01:23peer relationships because it is such an
01:26it's everywhere it's kind of like the
01:27definition of humanity it is
01:29the main thing that happened is the the
01:31no [Â __Â ] rule which at least i thought
01:32was a book about well
01:34this is how you how you build a
01:36relatively asshole-free place
01:38but the response was people just sent me
01:40all these emails and all these stories
01:42were kind of the same which is they made
01:44you their therapist and they would say
01:46i've got an [Â __Â ] help what help and
01:498 000 emails and i kept reading the
01:51literature and i kept
01:52being pressed back by my friend michael
01:54to the whole franchise well i want to
01:56hear a little bit about all those emails
01:58you got them from congregations right
02:00hospitals nurses like
02:01all different contacts all different
02:02kinds of people what were some of the
02:05challenging examples that really were
02:07surprising to you that you thought
02:09this i'm stumped by this or like or was
02:12it all the same brands
02:15so the way i bob's moaning he's
02:18remembering these emails
02:19but but the way i defined an [Â __Â ] is
02:23from the receiver's standpoint somebody
02:25who leaves you feeling demeaned
02:26de-energized disrespected i'll give you
02:29an example one actually it was really
02:32there there was a woman who wrote me
02:36in her second year of a clerkship for a
02:39judge and she described the federal
02:41judge total [Â __Â ] and
02:42he'd have raging temper tantrums um like
02:45unreliable water delivery
02:47you know like the water didn't come and
02:49and she said the two
02:50other young clerks young lawyers she
02:52worked with were so depressed
02:53they put their heads down on their desks
02:55and they pound their heads up and she
02:57just wanted to get out after years it's
02:59and that's some of your advice right is
03:01to just quit just well so that was
03:03so that was my first reaction yeah and i
03:05said well why don't you quit and
03:07she said well here's what happens if i
03:08quit she had student loans and then
03:10her mentors explained to her that if she
03:14quit halfway through a federal clerkship
03:15it was career suicide and so when you're
03:18you're stuck you're stuck so kind of
03:22is you you've got to find ways to not go
03:25crazy and it's funny because one
03:26one thing that i actually got interested
03:28in part because of michael
03:29is cognitive behavioral therapy he talks
03:31about the cognitive distortions of
03:34yep oh interesting so i'm also drawing
03:37on some of aaron beck's work
03:38in my chapter on mind tricks that
03:41protect your soul in
03:42in just ways so that even though you're
03:44in an objectively bad environment
03:46in this case that it doesn't upset you
03:48so much it is so much about perspective
03:50right because it's both the perspective
03:52of like how am i perceiving this
03:55and the perspective of like am i aware
03:57of my own behavior so you talk about a
04:00way of assessing is somebody actually an
04:03[Â __Â ] like am i subjected to an
04:04[Â __Â ] right now or is this
04:05am i the ass or am i the other and also
04:08[Â __Â ] that happens a lot or are we
04:12moment you know how much of it is
04:14context and how do you how do you tease
04:16that apart and figure out like
04:17is this situational ass holiness or is
04:20this like well it's really it's really
04:21tough if you look at all the biases we
04:23have as human beings
04:24it's probably best to be slow to label
04:26other people as [Â __Â ]
04:28and to be fast to label ourselves but
04:30michael said something to me i i still
04:31remember it which is such good advice
04:33and i kind of want to
04:34ask him about it is this this notion
04:36that there's a difference between what
04:38and how you do it oh it was given to me
04:42i had back in the day when i was first
04:43struggling with how do i let people go
04:45when it was time to say goodbye to
04:47somebody yeah you know involuntarily
04:49and do it in a way that you're not being
04:50an [Â __Â ] that's right yeah the
04:52decision you're taking can be
04:53a difficult and inherently negative one
04:56wrapper the container that you put it in
04:59doesn't have to be barbed wire covered
05:00dog poop yeah um you know that's
05:02colorful yeah yeah yeah
05:04you bring up that that idea of what you
05:06do versus how you do it
05:08for anybody who feels like their work is
05:10putting him in a position
05:11to be an [Â __Â ] involuntarily right and
05:14a lot of times managers are put in that
05:16space where they have to make a really
05:17they have to disappoint somebody it
05:19could be easily interpreted
05:21as being an [Â __Â ] that's a management
05:23choice that's a design choice that every
05:25manager gets to make how do i wrap and
05:27contain this decision
05:29knowing that it is really painful for
05:31that person to hear it
05:32it also puts responsibility on you right
05:34like you can't just say
05:36this is something i have to do oh well
05:39sorry so the first time i think i ever
05:41heard michael say that is that
05:43we were visiting walmart.com doing a
05:46from stanford we're doing the stanford
05:48project okay this woman runs up to him
05:50michael michael and gives him the
05:52biggest hug and is so happy to see him
05:54and then and then uh she goes away and
05:57he whispers he said i fired her
06:00that's an amazing testament to how you
06:03geez i wish i could remember who that
06:05was i think it's really true that if
06:08parting ways with somebody and some one
06:10of our general partners also said this
06:12like can actually be an enormous gift to
06:14get their life in you know onto a
06:16different track that's better for them
06:17that they would choose
06:18it can be well it isn't good it is not
06:22you know bse and kumbaya about
06:25capitalism but it is actually a
06:26beautiful feature of our system where
06:29i mean if you start with the premise
06:30that you have other options and that's
06:33i'd go back to that law clerk and i
06:34would say you've been lied to
06:36right you are not the first person to
06:38walk out of a clerkship halfway through
06:40yeah um escape there are thousands of
06:44if i had to add any chapters to your
06:45book it would be this one it would be
06:48cultivating those options while you go
06:52never stuck you never want to be stuck
06:54realizing okay i work for the wrong
06:56she or he treats me like garbage i don't
06:59have other options i have to start
07:00cold start cultivating new ones
07:03cultivating options all along the way
07:05every day and everything you do
07:06is like that's our job and i take that
07:09advice from reid hoffman's
07:10you know book where he talks about these
07:14tours of duty they're not lifetime
07:17it kind of reminds me of when i first
07:18learned to drive a family friend was
07:20i'm always aware of my escape routes and
07:24being a good citizen on the road there's
07:26different situations where you've got
07:28where enduring [Â __Â ] is unavoidable
07:30and and maybe even worth it and one of
07:32them is a better choice yeah
07:34so one of my favorite examples funny is
07:35a guy who wrote me from the u.s
07:37air force academy he's being hazed and
07:39he's a standard trick
07:40standard coping trick is you imagine
07:42it's the future and it wasn't that bad
07:45and it was worth getting through it
07:46you've all this time travel
07:48classic uh temporal distancing and he'd
07:52look at them while they were screaming
07:53at me and just imagine it was two years
07:55later and i was flying my plane
07:57and it was all worth it that's a pretty
07:59good coping strategy now
08:01if if you were in a situation where that
08:02was going on every day and there was no
08:05and you're just lying to yourself it's
08:06not it's a fantasy it's not actually the
08:08it's a fantasy it's escapism yeah that's
08:12well i want to talk a little bit still
08:13about assessment if we can
08:15are there traits that seem like ass
08:19holiness but that actually
08:20aren't you know that can have that this
08:23that are not necessarily that toxic but
08:26in the way you actually run your
08:27business and the way you interact but
08:30so so let me start out at least my
08:32perspective but there are some things
08:35[Â __Â ] so if i stood up swore you and
08:37said you were the most disgusting person
08:39i ever met and you didn't earn it like
08:41i think really pretty clearly yeah that
08:43i would say what an [Â __Â ] and we would
08:45but what about just being difficult
08:47being a curmudgeon being prickly i
08:49emphasize this perspective that the
08:51definition of an [Â __Â ]
08:52is somebody who makes you feel like dirt
08:56but but then once you start untangling
08:57it it might be because of something
09:00it might be because of your reaction or
09:02it might be doing something you're doing
09:04incite them this joke i first started
09:08uh they were talking about engineers who
09:10had a a bad user interface
09:12and a good operating system or
09:14porcupines with the heart of gold as
09:16would be another way another way to put
09:17it and i think that there
09:19are certain people who just
09:22they just have a bad ui yeah and once
09:24you get to know them are actually great
09:25and then by the way there's the
09:27bullshitters who are
09:28the opposite which is the fruit they
09:33so to me this eye of the beholder part
09:35is is really part of it and that's part
09:38that's part of the assessment if you
09:39will that that you've got to make
09:42but on the other hand if you're working
09:45with a heart of gold and you've only got
09:46two weeks with him and this is where
09:48time horizon i really talk about time
09:49horizon is really important
09:51uh you just might not have time to get
09:53there yeah so you have to always
09:56what your time well what your investment
09:59in terms of time but you do a really
10:01good job describing other ways besides
10:03time and distance to
10:05cope or shock absorb these people right
10:07using electronic communication
10:09or asynchronous communication talk about
10:11some of those coping strategies i feel
10:13they're two buckets right one of them is
10:14sort of defensive and protected right
10:17is more proactive and more challenging
10:19and more what would you
10:20it's what do you think it's it's
10:22changing them or defeating them so to me
10:25take it or find some way to fight them
10:29find some way to change them or defeat
10:31them because it can even be
10:33uh converting them and making them your
10:36three basic kinds of strategies there's
10:38you get out the other one is you reduce
10:40the damage you suffer which is either by
10:42kind of getting away from the toxins
10:44or not having them bothering you so much
10:47and then the last one
10:48is changing the your situation in some
10:52converting the [Â __Â ] michael you fall
10:55tend towards a particular kind of way of
10:59oh yeah fleeing really
11:02yeah fleeing hiding fleeing is the
11:07i i i well i think fleeing um
11:10in the sense that like you just have to
11:12say what you're tolerating what you want
11:14and work situations where you can't you
11:16just don't want to be part of it you got
11:18and find so it's more like opting out
11:21yeah with full agency and you're the
11:23driver of your own life kind of point of
11:25right i'm out and and but i would say
11:28the part of this toolkit that bob
11:32lays out that i think is incredibly
11:34valuable if you're going to stay
11:35you need shock absorbers and shields and
11:37if you're going to fight back
11:39there's a set of things you can do and
11:41fighting back doesn't mean sinking to
11:43common denominator behavior it means
11:45like arming yourself with the tools and
11:47tricks to get through the day
11:48all right so let's get into some of
11:50those so what are some of the most
11:52the the more surprising ones that don't
11:55instinct necessarily you know that
11:57you're like okay i wanna i'm gonna blow
11:59up i'm gonna go to hr what's the normal
12:01what do you think most people tend to do
12:04and that's well i think most people uh
12:06tend to really complain a lot and not do
12:08very much they stuff it down and they
12:09email people like bob and say
12:11this is awful and a lot of them just
12:14to me even if you are fighting back i
12:16think doing effective mind tricks or the
12:19cognitive behavioral therapy tricks are
12:22to do to sort of minimize the amount you
12:26just the objective stimuli and abuse
12:29we already mentioned uh time travel
12:31temporal distancing a lot of evidence
12:33that that helps good experimental
12:36laughing at it actually with your
12:37friends oh i love humor is such an
12:40in fact in both ways i think both
12:42protective and sort of
12:44aggressive oh yeah is a very effective
12:48system it's a it's a and then one of my
12:50friends i think of it not just
12:52in terms of slinging insults but i also
12:53think it's a really effective mirror
12:55when you you know to like throw up in
12:56front of somebody even if you're not
12:58being mean in your humor even if you're
13:01being funny or self-deprecating but it
13:05you know it sort of reflects someone's
13:07behavior back so there's an example in
13:09the guy who's the ceo of a major local
13:11company that an ipo in the 80s around
13:14and he's pretty tough ex-military guy
13:17and he liked vegetable humor
13:19so he was always insulting his team
13:22you're even dumber than a head of
13:24the average zucchini can figure that out
13:26and so one day he goes into the
13:28and he's got the whole the whole
13:29management team in her including him is
13:32heads of lettuce glasses and sunglasses
13:36and they got t-shirts and everything and
13:39this is the delivering the message he
13:41said yeah i was a pretty tough boss
13:43but you just said pause he said before
13:45i'd start screaming at him
13:48that would make me pause and if i did
13:50start going after them
13:51they would kind of point the t-shirt
13:53that i might be wearing
13:55yeah that accomplished the tension
13:57release the communication and the
13:58bonding of the senior management teams
14:00yeah they're pretty healthy actually
14:01yeah helped him build some
14:02self-awareness too yes yes
14:04about the consequence of that behavior
14:05well self-awareness that's actually one
14:07of the things i wanted to ask you
14:08this all feels like it requires a
14:12a self-awareness but also kind of like
14:16what about for those people who don't
14:18who aren't highly attuned like this is
14:21reading people well reading yourself
14:24and adjusting in general there's very
14:27by the way eq is one of the most
14:31on the planet it's there it matters
14:34but if you look at the evidence it's
14:38a good guess ten percent as important as
14:40old-fashioned iq and what do you mean by
14:42important in terms of impacting the
14:45researchers from uh yale who invented
14:47the concept and did all the research as
14:50the people who popularized and got rich
14:51off of it they will they will show you
14:53the studies that if you're predicting
14:55success in the job there's about a tenth
14:57it's not that it's irrelevant
14:59and the other thing about eq is that
15:00people with high eq are especially good
15:02others to um ill mean so it exists but
15:05it's a concept that has been way over
15:07glorified so does that not relate then
15:09to this idea that it doesn't really
15:12you're an [Â __Â ] or not no no no no the
15:13way that that i would put it in part
15:16is is that uh if you look at research on
15:19uh you can measure eq and people who
15:21have eq probably somewhat more
15:23self-aware of how their emotions are
15:26the sensitivity of others but but
15:29we're all so bad at it oh that that
15:32um i thought you were gonna say exactly
15:34the opposite we're all pretty good no no
15:36no the evidence about self-awareness is
15:38we just suck and and the worst person
15:40to ask um if they're an [Â __Â ] so when
15:43so bob how big of an [Â __Â ] are you and
15:45i said ten percent of the time but
15:47not to be trusted yes and i could see
15:51what's your percentage
15:56oh that's much more reliable well i
15:59i i have to get back to you on that i
16:00think my his is lower than mine
16:04having been at least the situation
16:06interesting test of your own cell phone
16:07no haze is lower than mine i'm pretty
16:09i think it has higher volatility oh it's
16:12a different it's got a different
16:13character yeah a little bit
16:14a little bit the upper end of the range
16:16is higher probably than bob's but
16:18i don't know we've seen each other have
16:19moments so this is not data-free
16:21there's an interesting overlap though
16:22between the people who you you mentioned
16:24in the early parts of the book about
16:26people who might just be too sensitive
16:28that they might actually have a boss or
16:31just just demanding but they're thin
16:33skin yeah well this is about context
16:36perspective right totally totally but
16:38what's interesting is their sensitivity
16:40is actually a great asset for them in
16:43sense of being empathetic to the other
16:45and canary in the coal mine a little bit
16:48too for you mean for the whole culture
16:50yeah cause they'll spot a problem way
16:51before it actually gets to the level of
16:54the the thing though that i love about
16:58techniques which are really empathy
16:59based right it's like what is the
17:01world view the future expectations and
17:03self-image of somebody who behaves this
17:06i mean sensitive people are actually
17:07really good at that and so they might
17:10more capable than your average bear at
17:13coping and dealing with those situations
17:15via empathy and via basically saying
17:17look that person's yelling not about me
17:20right it can't possibly be about me they
17:22don't know me i didn't cause the anger
17:24that's in their heart
17:25yeah and just stepping back from it a
17:26little bit uh that's why um
17:28it's kind of my mantra end of the book
17:32on you and we're not alone the evidence
17:34that other people are
17:35so much better than ourselves at
17:37assessing a whole bunch of skills
17:39is just phenomenal in terms of
17:42uh the researchers who study this
17:44essentially say don't
17:46look in the mirror find somebody you
17:47know and trust and ask them
17:49what do you think was i an [Â __Â ] is
17:50that person announcement no generally
17:52not go up to them be like tell me
17:54am i an [Â __Â ] in my life but like was
17:57how did that helps have people you know
18:00since we're in a venture capital firm a
18:02good venture capitalist can do that
18:03not just with being an [Â __Â ] but with
18:05a whole bunch of other things is to deal
18:07with the lack of self-awareness right
18:09don't trust yourself go
18:10figure it out objectively essentially as
18:13objectively as you can
18:14there's a bunch of formal interactions
18:15that people have at work one example is
18:18leave a space at the end particularly
18:21after a controversial or a heavy heavy
18:23discussion to say look
18:25i've given you my thoughts i've tried to
18:28but i want you to know i'm with you like
18:31we're in this together and
18:32putting that framing back around it to
18:34say like this is not adversarial even if
18:36the conversation led to different
18:38it reminds me about my kids preschool
18:43same thing after they have a conflict
18:45like let's check in with each other
18:46totally yeah that's a beautiful thing
18:48for psychological safety but if you
18:51that are they're always on the agenda
18:53the check-in the last wrap-up that's a
18:55yeah that hygiene is really good for
18:57these relationships and not just
18:59naturally very fraught but like
19:00regularly i believe that the most
19:02effective human relationships
19:04are frank and actually can get conflict
19:08can look pretty ugly but the difference
19:10is that when it's done
19:12in the context of i'm doing this in our
19:14collective or your best interest even
19:15though it doesn't always look that way
19:17yeah that's a completely different thing
19:19than i'm out to get you
19:21you talk about this strategy one
19:23particular strategy that's sort of
19:24counter-intuitive of cognitive
19:26dissonance where you and is is this the
19:28same thing where you kind of like
19:30meet aggressive ass holiness behavior
19:33well so it depends on the the nature of
19:35the [Â __Â ] if somebody is
19:37in there's research on machiavellian
19:39personality classic machiavellian
19:41um when you're nasty to me and i look
19:46or i get angry in some way respond
19:49literally your brain lights up it makes
19:51you feel good you've accomplished your
19:53but but there's many other types of
19:55people who are nasty who
19:57aren't like that but there's very good
19:58evidence that if somebody does a favor
20:02it's really hard for them to dislike you
20:03because of the two dissonant elements
20:06i don't like this person but i'm doing a
20:08favor for for him or her
20:10so so the implication is your brain just
20:12literally doesn't like
20:13it it doesn't work it doesn't compute
20:15well it doesn't so so that's one
20:17strategy i call it the benjamin franklin
20:19effect because he did something like
20:20this as a young man with one of his
20:23where he got the guy to do him a favor
20:25this person who had been the hater
20:26became a lifelong friend of his oh my
20:29it's funny i hear in that story the
20:33you think about like when we've had
20:36a country or as like a as like a company
20:39it's by doing business with other people
20:41and if you can figure out a way to
20:44ignore or just isolate yourself from the
20:47yeah focus on the the trade the exchange
20:51i'm gonna do this i would like you to do
20:53that yeah that transaction start that
20:55bank account starts to build and i think
20:58it becomes harder and harder people say
21:00this about you know doing business
21:02you know back in the cold war days and
21:04going to china going to russia
21:05changed your perspective and i'm sure it
21:07did for people who came from there to
21:09change your perspective on oh these are
21:11people that i'm doing business with it's
21:13us against them it's not black and white
21:15it's much more balanced and you're
21:17well it's funny that you say that
21:18because i feel like we we sort of tend
21:20to think of transactional as being a
21:22negative thing almost like i think you
21:24but actually there is something else
21:26that's being one of my favorite
21:28folks i i'm adam grant who's at
21:30university of pennsylvania wharton
21:32he's got this great book called give and
21:34take and essentially what he shows
21:36is people are most successful and like
21:39and get in the givers especially over
21:41long periods of time the givers are the
21:43who succeed are the ones who don't get
21:46burned out and don't get exploited
21:49and the other thing is when you work
21:49together cooperatively with someone it's
21:51really hard to dislike them
21:52yeah unless they're as adam would say
21:55unless they're total takers
21:56yeah and at every turn they've got in
21:58their mind i'm just gonna scream
21:59well and it just points to also the
22:01importance of like respect and like
22:03going together you know because if you
22:04even if you don't like somebody if you
22:06start gradually respecting them
22:07then eventually i think the dislike
22:10starts to get worn away
22:11but it's that's very different from what
22:13i i thought you were talking about when
22:15you first talked about this cognitive
22:16dissonance which was
22:17i thought you were talking about
22:18something i heard on um in visibilia a
22:21about there was non-complementary
22:24there was somebody on talking about this
22:28um a burglar came in the middle of it
22:30and like held them up
22:32and they defused the situation
22:35offering him a glass of wine and he they
22:38he ended up sort of like he sat quietly
22:40down and they talked a little bit
22:42and at the end of the night he left and
22:44he left the glass of wine in the bottle
22:47wow it's like they broke the chain of
22:49events actually all these studies
22:50it can be very effective to just break
22:52the chain like that that's what i
22:53thought which is very different from
22:55building up transactions so what are
22:57some of the other really practical ways
22:59on a daily level that you can sort of
23:03self-defense and protection i love you
23:05mentioned the allen curve
23:06like if you're dealing with an [Â __Â ]
23:10this amazing research actually goes back
23:13to the 70s this guy tom allen did all
23:16to see how much people communicated and
23:18he found out that essentially once you
23:22feet away from someone and this was in a
23:24closed office environment
23:25you might as well be in another country
23:27open offices [Â __Â ] are really a
23:29problem because like you
23:30you see them you you hear them that what
23:33this research shows is with your within
23:35if you're within 25 feet of a toxic
23:37person so what i would call an [Â __Â ]
23:39the chances you're going to become toxic
23:41and lose your job go way up
23:43no way so for the good of your job
23:46literally and your mental health but the
23:49positive side is if you're near a star
23:52the opposite happens i had a terrible
23:55not somebody that worked for me but
23:56somebody a couple branches away in the
24:00and this person was awful and i i
24:03finally realized after taking years of
24:06of nonsense from this person that this
24:08person actually had nothing to do with
24:11this person couldn't say yes or no to
24:13anything i want no actual impact no this
24:15person well other than negative
24:16right and so i set up a filter that any
24:19email that came to my box that either
24:21was from this person cc'd this person or
24:25this person's name was mentioned in the
24:27body of the email that's hilarious
24:28that's a very wide net
24:30oh yeah i wasn't taking any freaking
24:34would immediately be put in the trash
24:38this person had left the company he
24:40didn't know this person was actually
24:42i mean did you not ever get tripped up
24:44by this like this person coming down the
24:46somebody referring no and that was the
24:48beautiful part of it like i suspected
24:50that this person was utterly useless and
24:52and it turned out that it was true
24:54empirically i did because i i
24:56pretended that but directly useless
24:59are orthogonally useless as well there
25:02there were no useful surfaces at all
25:05amazing yeah now i use it on other
25:08i have a i have a robust filter system
25:10in my email i don't hear about from you
25:12that might be a moment of self-analysis
25:14am i actually an [Â __Â ] i'm happy
25:16you're answering my emails
25:18within minutes bob within minutes are
25:20there other ways in which you think
25:23running a business like physically
25:24situating people or how do you sort of
25:26how does this get played out
25:28in an organizational logistical level
25:31so i had a boss when i worked at disney
25:33who was fanatical about
25:35which binder clips we used
25:39absolutely and a genius guy amazing
25:43and had a real problem if you use the
25:46wrong size binder clip on a piano
25:48on a presentation or a pack of papers
25:50wait i need to know more about this
25:51it was about the size of the bag size
25:55it was the source of being yelled at
25:56multiple times for me
25:58and my colleagues and so finally one day
26:02kind of in a when he was in a good mood
26:04i i said you know the binder clip thing
26:06what's up with that and he said
26:10oh well it's uh because people waste too
26:13much time figuring out why did you
26:15why did why are these stapled
26:17differently are they are they different
26:19like it takes somebody too long to
26:21reposition it so i want them in the same
26:24the right size every time so that people
26:26don't waste their time on that stuff
26:28that was like a moment of clarity for me
26:31i want those binder clips set that way
26:33too because i don't want people wasting
26:35their time on the nonsense i want to get
26:36into the good stuff so you
26:38understand his motivation i did and i
26:40was something like totally cool with it
26:43and so i think a shock absorber for
26:44managers is when you know that it sounds
26:47like what you're saying might be a
26:49just give a two sentence explanation for
26:52the reason i care about the the the
26:55sodas being arranged in grids is because
26:57i want it to look like people care about
26:58the state of this kitchen
27:00stupid things have real reasons behind
27:03you might decide you change your mind
27:05after you explain why the wacky
27:07thing sets you off but i think it's
27:10there's also one other thing i subtext
27:12for me that one of the big themes
27:14about uh being slow to label people
27:17is [Â __Â ] because because in this case
27:19because you're describing this specific
27:22by somebody who is generally okay other
27:24than that sort of forgiving and
27:26understanding one another's quirks
27:27yeah but you should just damn a whole
27:29person just because they have
27:30absolutely strange quirker they have a
27:32temper tantrum now and then and
27:34and uh and i do think that both some
27:36forgiveness and understanding goes a
27:39well and i i think it's interesting that
27:40you talk about like what you as a
27:42because i also wanted to ask about are
27:45there different ways of handling
27:47[Â __Â ] at different levels you know
27:49that have to because the whole power
27:51dynamic your tactics have to change oh
27:55if you've got an [Â __Â ] there's three
27:56things power yeah more or less power
27:59about the same yeah and you got to be
28:00careful because people overestimate
28:02the second one is are you alone or can
28:05you kind of have a posse
28:06and then and then and then the third
28:08thing is how well documented is it i
28:10thought it was great that you said like
28:11we all actually know how important that
28:13is and what a difference it can make but
28:15not we we just don't do it
28:16anyways for the power stuff essentially
28:19if you are going again
28:20against somebody who is more powerful
28:22versus less powerful it has a huge
28:24effect you've got to document more
28:26you got to get more allies you got to
28:27find ways to protect yourself whereas if
28:29you're the ceo and so one of the guys
28:31paul purcell he was ceo for years w.r
28:34baird now called barrett financial
28:37they have a no [Â __Â ] rule he tells
28:39people during the interview if i find
28:41out you're an [Â __Â ] i'm going to fire
28:42yeah and he can do it because he's the
28:44boss it's a lot different if you're not
28:46think in some of those big power gap
28:50cultivating your other options and uh
28:52building networks outside the firm
28:54and it's amazing how actually doing that
28:56of course is a good practical route to
29:00but it changes how you approach the
29:03it changes your like composure and your
29:05sensibility because it's doing something
29:08it's like giving you that almost that
29:09time travel distance i felt like you
29:11were kind of describing an ecosystem of
29:14you know because there was also this
29:16like these different roles that people
29:18play like the idea of a toxic enabler
29:21a lot of times many of us get in
29:25where we aren't the [Â __Â ] but it's
29:27kind of like after the parade comes to
29:28town we clean up the crap
29:30and and i always say by the way if you
29:31were going to be an effective [Â __Â ]
29:33get yourself a toxic handler oh my god
29:37i'm just telling you to calm people
29:40to clean up the mess to tell them that
29:43it really wasn't that bad and
29:44and most effective toxic enablers have
29:47one or more people like that people who
29:49clean up the mess because
29:51because a smart [Â __Â ] almost always
29:53even a dumb [Â __Â ] might have one
29:54um and and so it's it it's sort of
29:58but the idea that people in management
30:00positions part of their job
30:02is to take the crap so that uh so that
30:04people can actually perform their work
30:06that to me that's an important
30:07management function that's true but i
30:09wondered like how much a lot of these
30:11kind of coping mechanisms um that you
30:14describe are the more
30:15kind of defensive protection how much of
30:18yep versus you know i mean being a toxic
30:22it's it's a moral choice you know and to
30:25me it might be because you think that
30:26there's a greater good or maybe you can
30:28actually turn the person around or
30:30just maybe that's something that you're
30:31good at but the premise behind having
30:33the fixer is that the
30:34net return on having that person in the
30:38company or in your team or whatever is
30:40positive the greater good and i think
30:42i mean he's got to be constantly
30:45right and being really comfortable
30:47sending up a red flag saying hey look
30:49we're like on the we're on the negative
30:51side here yeah right we got to throw
30:52some positives into this because this is
30:55there's people in life and this is a
30:56different sort of [Â __Â ] we're talking
30:57about more powerful ones and
30:59and this is the kind of [Â __Â ] that
31:01actually i have kind of obsession with
31:02petty tyrants and there's really good
31:06that in general with human beings if you
31:08put them in a position where they have
31:09some power over people but they don't
31:11have prestige they're not esteemed
31:13oh if you separate those two things and
31:15they do this experimentally and they do
31:19in the field and and it turns out that
31:22without having stature or respect so you
31:25somebody at the dmv who who uh
31:28right now i'm dealing with the social
31:30service agency um or
31:32prison guard prison guard they have a
31:34lot of power in the lab you can
31:36turn somebody into a vindictive jerk
31:38it's a really interesting angle to take
31:39on this is like maybe the root cause of
31:41a lot of this bad behavior
31:43is status anxiety yeah they're just
31:46trying to make sure they don't land on
31:48well isn't that just a human i mean
31:51insecure excuse me for being so but
31:54an element yeah i think there's a lot to
31:56that and i don't think we're going to
31:57get that out of the human operating
32:00i'm going to ask one last big question
32:02which is do you think we're in a time of
32:05assholery you said the amount of
32:08on what is just on disrespectful
32:12and it has grown enormously there's
32:14literally hundreds of thousand peer
32:16because we're behaving more likely my
32:18current it's hypothesis
32:19i think we're at peak [Â __Â ] now
32:27if you look at what will turn human
32:29beings into disrespectful nasty people
32:32it's having status differences
32:35powered status differences really
32:37inequality of all kinds does that to
32:39people on both sides
32:40uh envy up scoring down happens
32:44when people are in a hurry when people
32:46are crowded so you think i think
32:47flying airplanes are sort of an analogy
32:49for this you got first class you got
32:51um you got people who are in a hurry
32:54role models we've got some pretty bad
32:56role models in industry and in politics
32:58and the web by the way has a lot to do
32:59with both sides of it when we have
33:01communication even with people aren't
33:03when we don't have eye contact we tend
33:05to be less empathetic and more nasty
33:07but then there's this other side which
33:09are these countervailing forces
33:11which is well when you're bad you're
33:13you're called out on
33:15you're very publicly the visibility is
33:18like nothing we've ever seen before for
33:20talk about in this book for for the
33:22first time uh part of the way that
33:26um evaluated for accreditation in the
33:27united states but it's called the joint
33:30is that if there's a hostile workplace
33:32you in theory can lose your license how
33:34do things ever happen
33:35it's valued yeah i have a non-hostile
33:37yeah one thing since we're in silicon
33:39valley right now one thing that i
33:41actually really admire and i think will
33:43be good for all of us
33:44is essentially the movement against
33:48sexual harassment and so on the
33:50companies i tend to know that tend to
33:52problems tend to just have bad cultures
33:54where it's not the only problem
33:56i think to your point that the
33:57sensitivity or awareness of how bad this
34:00has never been higher the visibility
34:03never been higher the the barrier to
34:06communicating about it never been lower
34:08um and so you know add all those things
34:11up it's going to feel like a barrage of
34:14and i think it's you know looks and
34:16we're in a transitional time for pretty
34:18everything with respect to how we treat
34:19each other or how the definition of bad
34:21behavior is changing
34:22so i think it's uh it's a good time to
34:24be you with this book
34:26and on that note thank you both so much
34:29for joining us on the a16z podcast
34:31thanks for the invite thanks
