Most great people have a flaw that hinders them or even brings them down. That same flaw is also part of the trait that drove them to greatness. Linus's flaw fits that model and he's self aware enough to grok it and try to mitigate the problem. That said, if you removed 100% of the asshole from Linus you'd have removed the drive that made him a hero. I hope he finds the balance. Regardless, he'll always be one of my heroes.
Is that a fact from psychology or statistics or something, because it sounds to me like making excuses for his bad behavior? I don't see how being an asshole should have much correlation with success.
It seems that not suffering fools gladly could well be correlated with success. It reduces time wasted (although doing so extremely impolitely may have other negative results).
I acknowledge it's just my feeling not based on any psychology research that I know about, though if you'd seen any of the other comments I've made in this thread you'd see that I absolutely don't make excuses for Linus's bad behavior. Quite the opposite.
And I don't think you understood what I was trying to say regarding the dark side of what drives a successful leader, I didn't communicate it particularly well.
