At some cursed point between Steve Jobs throwing tantrums and Elon Musk shitposting, we collectively decided that genius equals being an insufferable prick.
Oh yeah, you gotta act like a complete asshole to prove that you are a visionary.
The more you verbally sucker punch your team, the brighter your bulb must be shining.
The tantrums, impossible demands, and eye-roll-inducing arrogance suddenly became badges of fucking honor.
Bravo, humanity.
We swallowed that garbage whole.
If you have a sharp mind, you better have a tongue like a chainsaw, slicing egos left, right, and center. Kindness became suspect—mediocrity wrapped in a friendly, weak-ass disguise.
We have normalized this lunatic archetype of the tortured genius, the abusive visionary, the startup sociopath who burns through employees.
Oh, they’re assholes?
Nah, they’re just misunderstood artists, disruptors who can’t be bothered with basic human decency, because “greatness demands suffering”.
At some point in time, we decided that being nice was some kind of pathetic weakness. Like, god forbid you actually respect someone without first destroying their self-esteem. Abuse is just collateral damage, and trauma, consider that a motivational tax.
And those who cry about it clearly can’t handle “real innovation.”
But here’s a secret: brilliance never needed abuse.
Never.
We just got lazy.
We stopped demanding better, settling for charisma-wrapped cruelty. We glorified toxic jerks who weaponize their talent to justify being shitty human beings. Their output, however mediocre, became their shield, insulating them from any accountability.
The damage is fucking everywhere, man.
People who are abandoning entire careers, shutting down creativity, shrinking in silence because they’ve internalized abuse as their own damn failure.
“Maybe I’m not built for genius”, they whisper, defeated, unaware that they’re victims of a rigged system, that is designed and maintained by narcissistic pricks who benefit from this warped, self-serving concept of brilliance.
The genuinely smart people that I’ve seen don’t leave behind smoking craters.
They don’t verbally napalm everyone around them. They actually listen instead of shouting louder.
These are the people who build lasting legacies, not by climbing over bodies, but by lifting people up. Empathy isn’t a weakness, it’s darned rocket fuel. Being brilliant doesn’t mean you have to be a dickhead.
Yet, the lie persists.
Because, let’s face it, it is convenient.
We get to avoid the uncomfortable truth, which is that cruelty doesn’t produce genius, it just camouflages mediocre egomaniacs who excel at branding themselves as geniuses. Clever marketing and charisma cover up the hollow core of these assholes, and we lap it up, nodding along like mindless hive drones.
Real genius isn’t domination, peeps, it is collaboration.
It is knowing that you’re rarely the smartest in the room and having the guts to invite those who are.
If your self-esteem depends on belittling or breaking people, then congrats, you are not a genius, you’re a corporate dictator cosplaying as a visionary.
A spoiled brat with a title.
A tantrum in a suit jacket.
And seriously, can we stop clapping for this bullshit?
* Hi Marc Drees 😂
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The CEO circle jerk
You know who’s laughing hardest at this toxic-genius bullshit?
Yup, of course, the title gives it away.
It’s the CEOs who couldn’t innovate their way out of a wet piece of toilet paper.
These executive asshats sit in their padded boardrooms, patting each other’s butts, applauding their own audacity for firing half their workforce on Zoom.
Oh, look at me, I’m innovating! No, you dumb fuck, you’re just good at making headlines.
These aren’t the visionaries of our time, they are power-hungry parasites, who are just drunk on the illusion of genius. They’re experts at one thing, and that is creating cults of personality. Their marketing teams scramble to rebrand cruelty as “visionary decisiveness”. Employees suffer silently, being convinced that abuse is the cost of greatness, when it’s really just the cost of inflating some dickhead’s fragile ego.
Genuine innovation doesn’t need casualties.
If your big idea demands breaking spirits and crushing souls, your idea friggin’ sucks.
Period.
Real leaders empower their teams, not terrorize them.
They lead with humility.
Not because they’re saints, but because they know real power comes from collaboration, not intimidation.
But as long as investors keep worshipping at the altar of narcissism, this cycle continues. Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Tech Campus XYZ, they all love a good asshole, as long as the profits keep flowing. So, don’t kid yourself, toxic genius isn’t accidental.
It’s institutionalized.
The real price tag of brilliance
The irony of our collective stupidity is breathtaking. We are losing genuinely creative minds, we are burning them out, silencing them, because we’ve romanticized toxic assholes who scream louder. But instead of demanding accountability, we have built a shrine to cruelty, crowning tyrants and bullies as kings of innovation.
Newsflash!
Genius isn’t a license to be a raging dickwad.
Innovation isn’t measured in bruises and breakdowns.
You wanna talk disruption? How about disrupting this toxic bullshit first? Maybe, we’d start seeing real breakthroughs instead of shallow stunts masked as “innovation”.
Imagine a world where brilliance didn’t come with emotional scars attached. Imagine rewarding actual brilliance, not narcissistic dickery disguised as vision. Imagine that revolutionary idea.
Or don’t.
Keep clapping for the assholes.
Just don’t complain when all you’ve got left are damaged people and worthless stock options. You bought the hype, after all.
Signing off from being a dick.
Marco
Oh? Did I ask you to take the survey?
I build AI by day and warn about it by night. I call it job security. Let’s keep smashing delusions with truth. We are the chaos. We are the firewall. We are Big Tech’s PR nightmare.
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