Many people will allow themselves to be abused at work without doing anything about it. They'll commiserate with their coworkers, or vent on Glassdoor, or fantasize about leaving, but without ever following through.
So some good ones leave, and the rest get ridden hard and work on weekends and stay late to make their managers happy and rich.
Cribbing from that "book"- Destroy their sense of self-confidence & self-worth. Pick 'em young- they are easier to fool. Give them brief moments of sunshine to make them hope it'll get better. Promises. Threats. General megalomania.
The reason why Jobs and Fadell could be assholes and still succeed is because they were/are Jobs/Fadell. That doesn't mean you or I can act like assholes and still succeed. Perhaps we could be assholes after we succeed, but that's a highly unlikely hypothetical.
You can demand greatness without being an asshole.
You can tell someone the work they did isn't good enough without being an asshole.
You can also truthfully review someone's bad code without being an asshole, for what it's worth.
Being an asshole != "telling it like it is" though most people confuse the two.
This reminds me of an old quote.
"People who are brutally honest generally enjoy the brutality more than the honesty."
You tell someone something they don't want to hear, but need to hear, and you are now known as an asshole.
... but usually they're saying something that they want to hear themselves say.
I’ve seen it time and time again.. and then pushed out on social media to make the person that said it look like the bad guy...and since it’s usually one person against another, it’s impossible to defend.
This is why when the technology gets cheap enough, I will have a secret body cam on me at all times.
It’s already been proven many times that privacy no longer matters. Hell, a guy got an entire basketball team taken away from him based on private conversations.
Here's some advice, since you think you can take it. When striving to correct others: (a) Make sure you're actually correct (b) make sure you're doing it to reach a common goal, rather than to uplift yourself and (c) understand that a defensive reaction is not a weakness, it's an entirely normal human reaction, and try to empathize with the person as you deliver the hard news.
A lot of people think that others don't want to hear the truth, but it's not that. Most people want to know what's going on. What most people don't want to endure is the embarrassment of being wrong in front of someone -- which is an entirely different thing.
People get corrected on stuff all the time and take it in stride. It's when there is a blow to their ego or you're actually wrong that they get upset. So, you need to either make it clear it's not about them in particular (it usually isn't, hence the "common goal"), and even if it is, you need to make sure they know it's about making them better, not tearing them down. And, you have to be willing to consider counter-arguments -- that is, not pretend you are the sole arbiter of truth.
Bluntly stating an uncomfortable truth (or opinion!) with no quarter is not what people who seek the truth do, it is what people who want to be in control do.
So rather than develop the interpersonal skills that would allow you to say those kinds of things without sounding like an asshole, you're just going to secretly record everyone you run into (which is something that will solidify you as an asshole), and have this video record of you being an asshole to people.
"...you are now known as an asshole."