I was replying to cesarbs, who literally said "Being a leader does not justify being an asshole."
Edit: And yes, the conversation pivoted to being a leader because that is a critical difference between Knuth and Torvalds which seems very relevant to this sort of comparison.
That makes sense, except that OP said "You don't have to be a jerk to get ahead in life", he didn't mentioned being a leader. The followed commenters brought the leadership point into attention and then subtly implied that there is more correlation between being a jerk and a leader.