Everyone who runs a business, just like everyone in any other life circumstance, must balance multiple concerns at the same time. So, the need to make money, and the need not to be a jerk. They can and should overlap in the same individual.
We've gone through periods in our culture where we glorify greed and self-interest. (Commentary like yours makes me think of Reaganites or Ayn Rand.) We've gone through other periods where we acknowledge the need to band together. (Think 1960s hippies.) A functioning person probably needs both types of influence at various times of their lives. I get really tired of how many people glorify or worship the former and neglect the latter.
To a coarse approximation, yes. But very few people would go to the lengths that Ballmer was prepared to go to. In a more just society these guys would be behind bars rather than pretending to be philanthropists.
Re:My Talk at Microsoft
by ThrowawayR2 on Monday September 23, 2019 @11:22AM
(#21049736)
> But very few people would go to the lengths that Ballmer was prepared to go to.
Larry Ellison? Scott McNealy? I'm sure I could think of others if I had the time. Ballmer was merely the most visible because MS was at the top of the food chain at the time.
Good point about Ellison and McNealy, Jobs figures in there somewhere as well given how he treated his business partner.
You say that as if it were a condemnation. Everybody who runs a business is an opportunist, pure and simple.