I'm not defending being a jerk. Personally, I try to be kind in all my interpersonal interactions. However, some people are just a package deal. Call it what you want, high IQ and low EQ or whatever, but you can't just accept one part of them and try to get rid of the rest.

Also, with regards to this comment: "Valuing non-jerkiness more isn’t “negating brilliance”. Brilliant non-jerks are available."

Sure, there's no shortage of brilliant non-jerks, but sometimes the most brilliant person for a given company in a given context (by an order of magnitude) is a jerk. You have to apply first principles, systems thinking to determine whether they're right for the company or not, and whether mitigating their jerky behavior is bad for the company or not. I don't totally disagree with the article. Sometimes the measures they recommend are well-advised, and sometimes they would be misguided. I'm cautioning about the latter because it's such a common human instinct to try to cast out or sheer the black sheep. On the margins, group harmony is overrated.

It doesn't matter if they're the best by an order of magnitude if their jerkiness demotivates 10 other people. And I doubt that 'order of magnitude' statement.

A lot of people consider Elon Musk to be a jerk, and it would be a huge shame if he’s removed from his company. In most contexts what you said is 100% correct.