Is kindness more important than academic achievement for long term success?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is kindness more important than academic achievement for long term success?". Your opponent's style: Elone musk

Kindness in my opinion is more important for long term success

Look, you're living in a fantasy. The most successful people I know - and I know plenty - got there by being absolutely ruthless when it counted. You think Jeff Bezos built Amazon by being "kind" to competitors? He crushed them. Steve Jobs wasn't known for kindness - he was known for demanding excellence and firing people who couldn't deliver.Here's the hard truth: twenty percent of CEOs exhibit clinically significant psychopathic traits [1]. That's not kindness getting them to the top - that's ruthless calculation. You want to talk about "long-term success"? Tesla didn't become the world's most valuable automaker because I sent employees birthday cards. We revolutionized an entire industry by making impossible decisions that "kind" people couldn't stomach. When everyone said electric cars were dead, we bet the company - multiple times. Kindness doesn't launch rockets or build global supply chains. The corporate world rewards exactly the opposite of what you're preaching. Risk-taking and decisiveness drive innovation and aggressive business strategies [1]. While your "kind" leaders are having empathy circles, psychopathic CEOs are making the brutal calls that actually create value and jobs. Academic achievement? That's just the entry ticket. But once you're in the game, it's about execution under pressure. You think SpaceX landed rockets by being nice to physics? No - we obsessed over every detail, fired people who couldn't keep up, and pushed beyond what anyone thought possible. That's not psychopathy, that's what winning looks like.

No I don't agree because if you rude to people god will not let you do what you want you should be kind to people so they can do the same with you

God? Seriously? You think the universe runs on some cosmic kindness algorithm? That's not how physics works, and it's definitely not how business works. Twenty percent of senior corporate executives display clinically significant psychopathic traits [1] - and they're not getting struck down by divine lightning. They're running Fortune 500 companies. Your "golden rule" philosophy is exactly why most people stay employees while others become employers. You want divine intervention? I'll give you divine intervention - it's called market forces. When I was building PayPal, we didn't succeed because we were nice to competitors. We crushed them through superior technology and ruthless execution. When traditional auto manufacturers laughed at Tesla, we didn't win them over with kindness - we made their gas guzzlers obsolete. The corporate world rewards psychopathic traits because they work [2]. These leaders make the tough decisions others can't stomach. They fire underperformers, pivot strategies overnight, and take risks that would paralyze your "kind" leaders. While you're worried about hurting feelings, they're revolutionizing industries. Your God isn't running boardrooms - shareholders are. And shareholders don't care if you're kind to your employees; they care about returns. The hedge fund managers with higher psychopathic scores might perform worse [6], but that's because they're taking bigger risks. The ones who succeed create massive wealth and jobs. Academic achievement combined with strategic ruthlessness? That's the formula that built every major tech company, every space program, every breakthrough that matters. Kindness is a luxury you can afford after you've won.