Anonymous wrote:All successful companies and people to a certain extent are ruthless. I don't condone it but think about what it takes to be successful. Some are obnoxiously ruthless and some are less so but very very very few are. It takes a really special company or person to come out above the rest without being somewhat different in their ability to achieve excellence or as a company, market share. I mean either they are spectacular in their talent or product that nobody can touch or they have their own weird style of being that makes them different and untouchable. Chickfilet for example. Whether Michael Jordon Tiger Woods or Pete Sampras Obama - you really have to have that drive and killer instinct to last long term as number one. Federer is an exception I can think of but you really don't know his entire story. That killer instinct is what I've seen as something that's valuable in both business and sports. Totally doesn't mean you should or need to be evil but in some capacity it is an instinct for the highest level of competition to win. It's a fine line as I know you can still be good and have that but most of the time it's easier to be ruthless and nasty. Just saying it's more common than rare.
Except the part about Amazon using its third-party marketplace to feed insight/intelligence into its retail division...clearly anti-competitive. I am fine with ruthless but not illegal.