“I think we have to get over this notion that being great and powerful also makes you a wonderful, loving, kind person, because a lot of very creative people in the arts or in politics or in business get very far, but they're not the nicest people in the world. But so what? Why does everyone have to be these paragons of virtue?”
My First Million · Startups & Venture · November 2026
Context
Shaan Puri said the most charismatic people Greene studied often seem broken, driven by a need for outside validation. Greene agrees that greatness often comes with difficult personalities, and argues we should stop expecting the people who get things done to also be saintly.
Transcript
…camera, was from kind of creating this neediness in the camera that she wants and is drawing your attention and drawing your love is a quality that a lot of actors can have. And it's something that some have learned. But in her case, once again, it was a function of really of where she came from.
…with this idea that like, I guess I do seek some of that. I get high highs when it's validated and low lows when I'm not seeing that special. That is true about me. So I guess in that way, it's true. Can you, I guess, is what I said, like, does that resonate with your research and what you believe?
First, I mean, you know, when the attention leaves you, when the camera isn't following you, when you're not in power, you're not fighting a Hitler, you know, you can get very, very depressed. And obviously, Marilyn Monroe committed suicide. Churchill had these, I forget what his name is, Black something or others that he would kind of fall into where he just was deeply, deeply depressed. Kennedy, you know, he had a lot of physical ailments. I don't really know because he died. He was assassinated when he was quite young. But so the idea is you become addicted to the attention and to the need to have a public all the time. And that can be debilitating. But, you know, a lot of very great people aren't necessarily the nicest people on the planet. And that's, and they're maybe not necessarily the happiest, but they create great things. One of my icons in sports was Kobe Bryant because that guy had set levels of determination. And persistence, channeling a lot of anger that he had from probably from his childhood. And, you know, he was just so fierce on the court. And he was probably a difficult person in many…
That's awesome. Is there someone who you look up to where they've checked all the boxes or many of the boxes where you think that they are a great person and also ethical? And I admire them for how they treated their family, things like that, because we have a lot of great people on here. And there…
Who do you admire the whole of, or who is the outlier that accomplished the greatness, but was a great being as well?
Well, I mean, it's kind of personal, but my former mentee, Ryan Holliday, I very much admire him because he's incredibly successful. He's built this empire. He's a very decent, good person. He's raising a family. He's a great father. And I used, I got him to be my researcher because I saw that he…
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