Ego is essential to breaking through those tough barriers and new opportunities. Disregard for risk. Is this really what is needed when Google is being criticized for falling behind its competitors in innovation.
You might not like G+ but it IS innovation. Everything one does in slighly different way is innovation, if you don't want that, you would have to abandon pretty much everything except wheel and fire.
I also don't think that creator's ego is a factor in product's success. There are many egotistical entrepreneurs with successful products. People might not like creators, but they like the product.
So isn't the best strategy to let the market determine if something is worth it or not? I'm sure G+ has got its valuation...
> Everything one does in slighly different way is innovation
No, it is not. If I decide to change the design of a bicycle to have square shaped wheels I have not innovated. I have instead made it objectively worse.
I think to innovate is generally accepted as meaning to improve upon something in some way. I don't think G+ improved anything, as its abject failure in the real world demonstrates.
I disagree. Was Yahoo search innovative? Google search came later and just did the search in a better way, but people still called Google search innovative!
Yahoo search did make money with banner advertisements, and when that was doing well people called Yahoo search innovative. Innovation is used like a buzz word. Truly anything new, even if it is poorer than the previous product is innovation, it may not sell, but it is innovation!
To be fair, G+-the-product is not bad. It's G+-the-borg, the forceful attitude towards integrating other Google properties and establishing a source of truth for real names, that generated backlash and eventually doomed the project.
That might have been the internal aim of the project, but to the user G+ was just another social network. In that sense, it wasn't a terrible social network.
IMHO if Google had just kept G+ on its own (working hard on fixing the "ghost town" byproduct of evolved privacy features, and providing decent APIs), adoption numbers could have been lower in the short term, but the product would have survived in the long run. Integration with other Google products should have come naturally, not forcefully. Then we would have got a modern social network people actually wanted to join, instead of a tainted product stinking of corporate malfeasance.
I want to down vote this comment, looks like I can't. Sometimes success of a product also depends on being in the right place at right time. It is not binary
I wasn't equating ego to meanness, more a disregard of what other people think about them, not being afraid to fail also not to compromise their product to make everyone happy and ending up with a washed down product.
I think we fool ourselves into believing there is external pressure for quick, dirty, please everyone, "will fix it later" solutions when no one sane asks for that.
Modern management is trying to apply command and control to creative endeavours, and usually forces everyone to fail.
Sometimes it's possible to wander around, rejecting the views of everyone else and creating a perfect product. More often you get something no one wants.
A better approach is to have enough time and money to walk in the right direction, carefully. No matter how many times I think of the idea of a start up running ahead I think of disorganised mob, not a disciplined army.
The goal is to take a disciplined army into the unknown.
In the sense that "ego" is understood in both psychology and spiritual circles, low egotism is associated with the qualities you describe.
High egotism -> high conscious opinion of one's self (compensating for low subconscious self-worth), need for external affirmation of self-worth, and propensity for aggression and meanness in the pursuit of that affirmation.
Low egotism -> content with self-worth, unreactive to external criticism or praise, willingness to do what is "for the greater good" regardless of short term challenges and resistance, trusting one's self to achieve the best outcome in the end.
I wonder if, in the future, people will compile these writings into a book with numbers for easy reference of quotes. They could also add testaments of things He said as recorded by His disciples.
May you be blessed, brother. Let us find wisdom and civility in His word of Ref. 1, PG 09:14, Psalm 9:2. "If you want to build great things, it helps to be driven by a spirit of benevolence".
I wouldn't conflate lack of ego with lack of drive or ambition or an averseness to risk. Especially for someone who went from a lower middle class family in one of the poorest states in India to becoming the CEO of Google.
When a group of very smart people get together, there is a tendency for them to try to show themselves as being the smartest. This can lead to less-desirable situations where people don't share or cooperate as freely as they should. In the worst cases the situation could become antagonistic with individuals or entire teams and departments refusing to talk to each other. Now in a group of smart people, walks in a person like Sundar Pichai, someone without ego, who always defers to the other person, who might put himself/herself down to make the other person feel better. When two people in the group get into a conflict on an issue (remember this is a group that can get into religious wars over which brace style to use), it will be that person who mediates and gets the team going again. When the team has to vote on a new leader, that person is likely to get the most votes because he/she is the person everyone has the least issues with. Such a person who avoids conflict is able to act as transcendental force. People are more willing to listen to such a person or do what he/she says because they don't feel threatened by him/her.
Someone like Steve Jobs who always puts himself above everyone else, could also act as a transcendental force as long as people agree to that. But if someone like Steve Jobs was to start at the bottom of the organisation, and moves up the ladder to its top position, it would be by putting other people and teams down. These people might harbour a grudge or ill-will and be less likely to do what the new boss says. It is not a strategy without its downsides (For example why did someone as incredibly gifted as Steve Wozniak end up leaving Apple?).
By promoting similar people to leadership positions, Pichai is creating a environment where people with great talent but less taste for politics can also get their voice heard. I think such an environment is good for creativity to flourish.
"A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit."
"Especially for someone who went from a lower middle class family in one of the poorest states in India to becoming the CEO of Google."
Not to take anything away from Sundar Pichai's accomplishments, but Tamil Nadu, from where he hails, is decidedly not "one of the poorest states in India." It has the second largest gross state domestic product in the country. [1]
Perhaps. Although lot of articles seem to claim that he was from a lower-middle class family, and i was basing my statement on those. His upbringing probably wasn't uncomfortable but still it was modest.
Sven put this crudely, but he isn't wrong, nor has he said this explicitly as an insult; he has merely made an observation.
That said, the CEO is also the face of the company when it comes to high profile companies like Google. Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon also share this trait. Having a flat out boring CEO isn't in there best interest; they need someone with the right amount of ego: not too little, not too much.
The "I'm the smartest person in the world, because I work at Google" attitude is a reason I don't interact with/communicate with/contribute to Google-related projects. Their hugely inflated egos are just off-putting.
Sometime, Google employees also show this kind of attitude in their social life which makes other people hard to just have social interaction with Google employees.
Yes, one of the most annoying things you can encounter is a conversation at dinner with multiple Google employees. They will constantly mention that Google is working on something and then after confirmation with each other that it is still private, refuse to tell anymore details. It seems like it's encouraged in Google culture to brag but in a secretive manner to remind outsiders of what they are missing.
Plus, Google's huge and has very few internal communication barriers --- nearly everything is open to everyone. So it's really easy to get into the habit of casually talking about internal products when talking shop.
Then you notice someone nearby who isn't a Googler, and you go oh shit and stop talking.
And that is almost definitionally a lack of social grace and tact. It's one flavor of what is meant by "low EQ".
It may be usual and common for Google employees to do that. That doesn't make it excusable, and it's a pretty big reason why I, too, tend to avoid gatherings where I know it's going to be a bunch of Google employees. They communicate that they don't want outsiders around? I can oblige.
So that's a lack of EQ... So much so that it's a lack of common decency. Yes, it's a big deal, yes it's exciting but when in mixed company you need to talk about other things if it's indeed secret stuff.
Ironically, lunches are not like this. :D Since you never know which people in the cafeteria are or are not Google employees, conversation in the cafes is almost never about sensitive work stuff. The infosec focus actually stimulates an environment with a better work/life balance. Totally strange to experience, but 100% true.
I can second this, having worked with and talked with many of the team - they are great people, and enforce respect for each other within the community as the minimum bar for being involved in the ecosystem.
I have not had an issue with any interactions with any Google-backed projects.
Googler for close to a year, so take this with a grain of salt.. I had heard of this exact reputation before I joined and frankly it was one of the things that worried me most.
After I joined, I kept waiting for the hammer to fall, to see the competitive mean streak in people and in my team at least, it was exactly the opposite. It's frankly the best environment I've worked in because they are genuinely caring people.
Now, it's not all rainbows and unicorns. I've also run into the aspergers poster child, into the competitive assholes, but I don't have to deal with any of these in my daily life. So, yes, there are assholes, but I don't think this is the norm.
There are never dumb questions, only practical and valuable examples of areas for improvement in documentation and/or related collateral (tutorials, cheat sheets, FAQs, etc.).
I actually interact with teams that bring a lot more revenue and is more highly visible to the public. And, again, I may be lucky here, but all the way up to my SVP are nice. I may have been lucky, but I think it's more an issue with people generalizing some issues. I'm not going to generalize my experience either, but I had to offer a different perspective.
Honestly, think about how many companies let their nerdiest of engineers be the public face of projects. The reputation is easy to come by when your front is not a "people person".
While I worked at Google I noticed a huge disparity between how people responded to other Googlers and how they responded to non-googlers. A more interesting observation would be to find people you know and look for their outside interactions. If you find the same disparity as I did you might want to bring it up with them, sometimes that helps sometimes not.
Googlers are actually quite friendly for the most part. The internal vibe at Google is like the Globex Corporation from The Simpsons. They are elite but once you make it on the inside, far from elitist. Just never mind their secret take-over-the-world plans and you'll be fine. :)
Oh, and if you are a cat person, become a dog person before joining the company.
No, it's the HTML doc title, which makes it a legit original—indeed, it's what the HN bookmarklet selects by default. So adidash didn't editorialize anything. Also, no moderator touched this post.
HN has overeager mods. Every day I see a new link here, just to find out it was simply a rename, when the original title was IMHO perfectly appropriate.
Both are original titles—the 'asshole' one is an H1 heading and the 'egotistical' one is the HTML doc title. The submitter chose the latter, which (since it's less baity) was the better choice by the HN guidelines.
I think they established that though. The whole article is about how there are people with both high EQs and IQs being promoted. So they are kind of admitting to their existence. They also didn't downplay them as less analytical.
I'm liking their moves towards the option to pay to get rid of ads. Like with Youtube Red and I believe there is this option for Google Ads too, though I doubt in practice this means they track anything less about you. It's a dangerous dance for them to start supporting new business models that are alternatives to their cash cows.
I suspect part of it is them hedging against real backlash against concerns about advertisement as surveillance.
"Page was known as a tough manager inside the search giant, peppering his team with pointed questions and cutting (though usually accurate) observations. “He could come off as very harsh,” said one person who has had many encounters with Page over the years. “Until you realize it was more that he was completely lacking in EQ. I mean, zero.”"
How is asking pointed questions and making cutting observations equate to being unsympathetic ? If you care about succeeding, this type of feedback is invaluable. If you don't, then you are more likely going to use the 'he is not very nice' card to get out doing any good work.
Agreed, being tactful is a good thing. But what is implied in that statement is that asking pointed questions and making accurate observations ( which could be damaging to your beliefs ) equates to being an asshole.
Possible, but not easy. A lot of people interpret any feedback that boils down to "this work isn't good enough" as a personal attack, no matter how nicely it's couched.
This is why I don't like to hire designers who haven't been to art school. They can't take criticism. For programmers I don't have much of heuristic for selecting ones that can handle the fact that "the bar is here and this code/solution/etc is under it".
Well sure it is. There are many possible responses as well, depending on personality and incentives.
There is no universal definition of an asshole, and no one is safe from being an asshole in someone's eyes, so moving right past it is definitely a valid, useful strategy.
If you are a manager, your job is to get your team to produce the right outcome - the right outcome being not just a good product but a good sustainable team.
If your team feel insulted/humiliated/upset, they are less likely to produce the right outcome in the short or long term.
Any decent manager can ask the right questions and make accurate observations whilst still making their team feel positive and valued.
For some people, it's the content rather than the presentation which makes them feel insulted/humiliated/upset. The only way to prevent the negative feelings is to fail to communicate the "your work sucks" or "your idea won't work" message.
Blaming their feelings on the manager, rather than their own egos, is wrong and harmful.
Praise in public, criticize in private. Rule 1 of management.
Also, give credit to your team, take blame yourself. That's s rule 2. Any industry, any job, these rules hold, and anyone who doesn't follow them is dysfunctional.
Some people still don't want to hear that their idea sucks, even in private.
I don't get why people are so attracted to this idea that the manager is the only party with any agency or ability to influence outcomes, while underlings are merely mechanical cogs to be properly organized by appropriate managerial incantations and social engineering.
As an underling it's great to be responsible for nothing negative, but this also means you don't really deserve much credit for the positives. Managers might throw false praise your way to manipulate you - as per your suggestion - but who cares about that?
Nothing false about it. If I'm in a management role, and things go hatstand, well the buck stop with me, that's why managers get paid the big bucks. I may have to take measures later with the individual in question if it was negligence on their part, but ensuring the success of the team and the project is what the manager is for. If I have given someone more responsibility than they are ready for, that's on me. If I have failed to implement a failsafe process/procedure that's on me. If my team aren't doing code reviews that's on me. If they are taking on unmanageable technical debt, that's on me. Etc etc.
If I'm in a software development role, and the software doesn't work, well the buck stops with me. I may need to shut down a box and spin up a larger one, but ensuring that hardware is adequate is what the developer is for. If I have given an EC2 instance more load than it is ready for, that's on me.
With this mental model, of course it's false praise, just like it would be false praise for me to give credit to my hardware.
Now I don't buy this model. But this is the logical implication of it - success is the flip side of failure.
I've never seen a management role as something related to individual performance. I think it's rather clear that a one person team won't work better with additional manager. On average though you won't get uniform team nor a team that gets along well. And even if you do, it has its own dangers. Manager is there to make sure things happen even when people disagree on them, and to make sure the best option wins any argument, not just the loudest. It's really often like juggling with dogs and cats. That are on fire.
being right is not an excuse for being a dick. its a false dichotomy to think that if you are generally respectful you are any less effective as a leader. if the same thing can be accomplished without being a douche, who would you rather work for?
Have you ever busted your ass on a project and been reasonably proud of the outcome, only to be publicly excoriated and treated like an idiot when your boss points out some holes in your thinking, and focuses almost exclusively on those? Yes, the holes needed to be pointed out. But the manner in which they were pointed out probably left you feeling like shit. Especially if this happened with any appreciable frequency or regularity.
Some people will power through that sort of criticism. Some people will thrive under it. And quite a few people, including very smart and hardworking people, will be gradually demoralized by it.
As a manager, to whatever extent you are gradually demoralizing your team, you are creating inefficiencies. You are creating burnout problems, which may become turnover problems. You also risk inadvertently creating a yes-man culture, in which your opinions are deemed unassailable, and/or everyone just wants to avoid public conflict with you, and thus pleasing you becomes people's primary intellectual objective.
I've never worked for Larry Page, have no firsthand experience with his management style, and don't mean this as a commentary about him. But I have worked for people who fit this description, and while it didn't bother me too much, it sure bothered a lot of great people to an unnecessary degree.
How you give feedback matters almost as much as the accuracy or insight of your feedback.
> "He could come off as very harsh,” said one person who has had many encounters with Page over the years. “Until you realize it was more that he was completely lacking in EQ. I mean, zero.”
I think it's pretty clear that the feedback could have been given in a more constructive manner.
Sure, just to play the devil's advocate here (I support for giving feedback in constructive manner when possible), sometimes giving a feedback in a constructive manner is simply inefficient and some manager may not have time to do it every time they think something isn't perfect.
Hello X, while I think you have done these three features A, B, C well....blah blah, you could do E in a better way by doing 1,2,3. This superfluity can add up, making some people get straight to the point.
Getting to show how smart you are is different that working together with a team on building great products. Everyone has flaws, why not let the other person save face and point them in the right direction instead ? Assuming you hired motivated and smart people, I find that most of the time bad decisions are due to a lack of context more than anything else. If you get to share that information they probably are going to come to the same conclusion as you are. They get to learn something and you get better employees.
Agreed. I've worked for people that are like that. I never took it personally. Because they never attacked me personally.
However, I will say that one trick I've learned over the years is to "frame the questions" as though you're both on the same side of the dialogue. You're both fighting against the thing on the other side of the table, which is the functionality / app you're creating. If you can frame questions in that way, to ensure people don't feel they're on the receiving end of personal attacks, this is invaluable and makes it easier for people to accept those "pointed questions" as valid criticism, and helps them realize that you're asking the questions only because of your undying desire to get things right. It keeps people from feeling under attack when anything they're working on gets questioned / interrogated.
While many times people think the boss always thinks they're right, generally those people are just more timid than the average person I think. If they opened up and disagreed or questioned parts of the interrogation they would realize the questioner is only opening a dialogue, not establishing that they're always going to be right and that the person needs to "fall in line".
Being Egotistical shouldn't be conflated with being an Egotistical Asshole. Ego if used in the right way can be a powerful force for the better. America's moonshot was a collective ego of an entire nation that led them to achieve it.
I watched an interview by Charlie Rose of Google's operation guy called Lazlo, I thought it was a great interview. He said having intellectual humility is important (does not mean less ego), which is the curiosity to learn or accept if you were wrong. Ego I am not convinced is such a harmful thing, and lets not say it is harmful just because many software engineers being introverts have a confirmation bias against it.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 165 ms ] threadI also don't think that creator's ego is a factor in product's success. There are many egotistical entrepreneurs with successful products. People might not like creators, but they like the product.
So isn't the best strategy to let the market determine if something is worth it or not? I'm sure G+ has got its valuation...
No, it is not. If I decide to change the design of a bicycle to have square shaped wheels I have not innovated. I have instead made it objectively worse.
I think to innovate is generally accepted as meaning to improve upon something in some way. I don't think G+ improved anything, as its abject failure in the real world demonstrates.
Yahoo search did make money with banner advertisements, and when that was doing well people called Yahoo search innovative. Innovation is used like a buzz word. Truly anything new, even if it is poorer than the previous product is innovation, it may not sell, but it is innovation!
IMHO if Google had just kept G+ on its own (working hard on fixing the "ghost town" byproduct of evolved privacy features, and providing decent APIs), adoption numbers could have been lower in the short term, but the product would have survived in the long run. Integration with other Google products should have come naturally, not forcefully. Then we would have got a modern social network people actually wanted to join, instead of a tainted product stinking of corporate malfeasance.
Modern management is trying to apply command and control to creative endeavours, and usually forces everyone to fail.
Sometimes it's possible to wander around, rejecting the views of everyone else and creating a perfect product. More often you get something no one wants.
A better approach is to have enough time and money to walk in the right direction, carefully. No matter how many times I think of the idea of a start up running ahead I think of disorganised mob, not a disciplined army.
The goal is to take a disciplined army into the unknown.
not a rabble egged on by a crazy guy, or a goose.
High egotism -> high conscious opinion of one's self (compensating for low subconscious self-worth), need for external affirmation of self-worth, and propensity for aggression and meanness in the pursuit of that affirmation.
Low egotism -> content with self-worth, unreactive to external criticism or praise, willingness to do what is "for the greater good" regardless of short term challenges and resistance, trusting one's self to achieve the best outcome in the end.
We could call it "The Book of Graham".
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/mean.html
http://www.leveragedsellout.com/2014/02/the-book-of-graham/
When a group of very smart people get together, there is a tendency for them to try to show themselves as being the smartest. This can lead to less-desirable situations where people don't share or cooperate as freely as they should. In the worst cases the situation could become antagonistic with individuals or entire teams and departments refusing to talk to each other. Now in a group of smart people, walks in a person like Sundar Pichai, someone without ego, who always defers to the other person, who might put himself/herself down to make the other person feel better. When two people in the group get into a conflict on an issue (remember this is a group that can get into religious wars over which brace style to use), it will be that person who mediates and gets the team going again. When the team has to vote on a new leader, that person is likely to get the most votes because he/she is the person everyone has the least issues with. Such a person who avoids conflict is able to act as transcendental force. People are more willing to listen to such a person or do what he/she says because they don't feel threatened by him/her.
Someone like Steve Jobs who always puts himself above everyone else, could also act as a transcendental force as long as people agree to that. But if someone like Steve Jobs was to start at the bottom of the organisation, and moves up the ladder to its top position, it would be by putting other people and teams down. These people might harbour a grudge or ill-will and be less likely to do what the new boss says. It is not a strategy without its downsides (For example why did someone as incredibly gifted as Steve Wozniak end up leaving Apple?).
By promoting similar people to leadership positions, Pichai is creating a environment where people with great talent but less taste for politics can also get their voice heard. I think such an environment is good for creativity to flourish.
"A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit."
Not to take anything away from Sundar Pichai's accomplishments, but Tamil Nadu, from where he hails, is decidedly not "one of the poorest states in India." It has the second largest gross state domestic product in the country. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Tamil_Nadu
That said, the CEO is also the face of the company when it comes to high profile companies like Google. Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon also share this trait. Having a flat out boring CEO isn't in there best interest; they need someone with the right amount of ego: not too little, not too much.
The "I'm the smartest person in the world, because I work at Google" attitude is a reason I don't interact with/communicate with/contribute to Google-related projects. Their hugely inflated egos are just off-putting.
Plus, Google's huge and has very few internal communication barriers --- nearly everything is open to everyone. So it's really easy to get into the habit of casually talking about internal products when talking shop.
Then you notice someone nearby who isn't a Googler, and you go oh shit and stop talking.
It may be usual and common for Google employees to do that. That doesn't make it excusable, and it's a pretty big reason why I, too, tend to avoid gatherings where I know it's going to be a bunch of Google employees. They communicate that they don't want outsiders around? I can oblige.
I have not had an issue with any interactions with any Google-backed projects.
After I joined, I kept waiting for the hammer to fall, to see the competitive mean streak in people and in my team at least, it was exactly the opposite. It's frankly the best environment I've worked in because they are genuinely caring people.
Now, it's not all rainbows and unicorns. I've also run into the aspergers poster child, into the competitive assholes, but I don't have to deal with any of these in my daily life. So, yes, there are assholes, but I don't think this is the norm.
They are incredibly helpful, and very tolerant of newbies like me who sometimes ask dumb questions...
Honestly, think about how many companies let their nerdiest of engineers be the public face of projects. The reputation is easy to come by when your front is not a "people person".
Oh, and if you are a cat person, become a dog person before joining the company.
No, the new one isn't motivated to get you to click the link, and therefore is not "clickbait". It is editorialized, but that's a good thing.
It's still clickbait because it makes an unjustified, subjective judgement.
I suspect part of it is them hedging against real backlash against concerns about advertisement as surveillance.
How is asking pointed questions and making cutting observations equate to being unsympathetic ? If you care about succeeding, this type of feedback is invaluable. If you don't, then you are more likely going to use the 'he is not very nice' card to get out doing any good work.
(Robust people ask why not both?)
There is no universal definition of an asshole, and no one is safe from being an asshole in someone's eyes, so moving right past it is definitely a valid, useful strategy.
If your team feel insulted/humiliated/upset, they are less likely to produce the right outcome in the short or long term.
Any decent manager can ask the right questions and make accurate observations whilst still making their team feel positive and valued.
Blaming their feelings on the manager, rather than their own egos, is wrong and harmful.
Also, give credit to your team, take blame yourself. That's s rule 2. Any industry, any job, these rules hold, and anyone who doesn't follow them is dysfunctional.
I don't get why people are so attracted to this idea that the manager is the only party with any agency or ability to influence outcomes, while underlings are merely mechanical cogs to be properly organized by appropriate managerial incantations and social engineering.
As an underling it's great to be responsible for nothing negative, but this also means you don't really deserve much credit for the positives. Managers might throw false praise your way to manipulate you - as per your suggestion - but who cares about that?
With this mental model, of course it's false praise, just like it would be false praise for me to give credit to my hardware.
Now I don't buy this model. But this is the logical implication of it - success is the flip side of failure.
Some people will power through that sort of criticism. Some people will thrive under it. And quite a few people, including very smart and hardworking people, will be gradually demoralized by it.
As a manager, to whatever extent you are gradually demoralizing your team, you are creating inefficiencies. You are creating burnout problems, which may become turnover problems. You also risk inadvertently creating a yes-man culture, in which your opinions are deemed unassailable, and/or everyone just wants to avoid public conflict with you, and thus pleasing you becomes people's primary intellectual objective.
I've never worked for Larry Page, have no firsthand experience with his management style, and don't mean this as a commentary about him. But I have worked for people who fit this description, and while it didn't bother me too much, it sure bothered a lot of great people to an unnecessary degree.
How you give feedback matters almost as much as the accuracy or insight of your feedback.
I think it's pretty clear that the feedback could have been given in a more constructive manner.
Hello X, while I think you have done these three features A, B, C well....blah blah, you could do E in a better way by doing 1,2,3. This superfluity can add up, making some people get straight to the point.
However, I will say that one trick I've learned over the years is to "frame the questions" as though you're both on the same side of the dialogue. You're both fighting against the thing on the other side of the table, which is the functionality / app you're creating. If you can frame questions in that way, to ensure people don't feel they're on the receiving end of personal attacks, this is invaluable and makes it easier for people to accept those "pointed questions" as valid criticism, and helps them realize that you're asking the questions only because of your undying desire to get things right. It keeps people from feeling under attack when anything they're working on gets questioned / interrogated.
While many times people think the boss always thinks they're right, generally those people are just more timid than the average person I think. If they opened up and disagreed or questioned parts of the interrogation they would realize the questioner is only opening a dialogue, not establishing that they're always going to be right and that the person needs to "fall in line".
I watched an interview by Charlie Rose of Google's operation guy called Lazlo, I thought it was a great interview. He said having intellectual humility is important (does not mean less ego), which is the curiosity to learn or accept if you were wrong. Ego I am not convinced is such a harmful thing, and lets not say it is harmful just because many software engineers being introverts have a confirmation bias against it.