????麥肯齊?貝佐斯看起來似乎對《萬有商店》（The Everything Store）作者布拉德?斯通在書中直言不諱地描繪出她丈夫的形象并不滿意。書一出版，她立即寫了一封言辭激烈的評論【當然是在亞馬遜網站（Amazon.com上）】，聲稱該書“有傾向且誤導讀者”，過分關注員工之間的“緊張時刻”——她可能不想過于強硬地回擊。強調亞馬遜（Amazon）的這位CEO喜歡對下屬大發雷霆，實際上可能幫了他和他的公司。

????“炸藥包”不僅已經是美國企業文化的固定構成，也成為了很多科技行業最成功CEO的管理風格核心，包括史蒂夫?喬布斯、比爾?蓋茨和拉里?埃里森。管理專家認為，如果處置得當，這種風格甚至可能對員工和公司整體有益。

????斯通披露，亞馬遜員工用“發飆”來描述老板的暴脾氣。貝佐斯最喜歡說的話是：“你為什么要毀掉我的生活？”“如果我再聽到這個說法，我會殺了自己，”和“我們必須動用一些人類智慧來看這個問題。”這些言語大炮固然有其不利面，可能疏遠員工，最終導致他們跳槽，但也能幫助激發輝煌的成就。

????不過，也不總是這樣。20世紀下半葉的大部分時間里，謙遜禮讓是美國企業董事會的主流特質。舉例來說，20世紀80年代，福特汽車公司（Ford）和美國電話電報公司（AT&T）都聘請了質量管理運動之父、已故的W?愛德華茲?戴明。他的信條是要提高效率，公司需要“驅散員工心中的恐懼”。那個年代，大公司的市場份額基本上已經劃定，年復一年，旱澇保收，所謂看管CEO們基本上是主流，他們創造了一團和氣的工作環境。

????但隨著技術變革不斷顛覆商業模式，有遠見的領導人開始取而代之，發號施令。這些CEO們特別擅長創新方式來改變世界，但伴隨這種創新的通常是許多個性缺點。總部位于華盛頓的咨詢公司Maccoby Group的總裁、《孤芳自賞的領袖們》（Narcissistic Leaders）一書的作者邁克?馬可比說：“當今許多最成功的商界領導人都具有全面的人格失調癥，特別是高科技公司，”斯坦福大學(Stanford University)商學院學生進行的一項研究采用了馬可比制訂的一份問卷，研究發現，科技公司CEO中10個有9個有自戀型人格失調癥，定義癥狀包括自我膨脹、缺乏同情心以及偶爾的“暴跳如雷”。這些領導人，馬可比表示，根本不知道如何能不失冷靜地應對沮喪情緒。但自戀者通常會在建立親密關系方面存在問題，他們適合管理公司。

????當然，暴力領導人并不是什么徹頭徹尾的新事物。貝佐斯和他的同類科技暴君們就像19世紀末最初將美國帶入工業革命的豪門強盜一樣。那一代人中一個往往被忽視的重要成員是亨利?J.?亨氏。

????出生于1844年的亨氏是與同名公司的創始人，亨氏如今也已成為番茄醬的代名詞，美國番茄醬這么多年來少有變化(這家公司最近被沃倫?巴菲特以280億美元收購)。但1876年，這家公司剛剛創立時，亨氏（H.J. Heinz Company）是當時的高科技公司。就像貝佐斯和喬布斯，總是被稱為“火暴脾氣之王”的亨氏也一樣一點就著，但同時也創意十足。

????As unhappy as McKenzie Bezos appeared to be with author Brad Stone's unflattering portrait of her husband in the new book The Everything Store -- immediately after its publication, she wrote a stinging review (on Amazon.com, of course) calling the book "lopsided and misleading" for focusing too much on "moments of tension" between staff members -- she might not want to push back too hard. By highlighting the Amazon (AMZN) CEO's propensity to berate his staff, Stone may actually be doing him and his company a favor.

????The temper tantrum has not only become a fixture in corporate America, but it has been central to the management style of many of technology's most successful CEOs -- namely Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Larry Ellison -- and management experts say when handled appropriately, this style can even be beneficial to employees and the company as a whole.

????As Stone reveals, Amazon employees have coined a term to capture the boss' outbursts -- "nutters." Among Bezos's favorites are: "Why are you ruining my life?" "If I hear that idea again, I'm doing to have to kill myself," and "We are going to have to supply some human intelligence to this problem." But while such verbal volleys do have their downside -- namely alienated employees who may jump ship -- they also can help spark spectacular achievements

????This has not always been the case. For most of the second half of the 20th century, a kinder, gentler ethos reigned in America's boardrooms. For example, in the 1980s, both Ford (F) and AT&T (T) hired the late W. Edwards Deming, the father of the quality management movement. His credo was that to increase efficiency, companies needed to "drive out fear" in workers. In an era when big companies could count on a given market share year after year, so-called caretaker CEOs, who created congenial workplaces, largely ruled.

????With technological change now constantly upending business models, however, visionary leaders are calling the shots instead. These CEOs are remarkably adept at devising ways to change the world, but along with this creativity often comes a host of personality tics. "Many of today's most successful business leaders have a full-blown personality disorder, particularly those in high-tech firms," says Michael Maccoby, president of Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm the Maccoby Group and author of Narcissistic Leaders. Research conducted by students at Stanford University's business school using a questionnaire developed by Maccoby suggests that as many as nine out of 10 tech CEOs suffer from narcissistic personality disorder, whose defining symptoms are an inflated sense of self, a lack of empathy, and occasional "rage attacks." These leaders, Macoby says, simply don't know how to cope with frustration without losing their cool. But while narcissists often have problems in intimate relationships, they are well suited to running companies.

????The volatile leader, of course, is not an entirely new breed. Bezos and his fellow tech titans are all throwbacks to the robber barons of the late 19th century -- the men who first brought America into the industrial age. One key and often overlooked member of that generation was Henry J. Heinz.

????Born in 1844, Heinz was the founder of the eponymous company now synonymous with ketchup, America's slow-moving national sauce (recently purchased by Warren Buffett for $28 billion). But when it was founded in 1876, the H.J. Heinz Company constituted the latest in high-tech. And like Bezos and Jobs, Heinz -- often called "the pickle king" -- was as prickly and creative as they come.