Fadell explained why he believes “mission-driven a**holes are a good thing, and in fact, needed to create and ship world class technology products.

“People work with people who are very difficult, and those are the ones that create and change the world. But there are two types of aholes. Everybody’s an ahole, but you gotta understand why,” Fadell said. “If they’re an ahole, because it’s their ego, they’re trying to push people down, that is an egocentric ahole. But, if you are an ahole on the details, you’re sitting there pushing on the details, you’re not criticizing the people, but you are critiquing their work and saying you can do better, that is a mission-driven ahole.”