[davidkuennen]

"At the time of his death, he was estranged from most of his friends and family, except his second wife, the former Emmy Lanning (1913–2007). His children reportedly learned of his death by reading his obituary in the newspaper."

Well, that says a lot.

[rexreed]

Not to mention: "Shockley became widely known for his extreme views on race and his advocacy of eugenics". Sounds like a terrible person.

[systemvoltage]

The question is whether we tolerate assholes for their inventions and brilliancy? What material damage his asshole-ness has caused compared to the benefits he provided to the world? It is quite overwhelmingly clear.

My take is that these are the people that herald the western civilization. The misfits, the weirdos and the, yes, assholes.

They have almost zero chance to convince everyone of their twisted views of Eugenics or what have you.

I am afraid, we've created a society where these people are shunned and IMO it is an overall net-negative. A lot of people in GNU org can be borderline fascist/communist/insert-extremist-movement.

[Aloha]

Shockley is the exception to the 'tolerating assholes' rule, he was far enough outside the rails that he was largely shunned by his peers, subordinates, and everyone else.

[rexreed]

But not Stanford University, where he continued to teach other students and be a professor until his retirement, and on whose website Shockley still prominently is posted: https://engineering.stanford.edu/people/william-shockley

So perhaps there are communities smack dab in the heart of Silicon Valley startup ecosystem that do tolerate even the most extreme assholes, still. It seems personal asshole-like behavior is tolerated or ignored in lieu of their "other contributions".