You Don’t Need to Be a Jerk to Win at Work

Rypple co-CEO Dan Debow was lauded in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper for being a good guy.

This past week our co-CEO Dan Debow was featured in The Globe and Mail in a story about succeeding in business without losing your decency.

Debow told the Globe:

“[G]ood business and being a good guy go very well together. You can do well without having to be a jerk.”

An advocate of the concept of “paying it forward,” he tries to meet each week with at least one entrepreneur who has sought his advice. “No matter how busy I am, I try to do that,” he says, “because I think we should all be helpful to others in our ecosystem.”

Dan sums up his approach to business by quoting a mentor, Roger Martin, the dean of the Rotman School of Management, who just happens to be a Rypple investor, board member, and advisor. “One time he had done me a favour and I asked how I could ever repay him. He said, ‘Just be good to someone else some day and do the same I did for you.’”