When I started and ran small businesses, I felt I would work as hard as I could and do anything to grow my business. Still, I felt I had limits what I would try not to do. I wouldn’t break the law. I would treat all my employees with respect. I would compete based on value and price.

But when you think of some of the companies that revolutionized their industry, it seems that there are many founders who would do anything to grow your business and overstep boundaries that many would not take.

I recently watched the Showtime docuseries “Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber” which chronicles the rise (and fall) of Travis Kalanick (who is called TK), one of the founders and CEO of Uber. The story follows how Travis would do anything (and I mean anything) to pave the way for ride sharing even it meant skirting the law, the rules of Apple’s App Store and ruthlessly fueling an intensely male dominated competitive culture.

According to the docuseries, TK used Uber technology to mislead government regulators, hid a secret data collection function from Apple, and led a male dominated “asshole” culture where women were not treated fairly. Eventually, these tactics led to  his firing as the CEO of Uber.

But, when Uber went public, TK made $2.5B. He went on to run CloudKitchens, another successful company that acts as a ghost kitchen valued at $32B.

So were his tactics justified for him and his shareholders based on his ultimate financial success?

I will leave that judgement up to you, but what I got to thinking about is-

Would I use the tactics that Travis Kalanick used? Is this required for billion dollar success?

Looking back,  I realized my answer is “no”. I am not him or any of these other founders;  there are somethings I would not do for financial success. Maybe, I don’t want it that bad or maybe I don’t identify as much as I did that I am my company. Maybe I am just realizing this with age or after some amount of success that I don’t want to pursue financial success at all costs.

But is that what it takes to be like Jobs, Bezos, Ellison, Musk and Kalanick? I continue to wonder.