We’ve all been there. I love being right, I hate being wrong, and there is a unique gratification in proving people wrong. But God help us when we are on the receiving end. When a person, action or event causes us to feel wronged, mistreated or humiliated, our egos' default setting is to strike back. Seeking revenge is an easy response to the discomfort and, in many ways, provides a lot of benefits. It has the ability to soothe us from the pain because it makes us feel like we are proactively doing something towards fixing our emotional state. It is, therefore, an incredibly rewarding strategy, in the short term, because any forward momentum helps you regain confidence. Which in turn, begets more confidence, and gets you back on your feet.In the business case studies above, spite led to such a positive contribution, well beyond the initial moment of lift-off, because it spurred significant and positive change in the world which allowed it’s founders to drop spite altogether and be spared from its harmful effects. Each individual created an entirely new category for their products and innovations, and in so far surpassing their competitors, they no longer needed to live to face the individual or company that wronged them. No more source, no more harm. Yet despite the gripping and romanticised tales of successful revenge and the sparks that ignited them, it isn’t perceived as an admirable human characteristic. And it remains strategically hidden from the ‘about’ section of any company’s back story.