"Please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place." Emails such as this were common at Linus Torvalds's company, Linux. Torvalds posted thousands of messages targeting programmers at his computer-operating-system kernel, which runs the computers of Google, PayPal and Amazon. Over a thousand of the 21,000 emails he sent in a four-year period used the word "crap."

Weinstein's rage was legendary in Hollywood. He reportedly once got a journalist in a headlock. He was described in a "New York Magazine" profile as "unbelievably hard on staff." The once-powerful movie titan has been accused by dozens of women of sexual misconduct ranging from harassment to rape. He has pleaded not guilty to six counts.

Niccolo Machiavelli wrote "It is better to be feared than loved since people love at their own pleasure, but fear at the pleasure of the prince." Oracle CEO and founder Larry Ellison may have taken this a little too much to heart. Karen Southwick in her 2003 Ellison biography said he is "like a modern-day Genghis Khan who has elevated ruthlessness in business to a carefully cultivated art form."

"I went out of my way to tell people they were stupid if I thought they were," Mark Pincus said in 2010. Zynga has been described as having a culture where Pincus obsessively tracked analytics for all his staff, set crazy deadlines and pushed his employees to meet them. Analyst Michael Pachter described the ex-CEO as being "driven to the point of a madman."

"Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction. Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive." This according to Andy Grove. The co-founder of Intel, Grove was said to be aggressive and paranoid. One of his books was in fact entitled "Only the Paranoid Survive." He was named one of America's toughest bosses by "Fortune" in 1984.

Rupert Murdoch has had a long career in being, well, a bit of a jerk. But rude to aristocrats and workmen alike, the Australian-American media tycoon dished out his contempt across the board ... And still does at the age of 87. Some things never change.

The former CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer was said to be brusque and have adopted a micromanaging style. She is one of the few women in the Rogues Gallery, but her style speaks to a world where male domination is ubiquitous. Mayer's assumption that her employees would be more productive if prohibited from working from home was one of the reasons her early popularity took a nosedive.

Martha Stewart is reported to be a very intimidating boss and not a big one on giving up control — pushing out two different CEOs, Susan Lyneand and Wenda Millard, within a year. A Merrill Lynch broker's assistant said she was particularly rude when he worked on her case for insider trading.

The chairman and chief executive of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, was involved in every aspect of his bank's business and reportedly interrogated subordinates for hours. A "New York Times" profile describes him as extremely blunt and as a "famously bad listener."

Shares of the electric carmaker Tesla fell sharply after CEO Elon Musk directed abuse on Twitter at one of the British cavers involved in the rescue of 12 Thai children this year. His weed-smoking antics and general eccentricity have added to concerns about his mental well-being.