> 38. I realized what a terrible thing is the self-esteem of a boy or a youth: itβs better to steal than to ask. That self-esteem and boastfulness are what make boys sink to the bottom.
Sounds like start up culture. Move fast and break things. Better to do than to ask permission.
"Better to do than ask permission" long predates startup culture and often holds just as true in large corporations. Especially true in fact, often there's a lot of red tape that people won't bother to enforce if you can present a working solution in the correct manner.
"Move fast and break things" largely means "grow quickly enough that you're breaking stuff", which may or may not be a positive.
Contrast that to choosing to steal another inmate's food instead of asking, because it would be too humiliating to ask or trade. All that's going to do is make you enemies, and reveals an underlying character weakness that will probably hurt you in other ways.
Sounds like start up culture. Move fast and break things. Better to do than to ask permission.