There are two types of comments here:
1. Bullying is bad (which I completely agree)
2. I saw Matthias a mile away and he was rude.
But it seems like only a few of you met him. Yet, you feel free to come and talk about him based on what you hear.
If you talked to Matthias for more than 10 minutes, you'd know that he spends 5 times more on his lectures compared to your "cool professors" every single year. You'd know that he goes out of his way to help any academic who asked for his help. You'd know that all he talks about is "the community" and how he can make things better for everyone.
I'm in sciences for a little over 10 years and my experience is that people like Matthias are extremely rare. I can't speak to his science because it's really not my field, but he most certainly gets out of his way to help junior people (like myself). Especially those who wouldn't be heard otherwise (like myself, an international woman in sciences). He listened to me complain about my work environment so many times, encouraged me to continue. He helped me to make important career and personal decisions. On multiple occasions. I think my PhD experience would be drastically different without his help and I know that I'm not the only one!
Now, Matthias can be opinionated and intense. I argued with him about science, politics and many other topics, but he never makes it about you! You can discuss literally anything with him and he never passes judgement. He's actually really open to criticism (as evident from his apology).
I'm not belittling MB's experience. I just thought that I'm one of the many people Matthias helped and he has an extremely compassionate side that people should know before they label him as "bully"!
But it seems like only a few of you met him. Yet, you feel free to come and talk about him based on what you hear.
If you talked to Matthias for more than 10 minutes, you'd know that he spends 5 times more on his lectures compared to your "cool professors" every single year. You'd know that he goes out of his way to help any academic who asked for his help. You'd know that all he talks about is "the community" and how he can make things better for everyone.
I'm in sciences for a little over 10 years and my experience is that people like Matthias are extremely rare. I can't speak to his science because it's really not my field, but he most certainly gets out of his way to help junior people (like myself). Especially those who wouldn't be heard otherwise (like myself, an international woman in sciences). He listened to me complain about my work environment so many times, encouraged me to continue. He helped me to make important career and personal decisions. On multiple occasions. I think my PhD experience would be drastically different without his help and I know that I'm not the only one!
Now, Matthias can be opinionated and intense. I argued with him about science, politics and many other topics, but he never makes it about you! You can discuss literally anything with him and he never passes judgement. He's actually really open to criticism (as evident from his apology).
I'm not belittling MB's experience. I just thought that I'm one of the many people Matthias helped and he has an extremely compassionate side that people should know before they label him as "bully"!
Edited to fix a couple typos.