I wonder if there is any professional psychology on this kind of thing (link me!) but my layman observation is that most organizations tend toward median smooth

I wonder if there is any professional psychology on this kind of thing (link me!) but my layman observation is that most organizations tend toward median smoothing at best or lowest common denominator at worst for performance. That is of course not how you achieve high performance. But high performance scares lower performance, the conflict is bidirectional. From the article it's pretty obvious he was a high performer. High performance means having opinions. Opinions are contestable, and create conflict. Conflict is part of a high performance organization. Lower performers are terrified of conflict with higher performers. Therefore median and lowest common denominator organizations force high performers out. It's kind of ridiculous to think about that happening in academia, but today I learned! When you switch to the arts and sports we LOVE to see extreme outliers and go to great lengths to assemble and prop them up. It's visceral excitement to see 320lb freaks of nature face off on a line of scrimmage in an NFL game. It would be cruel to have them face off against a highschool team or even just mix them in on the same line. Yet that kind of disparity happens all the time in other types of human assembly. So I look at this from the other side. He did his deed at the University, made a mark, and got rejected for having high impact good, neutral, or bad. Some people were uncomfortable with high performance for reasons which could range from pettiness to valid criticism. What you would call lack of tact I might call integrity. I am sure he will land somewhere else and do great things. Industry is more fluid and amenable to assembling high performance, especially in startups.