> In the last few years I have become increasingly aware of a trend where we wonder if successful people with blatant signs of being an idiot are in fact genius

> In the last few years I have become increasingly aware of a trend where we wonder if successful people with blatant signs of being an idiot are in fact geniuses. [...] > I’m curious if this is Protestant work ethic fallacies in American culture or if it is prevalent elsewhere too. In my opinion (as a German), the reason rather lies in the fact that very smart people (by, say, IQ), (IMHO rightfully) observe that their intelligence does not lead to success. So they try to "reverse-engineer" the "true success formula". For this, it is obvious that people who are "idiots", but very successful provide good test cases to validate/disprove the "reverse-engineered success formula".