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In my experience, those that are actually the smartest are also down-to-earth and approachable -- the sort that you can have very interesting, thoughtful conver

In my experience, those that are actually the smartest are also down-to-earth and approachable -- the sort that you can have very interesting, thoughtful conversations with and enjoy being around. I suspect folks who had bad experiences with a "smart" person might have been dealing with someone who was a "big fish in a small pond", who hadn't been sufficiently humbled by going to (or trying to go to, haha) a more appropriately challenging level of education or professional practice. So generally, I think the difference is that truly smart and knowledgeable people have serious respect for the vast body of knowledge they haven't acquired.

adenozine 5y ago
To piggyback on this, some of the people I've worked with in the past that could be called "smartest" are people with a natural aptitude for explaining things. I've definitely met people who hadn't been humbled by life yet, and they're not too grating imo to deal with, provided they have good social skills and work ethic. But there are those who innately understand that a lot of software team communication is about conveying an idea that is potentially unfamiliar to someone, and cooperating with them. I remember the first time someone showed me how to use Makefiles. I had seen them, I comprehended their usage, but when I was shown how easy it is to actually form them and use them for different purposes, it was incredibly eye-opening. That conversation couldn't have been but 7-8mins. That man was actually my boss for a while later on, before he had a bad car accident. Another example might be my old mentor who helped me grok syntax-rules for the first time, over a lunch break, with a pen and paper. It just clicked, and I learned. My point is, the combination of social skills + intelligent explanations + teaching practice is a powerful one.

adenozine 5y ago

To piggyback on this, some of the people I've worked with in the past that could be called "smartest" are people with a natural aptitude for explaining things. I've definitely met people who hadn't been humbled by life yet, and they're not too grating imo to deal with, provided they have good social skills and work ethic. But there are those who innately understand that a lot of software team communication is about conveying an idea that is potentially unfamiliar to someone, and cooperating with them. I remember the first time someone showed me how to use Makefiles. I had seen them, I comprehended their usage, but when I was shown how easy it is to actually form them and use them for different purposes, it was incredibly eye-opening. That conversation couldn't have been but 7-8mins. That man was actually my boss for a while later on, before he had a bad car accident. Another example might be my old mentor who helped me grok syntax-rules for the first time, over a lunch break, with a pen and paper. It just clicked, and I learned. My point is, the combination of social skills + intelligent explanations + teaching practice is a powerful one.