Yes, but let's also not conflate the idea of "brightness" and the qualities of a productive university professor.After all, it's much harder to get into Stanfor

Yes, but let's also not conflate the idea of "brightness" and the qualities of a productive university professor.After all, it's much harder to get into Stanford as an undergrad than it is to get in as a post-doc. What makes someone excel in academia is a genuine passion for knew knowledge, creative problem solving / experimental design, and (yes) the ability to drum up finding to make those discoveries. Rarely is the "smartest" person in the room most capable of being a great researcher. Curiosity, familiarity with the state-of-the-art, and the ability to forge genuine collaborations are far more important than one's ability to do the actual work, I'm afraid (that is, after all, what graduate students are for :)