My experience is that smart jerks are actually a sign of having a hierarchy of jerks going all the way to the C-levels. For every smart jerk there's a manager

My experience is that smart jerks are actually a sign of having a hierarchy of jerks going all the way to the C-levels. For every smart jerk there's a manager who endorses that person and who also has a manager who in turn either has the same attitude or "lets them cook" as long as KPIs are fulfilled. People will generally downplay toxic behaviour if they exhibit it themselves. Not saying that's always the case, but in my experience it's much more common than management being intimidated enough by the jerk to not want to touch them.