When you have very smart people, it may be difficult for those people to write simple stupid code.If they can't write idiomatically, are they "very smart?" Code is a communication medium as much as a functional one, and if someone doesn't understand you when you're talking to them, such that you have to say, "well I use a cutting edge grammar, aren't you familiar with Lakoffian generative semantics? Imre Lakatos has a sick presentation on Vimeo," you're not maintaining communication skills. I imagine this could be what "unshared values" means.
The way I see it, it's like driving: people who don't stop at stop signs, who don't use turn signals, who don't know right-of-way rules are not good drivers. These things are a part of driving just as much as knowing where you're going and trying to run the Nurburgring in under 8 minutes. They also demonstrate a concern and respect for the health and wellbeing of your fellow drivers (not to mention pedestrians, cyclists, etc.).
This is not a matter of education, age, or maturity, it's manners. It's saying "please," and "thank you." It's parenting yourself if your actual parents didn't teach you. I'm not sure any of that can be chalked up to surmounting ego. "Ego" is just an excuse and probably not based on actual psychological concepts anyway.
the main motivation for smart people may easily become "ego" and showing off code that may look clever and supporting a lot more use cases but most likely it did not need to be written, wasting time and adding unnecessary complexity with the risk of introducing cognitive overload.
"Very smart?" ;)