What I've Learned About Smart People.

IMHO much of asking questions is largely cultural. For instance, at the Passover Seder the youngest child asks (with prior coaching from their parents) the "four questions."

My father is a prof at a "top university" and in my family we were always encourage to ask questions and discuss issues. My friends grew up in similar households. But I don't think these were typical households. My perception is that in some Asian cultures the children are less likely to be encouraged to question than the environment that I grew up in. Also, many women are more shy than men and perhaps less likely to ask a question that was on their mind.

Regarding hiring decisions, the one thing I look for is whether people will argue with me or not. I look for the people that question and argue with passion.

It's not what your education/degree makes of you, but what you make of your education/degree.

This false belief turns out so many people who feel cheated later in life.

Perpetual self learning is the only required skill for the truly educated, or self-educating. IT especially, what we learn today is worthless in a short time.

So far I've been one of those smart people (though I'm finally finding people that are smarter than I am, and it's a great feeling), and I have my parents to thank for it. As far as I can tell, one of the big things they did was answer my questions. Without fail. Even through the entire "why?" stage, I cannot consciously remember a single instance in which my parents didn't at least provide at least a hook that I could use to keep looking on my own.

It's not so meaningful to compare the relative intelligence of people within the upper echelons of intelligence--which is where you appear to be, along with those award-winners you mention. Which is not to disagree with any of your points. Rather, I'm just saying you don't need to worry about being less smart than all those eminent Harvard professors, because you're already in a league where such comparisons don't work.

What defines this league, and how can people in it be compared?

I think its boundaries have something to do with a general ability and desire to learn, and a breadth and depth of knowledge about important things in the world at large. (The knowledge criterion has to take into account age. You know less now than you will at 50, but that's obviously not a mark against you.)

Amongst such people, the only meaningful comparisons are far more specific than "more smart" and "less smart" can capture. You can meaningfully talk about, say, one's ability to solve an electrical engineering dilemma, or to pleasingly arrange the samples in a hip-hop song. But not relative smartness, not in this league.

This is one case where the truth is actually more comfortable than the myths we tell ourselves.

>"The smarter you get the less amazing that will feel"

This is something that I'm continually trying to come to terms with. The intelligence distribution is tighter on the high end than most people realize. By that I mean, the smartest people aren't really amazingly smart. This reply, from Clay Christensen (Business School Prof at Harvard, Rhodes Scholar...must be bright!) when asked how it felt to be the top of his field, in this case material sciences, has always stuck with me:

"You know, there's real disappointment. When I was younger, I looked up at the top of the mountain and thought, Wow, those guys are really smart! When you're near the top of the mountain looking down, you think, Boy, if nobody is smarter than I am, the world is really hurting!"

It's all perspective.