One of my IIT professors had a stellar academic reputation. But after he quit/retired, he abandoned academic rigour and started making random claims.
He would inflate mediocre work using jargon and began behaving like a quack. And the reason was that he moved into smaller institutions where, unlike in IITs, other professors could not call his bluff or hold him accountable.
I still have no doubt about his innate intelligence. But intelligent people are also good at rationalizing and arguing, making it hard to challenge them.
That is why some of the biggest blunders have come from the most intelligent people. E.g., Long-Term Capital Management crashed and burned despite (because of?) having two Nobel laureates on their board.
Another example: Linus Pauling was a brilliant double Nobel laureate, but when unfettered by peer-reviewed academia, he peddled vitamin C as a cure-all — widely believed to be quackery.
When we want our organization to succeed, we try to hire the most capable people. Sadly, that is necessary but not sufficient.
No matter how intelligent your people are, everybody should be challenged and asked questions — including very basic ones.
The moment you put people on a pedestal and start worshipping them, you are doing them (and everybody else) a huge disservice.
Nobody is God. So let nobody play God.
– Rajan