Fierce Nerds
I worked with a number of brilliant people at Bell Labs through the 1980s/1990s. The most comfortably competent among them, the most productive among them, were also the least abrasive. They were also the most self deprecating.<p>Not just one or two, but the majority of them. To the point that the aggressive geniuses stood out. And I worked for/with two abrasive ones as well, so I know the difference.<p>The same was true for the two startups I worked at after that, and Qualcomm, and now the third startup where I work.<p>The really productive geniuses in each situation were easy to work with, I think largely, because of their confidence in their own grasp of the subject at hand. They had nothing to prove, they knew that, and it showed. The difficult people were never stupid, far from it, but they felt like they needed to defend everything they did, every decision they made, and that made working with them less productive.<p>With the gentle geniuses, if you thought you came up with something that was an improvement on what was being done, they would look at it honestly, and if it was not better, they would calmly explain why, and if it was better, they would acknowledge it right out and discuss how to merge that into the current work.<p>The 'less gentle' ones would take pride in pointing out the flaws in your idea if you were wrong, and if you were right, would fight you over whether it had any real value at all, then would stiff arm you as far as getting it accepted as a change.