One of the major surprises I received when I moved out of childhood into the real world, was the degree to which the world is stratified by genuine competence.

This was the point at which I realized that my child prodigy license had officially completely expired.

No, even worse than that, much worse than that: these CEOs and CTOs and hedge-fund traders, these folk of the mid-level power elite, seemed happier and more alive.

But entering the real world, I found out that the average mortal really can't be an executive.  Even the average manager can't function without a higher-level manager above them.

But entering the real world, I found out that the average mortal really can't be an executive.  Even the average manager can't function without a higher-level manager above them

Someone who can be an executive at all, even a below-average executive, is a rare find.

I tried—once—going to an interesting-sounding mainstream AI conference that happened to be in my area.  I met ordinary research scholars and looked at their posterboards and read some of their papers.  I watched their presentations and talked to them at lunch.  And they were way below the level of the big names.  I mean, they weren't visibly incompetent, they had their various research interests and I'm sure they were doing passable work on them.  And I gave up and left before the conference was over, because I kept thinking "What am I even doing here?"

There's "smart" and then there's "smart enough for your cognitive mechanisms to reliably decide to sign up for cryonics".

It's a standard idea that people who make it to the elite, tend to stop talking to ordinary mortals, and only hang out with other people at their level of the elite.