Interestingly, both the study and the article in question don't mention one of the most famous examples of an "all-star team," the 1992 U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball Team, who won gold and led at an average of 44 points per game.[1]

The study measures success over a period of many years, but perhaps there really is no substitute for an "all-star team" when you need to get shit done in a short period of time (as in startup culture).

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_United_States_men%27s_Oly...

Why? Is it generally a known fact that you don't want a team of superstars?

A team of superstars is fine, but you can't have a team of all leaders. This is where personality comes into play. The team has to let someone lead. If you can find a small group of really talented people who also have their egos in check to follow a lead, amazing things can get done.

One of the benefits of microservices and highly modularized software is that you can have a team of superstars and still give the individuals the challenges they crave.

I thought it was.

From sports teams to software engineers, people with exceptional talent also seem to have exceptionally large egos to match. A team of normal people can usually tolerate & use one of them to their advantage, but a whole team of super-egos? What would happen if _everyone_ working on the linux kernel had the skill & personality of Linus Torvalds? There's no way that team would function. :)

You are confusing talent and personality. You can be untalented with a difficult personality and vice versa.

He's not confusing talent and personality. He clearly wrote that there seems to be a correlation between the two: "people with exceptional talent also seem to have exceptionally large egos to match"

Yes, but I don't agree with that hypothesis. From what I've seen, ego tends to peak around the "above average" range where they are trying to convince everyone (including themselves?) that they are extraordinary.

The truly amazing people demonstrate it in action not words.