Nice to see this addressed explicitly. I think it applies also to some other circles I've been in contact with, such as science and music.

For instance, in music there's this obsession about having "perfect pitch". I've seen a lot of people getting very stupid about it.

Yeah. The speakers referred to academia as an example, where researchers hold their work very closely and release it only to discover that (for example) someone else had done something more general.

On another note, I thought it was encouraging to hear some smart folks acknowledge that the white-hot embarrassment was typical after a mistake, and that the issue is usually exaggerated in our own minds.

It's a variation on the genius myth in general. See Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" for details. We need narrative because of how our species evolved. Narrative needs conflict between a protagonist and antagonist.