> Honestly, the people that put in these processes are the smart ones.

These people are not the smart ones, but the ones who are really good at doing "company politics" and "playing political games" (which are very different skills from being smart).

My personal opinion is that it is rather a sign of smartness to see through all of this. But unluckily the people who are capable of this lack the political power and backing of other people to get "dangerous" for these "ladder climbers" (or if they do become dangerous, it is for the same reasons easy to "get rid of them" (e.g. fire them)).

Smart? I doubt they like doing those things.

If they were actually smart they’d figure out how to set up an employment situation that they don’t mind that also has the pay/status that they want.

You're right. People here will deny it, but who is smarter: someone who attends cushy meetings all week and gets paid millions, or someone who burns themselves out hacking away at code 80 hours a week making $200k a year?

Congrats, you are very smart and know how to manipulate symbols real good. Try cashing that check at the bank.

This so much. The hacking and coding doesnt matter, nobody really needs a 10x engineer. Well capitalized startups can just go hire 5 more engineers if they need to. I wish when i was younger i could have just accepted this

Do you prefer meetings or solving problems? Pretty sure I’d jump off a bridge after 2 weeks of meetings

I'm talking about maximizing my dollar per mental processing unit ratio. I think that's kind of the gist of what being smart is in this thread. Get more money, reduce mental overhead, or both.

"I'm so much smarter than them."

"Well they have a yacht and 3 homes."

Who used their smartness better?

Why are you equating being smart with being rich? Those two are not the same

Because SV bubble devs already in the 1% making a shit ton of money, whining about being smarter than the C levels making 10x their salary is hilarious to me.