[publius_0xf3]

I want to caution against taking a good thing too far.

There's a certain kind of talented person who is all too conscious of their abilities and is arrogant, irascible, and demanding as a result. Linus Torvalds, Steve Jobs, Casey Muratori come to mind. Much as we might want these characters to be kinder, their irascibility is inseparable from their more admirable qualities.

Sometimes good things, even the best things, are made by difficult people, and we would lose a lot by making a community that alienates them.

[djmips]

That's a tough one - It's hard to fully disagree but in my experience you can have all the benefits without the poison. Accepting the poison just because of the benefits is kind of just giving up. I don't feel like the your hypothesis that the two are irrevocably linked holds up under examination.

[Tainnor]

Linus Torvalds is apparently trying to do better (although I haven't followed up with the progress), but more importantly, while he might be (have been) unnecessarily rude and aggressive, he's not entitled (as far as I know). I don't think he would jump into an issue tracker of some project he doesn't maintain and demand that certain changes be made.

[GreenWatermelon]

After watching a recent talk with Linus Torvalds[0], it seems that he's become more soft spoken.

[0] clip about the Nvidia "incident" https://youtu.be/wvQ0N56pW74

[RyanCavanaugh]

There are plenty of hyper-competent technical people in the field who are also kind and patient. Being smart doesn't turn someone into a jerk.