Nature of Genius

Sometimes that "genius" doesn't translate into other areas.

being a genius in one thing doesn't always translate into others ;)

Genius? Or just highly-skilled?

After having interacted with many people who were called “geniuses” in various settings (e.g. Nobel Prize winners, Fields medalists, best-selling novelists, at least a half dozen MacArthur “genius” grant recipients ...), I don’t consider “genius in any general sense” to be a real thing. YMMV.

I guess not everyone can be a genius (like you?)

I wouldn't be so sure about your claim, there were plenty of universal geniuses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PolymathAnd even today such people exist. Encountering them is often quite an experience. Seeing them being better than you at almost everything is on one hand really nice, on the other hand it makes you wonder what you did wrong. Such folks are usually quite rare though,

I think a lot of smart people cling to the idea that they have the capacity for genius because they can solve hard problems or because they have created something interesting or unique. But when you see real genius, it works differently than that. It's not a matter of more processing power, it's a different perspective. Maybe Jobs had that, maybe he didn't. But to tie genius strictly to "intellectual capacity" is a mistake IMHO.

I think that's one of the huge gaps between a genius and an average man.

There are modern day geniuses, they just look different to the big name scientists he is lamenting.I would argue Fabrice Bellard should be in contention, DJ Bernstein, etc. There are geniuses all around us and that is what has changed. It's by no means normalized but extraordinary doesn't seem as extraordinary when the world is literally powered by tens of thousands of extraordinary people doing awesome things day in and day out.Those are just two public examples I can think of,

The background of this particular case is interesting, but the larger point is that what we call "genius" is a matter of priorities. From some angle, every gifted person appears mad.