I am f***** smart

Probably one of the best answers ever being told to an Interviewer at Harvard Business School.

For those who do not know the history, this is what Jeff Skilling (CEO of Enron) told during his interview for HBS MBA and no doubt he was selected. Not only this he was among the top 5 % of the class (and probably a Baker Scholar..I am not sure of this).

Wikipedia defines smartness as "Smart usually means highly intelligent."

So what was it that prompted people like Jeff to undertake such devious ways. After learning tid bits of accounting in my MBA class (courtesy Mark Finn and Siva) I now understand that they had retorted to some accounting practices which never existed previously. A gross example of this malpractice would be "they started counting the profits of their Dhabol projects when they had just begun its construction". And the rest as they say is history.

I have had the opportunity to interact with people of various talents and skills। What I observe is that the more accomplished a person is the more humane and natural he becomes. But I have also seen many guys who "seems" to have accomplished a lot (or that is what they pretend) and are at their arrogant best.

One of the common themes which I observe in the arrogant people is their futile attempt to create "macho" image of themselves. In case of Enron CEO I even hear that he used to go for mountain bike riding while he was the CEO. I have come across people who have done tremendous things in life like trekking for 3-5 days at the age of 60 or working in less glamorous jobs in spite of good qualification. In spite of all these these individuals have maintained a relatively low profile

So then What really goes wrong.. I don't really have an answer as of now.