I think there's three groups. There's "smart enough", which is your fairly high-output productive person who gets shit done and may be somewhat dulled to the fact that the world is insane. (I wouldn't call them optimal but they're very handy to have around.) Then there's "too smart for your own good" which is as you and the article describe, seeing all the BS everywhere and feeling paralyzed and recognizing your own limitations (whether for how much BS you can put up with or even sharp intelligence barriers--it's not always too-big-an-increase in difficulty per se that kills a Lisper in college, but a dramatic increase in the amount of required BS to plow through to get anything done or get an acceptable grade). I don't think the monetary future for that kind of person is necessarily bleak, though, at least in the present times. There are so many startups you can join if you're smart enough to do even a little Lisp programming on the side, or you can start your own, you can also "float around" pretty easily and if you're lucky you'll get caught with a winner.

But then there's "John von Neumann" smart. I'd even lump the modest-in-comparison John Carmack in that distribution (not at the top end of course but I think he's earned a spot there), Dennis Ritchie and John McCarthy too, along with a bunch of other relatively modern figures like Linus. These mythical people are worth at least 20 of the first group, and maybe 5-10 of the second group on the second group's good days. This third group can make the second group's lives even more depressing, since someone in the second group is smart enough to see and understand what they might have been if they had only slightly better brains.