--- title: How can really smart people appear totally incompetent?... description: Highly competent people and organizations often appear dysfunctional because their true objectives may differ from what they publicly claim. Examples include... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-can-really-smart-people-appear-totally-incompetent-daniel-lemire-s-blog-h9u2cntnn twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How can really smart people appear totally incompetent? – Daniel Lemire's blog | daily.dev og:description: Highly competent people and organizations often appear dysfunctional because their true objectives may differ from what they publicly claim. Examples include... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-can-really-smart-people-appear-totally-incompetent-daniel-lemire-s-blog-h9u2cntnn og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/H9U2cNTNN.png og:image:alt: How can really smart people appear totally incompetent? – Daniel Lemire's blog og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- [Daniel Lemire](https://daily.dev/sources/lemire) [Read post](https://api.daily.dev/r/H9U2cNTNN) # [How can really smart people appear totally incompetent? – Daniel Lemire's blog](https://api.daily.dev/r/H9U2cNTNN "Go to post") Highly competent people and organizations often appear dysfunctional because their true objectives may differ from what they publicly claim. Examples include universities providing poor educational experiences, companies like Apple and Intel underperforming despite past successes, and institutions engaging in deceptive practices. A culture of lies about objectives can lead to significant dysfunctions. [#business](/tags/business "Check all #business posts")[#leadership](/tags/leadership "Check all #leadership posts") Apr 11, 2025•4m read time•From [lemire.me](https://api.daily.dev/r/H9U2cNTNN "lemire.me") [](https://api.daily.dev/r/H9U2cNTNN "Go to post") 36 Impressions1 Upvote1 Comment Comment Bookmark Copy Share your thoughtsPost [](https://daily.dev/sources/lemire) [Daniel Lemire](https://daily.dev/sources/lemire "https://daily.dev/sources/lemire") Authored by Daniel Lemire, a computer science professor and researcher, this blog covers a wide rang... Read more 21 Followers • 127 Upvotes #### Would you recommend this post? 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But such smarti person, placed on prominent position, is a Disaster for society.","datePublished":"2025-04-18T15:27:36.391Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/H9U2cNTNN#c-j8I34okV6","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel","url":"https://daily.dev/daniel8000","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--F_RltCZK--/f_auto/v1738746891/avatars/avatar_SOwG1kJqf6HK6TkGmZH45"}}]} ```