“A really smart person will come up with what you would come up with, only faster. A genius will come up with something that you would never come up with, no matter how long you worked on it.”
–Kevin Murphy, Economist, University of Chicago (and a certified genius with a MacArthur grant)
Being really smart lets you effortlessly excel; being a genius lets you change the world.
Do you think most of the world-changers were / are geniuses? I think Steve Jobs has changed the world, but I’m not sure he’s a “genius” by this standard. It’s hard to say whether or not somebody else would have come up with what he did.
The most important element in changing the world, I think, is being in the right place at the right time.
Genius is necessary, but not sufficient to change the world. There were plenty of personal computers and MP3 players before Steve Jobs came along, but no Macs or iPods.
One *also* needs to be in the right place at the right time–if Steve Jobs had been born during the stone age, I doubt his flint knapping innovations would have had as much influence.