Talent is not some fungible measure. I know incredibly smart people who can fail at incredibly basic life skills.

"They wouldn't be that dumb" is a meaningless argument. People you don't know can be as smart as anyone on the planet and still make very dumb choices.

> I don’t believe for a second that they lack the engineering talent.

Let's agree to disagree. Remember flicker-gate? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48403908