The qualified genius

I have been watching the interviews on PBS conducted by Robert Cringely with the legally qualified nerds of the computer industry. Andy Hertzfeld, Max Levchin, Bill Joy, Brewster Kahle and a long list to come. One of their common traits is that they all are the alumini of some great colleges (drop outs or graduated). And I do accept the genius in them. Being part of the colleges like Stanford and MIT itself is a qualification, atleast for me. It doesn't excite me though. Yes you are born genius, you have shown your abilities not once but time and again and then you come up with some great ideas. Yeah! what else can us the lower beings expect from you :-)? Greats produce great things. What does excite me though is when not so genius people produce some great piece of art. People in some remote village with no infrastructure and money produces a simple hinge to stop the bucket for falling in the well. Or, for an inability to purchase one if someone converts his motorcycle to use as a tractor. So I guess there are three categories of people - One who solves the very complex problem with the help of all the resources he can get his hands of. The second who solve small problems with all kind of constraints you can have. The third are those who get awestruck from these geniuses and write about them.