[throwaway568]

Intelligence isn't the only requirement for any particular role.

e.g., S., finance, is asking questions about the team's progress as if we were doing waterfall, unhappy with missed dates, when our team was agile.

Our director, quite confidently, says to us: "There's a disconnect here, I'll book in 15 minutes with S. and get it fixed up.", as if it's not a big issue. She does not do programming at all.

On the other hand, my ability to implement a red-black tree on the whiteboard would not have helped with this situation.

Previously I've been in startups where the managing director, who was a PhD, and much smarter than I was, who could not resolve the smallest of conflicts safely.