[noonespecial]

>Sure, he did some interesting work a long time ago, before he got weird.

He was weird then too. That's why he did such interesting work. His work, combined with a lack of fame at that time, just kept the weird from showing through.

I suspect that genius is made up almost, but not quite, entirely of crazy.

[xianshou]

Rather, genius is the subset of crazy recognized by society as useful. The moment of recognition is the point at which it becomes venerated instead of derided.