Career-limiting perhaps (if expressing normal human emotion is a minus inside of an organization, it may be time to bail) but some of the best minds I've met/observed were absolute curmudgeons (with purpose—they were properly bothered by a problem and refused to go along with the "sweep it under the rug" behavior).

Sure, I've dealt with plenty of assholes, too, but the grumps are usually just tired of their valid insight being ignored by more foolish, orthogonally incentivized types (read: "playing the game" not "making it work well").

We've all tolerated the grumpy genius at some point in our careers. Nevertheless, most of us would prefer to work with a person who's both smart and kind over someone who's smart and curmudgeonly. It is possible to be both smart and kind, and I've had the pleasure of working with such people.

Assholes can sap an organization's strength faster than any productive value their intelligence can provide. I'm not suggesting the author is an asshole, though; there's not enough evidence from this post.