What a marvelous article! The parallels in my own career made me shiver. When I was first promoted to an engineer supervisory position, I initially panicked because everyone in my group was smarter than me. Most were double degreed, and two were PhDs. I soon realized what a blessing this was and made it my goal to always hire people who were smarter than me-- and to take the best care of them. I got a rep for taking care of my people and had some of the best people in the Engineering Division wanting to work for me. One of them became my successor, and later my boss.