The thing is that people like Thiel are actually quite smart. The problem is that people really overrate “smartness”. Smart people are often dumb as hell.
That being said, I feel like we need to be more nuanced when we discuss "intelligence", because I think that it can have a multifaceted definition and people have a wide array of skillets.
So I perhaps a better question would be something along the lines of "Intelligent in what way?"