The irony is that people who have competence, knowledge, and experience usually got that way by taking risks and pushing themselves out of their comfort zone. And if you observe them taking a risk that doesn't pan out, it looks like incompetence.
Everyone was a novice once, and even experts are novices when they enter a domain outside of their expertise.
Nostrademons, I think this is an important insight. I respect people who will go outside their domain because they feel a need to solve an important problem. It takes a lot of guts, for the reason you articulated.
>And if you observe them taking a risk that doesn't pan out, it looks like incompetence.
Maybe... but everyone makes mistakes. There has to be a difference between making mistakes, and making the same mistakes over and over again. I definitely think part of competence is how someone handles failures.
You don't get a chance to observe most people over and over again - that's usually limited to friends and immediate coworkers (team members). Not coincidentally, those are the groups you should tap for startup cofounders.
The original question seemed to be about celebrity personalities and casual acquaintances - "when you Google someone..." etc.
We're not talking about "like" or even "can bear the company of" here, we're talking about respect. I'm friends with many people who I don't respect in a work sense.
Perhaps my mistake was not to append "in a work sense" to the word "respect".
Also, part of being competent at evaluating other people's competence is not to base your evaluation on a single sample.
Everyone was a novice once, and even experts are novices when they enter a domain outside of their expertise.