My stepfather, who passed recently, always told me this in every discussion we got into that was tangentially related to this sort of topic. I think he really had it instilled in him while he was at MIT. It makes a lot of sense, there's always going to be someone else better than you. With that fact in mind, it becomes easier to be happier about not being top dog. It also makes it amusing to watch people jockey for position, be confident in yourself and fly as high as you can . Find like minded people who make you better and enrich your life, there's no time to waste on the a-holes.

This may sound overly simplistic, but it's the best I've worked out so far coming into the tech world as one of those CS undergrads who had their first taste of actual programming at the collegiate level.