'smart' as a noun?

What do they mean by 'smarts' in this sentence from Forbes mag?
"We can always point to dynamic CEOs as case studies, even though the sociologists would say those are the equivalent of celebrating the smarts of lottery winners."

It comes from this article:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/04/30/heres-why-google-and-facebook-might-completely-disappear-in-the-next-5-years/ (4th paragraph)

It basically means "intelligence, expertise." The writer is saying that attributing the success of an organization to a dynamic executive is as silly as attributing a winning lottery ticket to the buyer's intellectual abilities.

Thanks nutrax. I surmised that that was what it meant but have never come across that word used as a noun :)

It's very American to my ears.

When it's a noun it's always plural: "He has smarts" not "he has a smart"

Sometimes you will see "street smarts" contrasted with "book smarts."

Book smarts is what you get from education--at school or self-taught.

Street smarts are the coping skills that are innate or you learn on your own. A synonym would be "street wise." One blogger put sit this way:
>To be street smart means you have situational awareness. You can assess the environment you are in, who is in it, and what the available angles are. Being on the street, or in the trenches, or whatever low to the ground metaphor you prefer, requires you learn to trust your own judgment about people and what matters. This skill, regardless of where you develop it, is of great value everywhere in life regardless of how far from the streets you are.

Most important perhaps, being street smart comes from experience. It means you’ve learned how to take what has happened to you, good or bad, think about it, and learn to improve from it.

Often associated with someone who is not exactly reputable. If you're going to survive as a drug dealer, you're gonna need street smarts. Or with someone from a lower class background who has had to struggle. "MADE IN JERSEY is a drama about a young working-class woman who uses her street smarts to compete among her pedigreed Manhattan colleagues at a prestigious New York law firm" It is sometime applied to politics or business. HIllary Clinton is the more intelligent, but Bill has street smarts. "This breakdown in portfolio risk management [at JP Morgan] is where street smarts far outpaces the black box book smarts."

Interesting, I don't think I've ever come across smart, in the singular or the plural, as a noun before. He or she is street wise or street smart sounds fine to me, but the noun version is not something I'm familiar with. But you live and learn.

"This breakdown in portfolio risk management (at JP Morgan) is where street smarts far outpaces the black box book smarts."

What does "black box" mean in the above quote?

What does "black box" mean in the above quote?

Financial meaning of Black Box

'Smarts' sounds strange to me without a modifier but actually proves to be quite common.

https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=smarts<i>site:ap.org&oq=smarts</i>site:ap.org&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=hp.3...15831.19702.1.19851.12.12.0.0.0.2.647.3343.0j4j3j1j1j2.11.0...0.0.lPThbY3O6Ks&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=82a4a65134c574d9&biw=1024&bih=625

#7- thanks zashibis.