I'm not sure that ego is quite the right word. The first person that I ever met in the aviation world that I considered to be egotistic was a fellow student during basic training in the RAF. He gave the impression to us lesser mortals that he had preceded the Wright brothers by seven good years. Sadly, for him, those in charge failed to recognise his amazing talent and he was scrubbed at quite an early stage. I only ever met a very, very few like him in my subsequent long aviation career and most of them killed themselves.