The CTO called to inform me of a new project and in the process told me that my code is weird.

He explained that my colleagues find it difficult to understand due to the overly complex, often new concepts and technologies used, which they are not familiar with. He asked me to maintain a simple code base and to think of the others that will inherit my changes.

I've put considerable time into mastering LINQ and thread-safe coding. However, others don't seem to care nor are impressed by anything other than their paycheck.

Do I have to keep it simple (stupid), just because others are not familiar with best practices and efficient coding? Or should I continue to do what I find best and write code my way?