The glorification of dropping out may be a result of sample bias - journalists don't spill as much ink about the people who dropped out of college and ended up failing. That said, some dropouts scare me more than others. For instance, dropping out of high school to be an athlete, rock star, or actor seems very risky. It all worked out for Andre Agassi, but what would he have done if he'd only been a top 2,000 tennis player? Dropping out of college or (especially) grad school to become a startup founder seems much less so. If someone has succeeded through the first two years of computer science, they'll be able to go back and finish that degree if they are so inclined.

One major weakness of the article is that it points to the contributions of professors and researchers who made it all possible for gates, ellison, the google guys, and so forth by publishing unpatented research that served as the foundation for blockbuster companies. Great that they did this, of course, I love these guys, but he seems to be saying that everone else is depending on some other underpaid schlub to stick it through. Next career day, I'm going to go to my local college and say "some of you need to finish grad school and do PhD's - otherwise, how will other people get rich off your ideas?" Jeez, what a pitch.