I was surprised that he found the introductory computer science class at Stanford difficult. If this guy can succeed, how can somebody like me who worked through half of SICP independently at age 16 fail? I don't think I'm exceptionally smart for an HN user, but I was surprised how little intelligence is needed before it stops being the main bottleneck (apparently).
Intelligence has many aspects, of which the ability to understand complicated "analytic stuff" from books is only a part. There's also intelligence in getting things done and avoiding dumb mistakes in complicated and uncertain situations, which seem to play the greater role in startups.
