No, they are advocating hiring from the big 5 and then saying that it's just a coincidence that all the employees they've hired on 'on [their] own merit' are from there.
FYI OP posted alongside you in their own words. What I got from it is "No shit Harvard is better than UPhoenix South Campus" but if we came up with a good way to measure skills and learning capacity independent of rote programming quizzes/etc., hiring from a lower tier school would be less risky.
I know someone who dropped out and is now making plenty of money at a software development gig. I also know CS grads who can't think about anything outside their little realm to save their lives. Point is: some schools legit don't filter well for learning capacity.
Harvard is no MIT. One generally goes to harvard because they are rich vs smart. You may be surprised by the quality of UPhoenix grads. One has to be motivated to be a UPhoenix grad while other things are more important at Harvard.
Where does GP advocate for this? As I read it, he is saying that there are some potential bad hires from lower tier schools that should be avoided. I don't think this involves 5 schools or GP's hiring history.
They said that there 100 bad hires for every good hire while by omission claiming that every Stanford hire is a good hire... But also that you should definitely be hiring talent 'on it's own merit'.
I know someone who dropped out and is now making plenty of money at a software development gig. I also know CS grads who can't think about anything outside their little realm to save their lives. Point is: some schools legit don't filter well for learning capacity.