[LearnerHerzog]

This upset me to hear. This would cause an uproar in a lot of places. I'm not autistic but I know of many who are the best coders in their workplaces and whose levels of focus and attention are beyond compare. Read through YCombinator's articles regarding successful startups and, coupled with goal-oriented passion/desire, the ability to work hard and long hours with great focus is an ideal characteristic of a successful team.

Here is howI interpret someone saying "Autistic people can't succeed in startups": (A) What is being said: A completely invalid statement, easily disprovable with plenty of examples, that generalizes all autistic people without regard to their interests and/or severity of the condition. (B) Who is saying it: Middle school staff who have zero established career-affiliation to the startup world, and no reason to be worthy of pushing children away from their attainable dreams/goals. It's easy to assume the staff responsible for this statement would likely fail a basic test on modern entrepreneurship. Conclusion: The statement should be completely ignored.

An example of advice worth taking: An article by Peter Thiel (Paypal co-founder) called: Asperger’s can be a big advantage in Silicon Valley http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-aspergers-is-an-a...

His blog is impressive for his age, and he clearly found and is pursuing a passion at a much younger age than most people; but whether or not he has autism, it's important he learns and understands how to handle certain inevitable social situations that may aim to discourage him from achieving his goal. He will surely come across a number of haters along the way and he needs to be able to distinguish between constructive criticism and personal attack. You should tell him how this is a great example of the kind of negative influence he needs to ignore if he wants to be an entrepreneur. Every successful CEO had been put down by non-believers at some point before they hit big. A good example: Walt Disney was fired from his first job as a newspaper cartoonist because he apparently "lacked imagination".

Read this article, especially #2 and #7: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-radin/ideas-are-the-easy-...