[prostoalex]

Or the benefits of self-discipline, academic excellence and selection bias before such individuals get into "Stanford, Harvard, MIT".

For your argument to work, you'd need to find someone who's below average, lacks passion and under achieves on a regular basis. Then they enter "Stanford, Harvard, MIT" and become a highly regarded passionate professional.

The truth is that most of people who enter top-notch institutions are so far ahead of averages on a bunch of levels, that you could pull a bunch of them out during freshmen year, and they would still do well.