The author misses Gladwells premise from go. He said deliberate, not obsessive. His discussion was specifically focused on variance of experience and learning over that time.
The article doesn't mention Gladwell, and is actually quite good. (Edit: The title does, of course, and is quite bad. That's why we changed it. Misleading and/or linkbaity titles get changed.)
I hope Hacker News readers are smart enough to distinguish between the text of a serious article and bait applied by magazine editors, especially when the two are unrelated.