[maxerickson]

I read it more as an illustrative example to open up the following discussion than a terribly serious model of real life.

He does riff back on it, but it's five minutes of perspective tossed at teenagers, not anything formal.

[crasshopper]

It seems like a way to lend scientificity to his opinion. There are other ways of saying smarts>experience. Invoking y=mx+b here seems deceptive.

[bduerst]

Analogies are inexact by definition, which doesn't mean that the speaker is being intentionally deceptive by using one.

I don't think anyone took this beyond the anecdotal evidence provided. We can argue motive and hypotheticals all day but the fact remains that this is just a blurb thrown at fresh undergraduates.

It's a motivational speech (delivered via heresay on Quora) not a thesis.