I'm referring to the flight school aptitude test, his success in engineering school, and achieving a BA in physics. That's quite a jump for a guy who couldn't do high school algebra.
I think that's questionable and downplays his abilities. He won National Merit Scholarship. He scored 1590 out of 1600 in SAT. He had a profitable business running when he was still in school automating some traffic calculations, and he was actually hiring his classmates. You don't see that often. And I think one more important thing happened - he met very bright Paul Allen and together they were very powerful duo. Of course having wealthy family helped not to care about some stuff, but it wasn't just luck.
His SAT or ACT score would have been high enough that schools would have been offering him scholarships to attend. It doesn't take Hawking level intelligence to get a full ride scholarship.
It's always possible to find exceptions, of course. But there are exceptional people from all walks of life.
Also, the wikipedia page makes it sound like it was all due to his merit:
His parents were Swedish, from the city of Malmö, county of Scania. Kelly was ashamed of his family's poverty, and vowed to return one day in prominence.[6] Johnson was 13 years old when he won a prize for his first aircraft design. He worked his way through Flint Central High School and graduated in 1928, then went to Flint Junior College, now known as Mott Community College, and finally to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he received a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Aeronautical Engineering.
Who granted him the prize? It's fortunate they were paying attention to his work. How did he attend college with no money? It's fortunate he managed to find a source of income. Nowadays college is prohibitively expensive for those in poverty who don't achieve a full-ride scholarship or loans. And if you entered the workforce and later decide to go to college, you don't qualify for loans.
It seems less useful to say that someone will become something rather than they might overcome X and Y to become Z.
Yes, but they were not in a public school, but rather a small private school. Mostly A's with a couple B's. Not too tragic though, as he has a better job now with more room for growth than most of his peers that did get their BA's.
It's all about drive. If you have drive, you will succeed regardless of you formal education. A motivated person will not remain ignorant, even though they may not have the certification to prove it.
How did you not arrive at that conclusion? I guess it's normal to complete a year long Calculus sequence less than half that? Sure he says numerous time he didn't find school engaging and struggled in some ways. I for one have heard of this before where someone with a strong aptitude struggles with conventional education. Without something special, be it aptitude or hard working nature how do you suppose he got into graduate school? Luck, again? Also, did you notice he was only an undergrad for 3 years and apparently double majored.
He got into every other elite school. I can't say for certain given the passage of time but he wasn't the type of person to bullshit people no matter how big the issue. He didn't have pride like that.
He is not exactly an example of how to make it without stamp of approval from the elite. Stanford, high level clerkship, high level jobs. He played the game extremely well until he decided to jump. If anything his early career demonstrates that it's worth to build the perfect resume.
A high school failure? It looks like he got a BA and then went to the best management school in the world and then became a billionaire. I'd like to be that kind of failure.
Maybe his understanding of physics is wrong. But maybe your understanding of the importance of that is wrong?
An F student? The man "enrolled at UCLA at 16, where he tested into an honors-level calculus class", and got "a doctorate in astrophysics". If he was an F student, it certainly wasn't for much of his academic career.
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