Sacrifice and discomfort is not a MEANS to anything, it does however imply delayed gratification that is mostly unpleasant and sends many fleeing to the nearest consulting firm. This would make sense if you actually read the article, which describes many disillusioned ivy's unwilling to sacrifice a comfortable lifestyle for what could otherwise be more personally enriching and meaningful work.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue here—nobody wants the rights to your intelligence. But if you take a step back, you can see that every one of us has benefitted greatly from others' intelligent contributions to humanity and we can choose to either keep that wheel spinning or put ourselves at the mercy of others' history-making. If you want to use your tech idols as a yardstick for morality and virtue, you ought to look a little closer.

"I mean, we’re constantly taking things. It’s a wonderful, ecstatic feeling to create something that puts it back in the pool of human experience and knowledge.” -STEVE JOBS

Some of my favorite quotes, however, are from the mouth of Napoleon:

"All my life I have sacrificed everything—comfort, self-interest, happiness—to my destiny."

"Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest."