What's a good swimmer?
You're going to be measuring it against other people. This points to the same significant flaw in the article: conflating "mastery" with "success".
The "10,000" rule is well known in Chinese culture as Gong Fu. Gongfu in any skill, whatever that might be, is accumulated little by little over a lifetime. It's part of the oral tradition that someone with talent and doesn't practice will not be good as someone without talent and does practice. And that someone with both talent and practice will have far greater skill than someone with mere talent or hard practice. There is a balance of both accepting your limitations as well as knowing how your potential greatly exceeds your perceived self limitations.
This is part of the fabric of Chinese culture and no one really questions it too deeply. It's been thrashed out in centuries of folk lore and literature such as Confucius. But I think, this offends American sensibilities in a deep way. So we have lots of discussion about it.
American culture has deep roots in: fairness, equal opportunity, upward mobility, and self-determination. What we're thrashing out here with the "10,000" hours isn't really anything about nurture, or nature at all. Underlying all of that is our deep seated feelings and values about fairness, equal opportunity, upward mobility, and self-determination.
You can have mastery without "success". Success is the outward, social recognition of your upward mobility.
Saying you can achieve "success" with 10,000 hours of practice arises from the self-determination -- that the world is fair, and that we all have an equal opportunity at "success". Which we don't. Because "success" is always defined relative to other people so it is inherently ephemeral and unstable. Mastery, though, is a knowing of yourself, and something anyone can achieve throughout the vicissitudes of outward "success".
Upward mobility give rise to aspirations to grow beyond your limits. The trouble is when you confuse self-perceived limitations and the limitations imposed by reality. You don't argue with gravity (in day-to-day life). You don't argue with a hurricane when it comes to town. We confuse self-perceived limitations and limitations of reality because there's a strong need for self-determination.
It can be argued that many of our technologies have allowed us to exceed our "natural" abilities. We can live anywhere in the world! Medicine extends our lifespan! Agricultural technologies let us feed a much greater population!
The thing is, with many of these technologies, we're creating an illusion of exceeding limitations by deferring its cost. We're like the child with hands on the ears: "La la la la la la la la la la la..."
A little navel-gazing is in order: Who are you? Why are you here? What are you doing here? Where are you in life?