This article is a phenomenal example of an intelligent and successful person lacking any rational and logical basis for their core thesis.
There are countless individuals who have become experts in their respective field, yet lack any formal training in logic, argumentation or critical thinking. They naturally believe that because people listen to them in a particular field, their skills of reasoning and grasp of logic must be superior. Often they tend to equally believe that their 'gifts' are 'in-born' because they don't ever remember feeling any different; they have been intelligent their entire life.
There are so many logical fumbles in this short piece, whether it be an excerpt or not, that it could be used as an philosophical exercise in pointing out faulty lines of reasoning. Example => So, how does Warren Buffet disprove the 10,000 hour rule? Author's response: "Because he was involved in business affairs from a young age." I assume that her line of reasoning is as follows: 'Warren was incredibly young when he had successfully started his first business. At that age he could not have possibly invested 10,000 hours in the study of business. Thus, he must have been born with business talent.'
Interestingly enough, Warren Buffet's case may be worth looking into in order to better refine the 10,000 hour rule. That being said, the above line of reasoning is hugely problematic. Nowhere is Warren Buffet's 'expertise' at a young age commented upon or evidence given in support of it. The 10,000 hour rule says that you will become an expert with 10,000 hours of deliberate practice/training at ever increasing levels of complexity. The rule does not come to say that you can't be successful without 10,000 hours of practice. (Look at Mark Zuckerber!) The author has both misunderstood and misapplied the correlation between these concepts and what could be meant by the word 'success'. Beyond a couple of other problems, the second major issue is that invalidating one proposition does not inherently validate an opposing proposition. Thus, just because the 10,000 hour rule may be invalidated by Warren Buffet's experience, we cannot make the logical leap to declare that he, therefore, has in-born/genetic attributes that we would consider 'talent'. These are 2 entirely separate arguments that may be related but are not directly tied to one another. I could go on and on with the problems in this article.
The short of it: Paul Graham was being overly optimistic in thinking that writing helps everyone form better arguments and think more carefully. Somebody should introduce Temple Grandin to a philosophy class on critical thinking and basic reasoning.