As a Chinese American guy with great grades, I believe your friend is full of BS (unless she's "Chinese" in that she actually lives in China). In HS / College, I've never seen good grades = popularity.
So being bad academically is more like losing a school wide competition, rather than the American system of being able to shrug it off as something you don't care about. In Asian countries, they don't buy the idea that people can be talented at different things, it's more a black and white "you're smart or you're not" thing. So of course people like winners more than losers.
So back to the point in the article.. I don't think it's about the actual utility of a person's skill, but the perceived successfulness within the context of societal values.
Which brings up an interesting point: other than using the societal values, how else will you know how successful a person is when real success is often based on luck and isn't apparent until ~30?