What do you mean, 'did they stop to think'? The whole point of this article and their motivation is that's the thinking that already dominates a lot of the culture in the valley.

It goes something like this. Of the 7 billion people on the planet, anyone important will go to Stanford, Harvard, or MIT as a student. If they don't do that, they must prove themselves at an 'elite' company populated by such people so they can demonstrate their value and gain access to the exclusive funding supply.