I'd heard parts of that story. He reminds me of one of the people who I went to school with. We shared a lot of hobbies, but his antisocial and self-destructive

I'd heard parts of that story. He reminds me of one of the people who I went to school with. We shared a lot of hobbies, but his antisocial and self-destructive tendencies meant that I never could really consider him a friend. He was incredibly smart and capable, but he always acted like he had something to prove. He was expelled from high school for hacking, which unlike a lot of "expelled for hacking" stories, was entirely legitimate. He was doing some pretty impressive exploits on the network computers, but then he was also downloading information he had no business possessing. I was interviewed by the FBI about it, because I was president of the cs club, and he had been using our computers. During his expulsion he took the classes needed for college and applied to the CS program at a prestigious state school rather that coming back to high school. It was really impressive -- between the grades he had skipped before, and the grades he skipped going to college, he got in before he was old enough to drive. I don't think he ended up graduating from college. He is very capable, but he needed a mentor who was operating on the same level as him to help him develop emotional and social skills on par with his intellectual talents.