If you can get beyond the clickbait title - I think what you'll find is that Gladwell is really talking about the very real STEM people, most of who are really

If you can get beyond the clickbait title - I think what you'll find is that Gladwell is really talking about the very real STEM people, most of who are really interesting fun and genuine math loving human beings - who were weeded out in Freshman Calc BC or Differential Equations because the bar is so tremendously high if everything is graded on a curve at a extremely selective university - before you had a chance to meet them.