As someone who's followed pretty much this exact advice the article lays out since I was maybe 14 or so, I found it very useful in my life. I was interested in

As someone who's followed pretty much this exact advice the article lays out since I was maybe 14 or so, I found it very useful in my life. I was interested in physics actually. So at 14 as a B student at a school district in the middle of nowhere, I went on to self-learn calculus up to what amounts to AP Calculus by 15, published a minor physics paper by 16 (when I started working in the particle physics lab at my state college), and graduated high school a year early at 17 and entered a top-tier public school. That was years ago, but I've done pretty well since, and I attribute a lot of it to constantly comparing myself to larger-than-life masters like these to be constantly paranoid about how I can move faster (this comes with a need to be self aware and to self-manage well, including giving yourself breaks and listening to your mental/physical health of course, you don't need to be a Terminator and I don't recommend it). The big value for me I'd say was a replacement for the lack of role models in my surroundings and getting a sense for what a really high bar looks like. At least for myself, striving to be a flawed human that has also mastered something is a bad target (but inevitably where every human ends up). If you actually want to land there, you have to aim even higher.