Would Feynman have been better off if instead of doing his undergrad and most of his phd, he had instead dropped out after freshman year to work in the manhattan project? Physics typically requires quite a bit of work and studying to be useful. Perhaps in an alternate universe he dropped out and became an inventor of businessman, but I would highly doubt that Feynman would agree with the stance that dropping out is beneficial for the vast majority of people. Feynman lectures on physics seem more inclined toward study very hard to deeply understand what is happening and building intuition.