True, and a non-class-minded non-critical mind might take just that away from it, but I think it's really apparent that they are skirting the entire perspective (of what happens to a probably larger swath of youths) -- they "broke the rules" and got away with it, which enabled them to go on to success.

To take it even farther (because this wouldn't be the internet if I weren't trying to one up everyone including myself):

Stoners have great ideas, some stoners go to jail for petty posession 3 times and do not get much of a chance at life after being incarcerated. I don't think I need to point out which stoners end up going to jail, and which get a slap on the wrist and get to smoke on a college campus later.

I'm really not trying to enrage anyone -- I just think this article was super unbalanced

I can't upvote this enough. I know about a lot of behavior that occurs inside and outside of private high schools that goes unchecked or loosely-punished, instead of resulting in police action at most public schools (poor or not). Nothing against the more privileged kids--I don't think a lot of the "troubling" behavior listed in the article is all that problematic (barring shoplifting and assault of course).

You also need 1) the resources to survive some bad outcomes early and 2) the profile of an otherwise low-risk person, which helps mitigate a lot of close calls and a few additional bad outcomes.

Those are what poor kids don't have.

I like how you changed "breaking rules" to "non-risk-adverse" :P

Although it does make me wonder the degree of correlation between troubled teens, lack of moral compass, and entrepreneur.

I don 't believe it's 'lack of moral compass' for this equation. It's such a tricky pot. What would this missing moral compass entail? drugs, privacy, sexual morals?

I would argue that a stronger internal sense of morality helps one find these cracks in the system to become entrepreneur.

A lack of moral compass would mean one would do whatever it takes without bounds to achieve the desired outcome. NSA, Crack Dealers,

A strong internal moral compass would let someone think it's not a bad thing to grow pot and sell it(George Washington), protect their wealth during hyperinflation with bit-coin (Argentina, Greece), Bring cheep education to the masses (OCW, Schwartz).

I think the idea you are looking for is: socially suggested morals. But the 'troubled' kids are smart enough to question what they see, open enough to imagine a better way, stubborn enough to not listen to nay-sayers without good arguments.