I think Mr. Kern here suffers from an inflated sense of self-esteem. He may have gotten great grades in high school so he thinks he's a genius and his teachers and parents told him was. So he goes into the real world where the rubber hits the road and he's just chopped liver.
The younger ones right now have never been told that they are wrong. They always been congratulated how how smart they are and how great a job they did and how much effort and so on, when usually all they are doing is barely getting by with normal involuntary bodily functions. They get out in the real world and it's an eye opener.
Heh -- that's a common discovery. I went to a pretty exclusive college, and on the first day of orientation the president of the university warned us, "Most of you were in the top 5% of your class in high school. Just remember that fully 50% of you will now find yourself in the bottom half of your class..." It's quite an adjustment.