I agree up to a point. Certainly the implication you should not continue doing something if a) you think it's fun and/or b) you think it's important seems wrongheaded to me and not a very fun way to go through life. I'm never going to be as smart as Andrew Ng, but I still have fun building ML systems and pipelines.
That said, there are times when I've given up and felt like it was the right thing to do. I went to a pretty good school for Physics because I was sure that was what I wanted to do with my life. After 2-3 years, through no lack of effort on my part, it was just super clear I wasn't going to make the cut--I just didn't have it. I worked hard and got okay grades, but as the material got harder, it was just plain to see who was separating from the pack and those kids just had something I never would, and hard work wasn't going to do it. If I didn't put in 10k hours, I came damned close.
I dropped Physics as a major, switched to Math, dropped the idea of academia as a career and have never looked back. An honest look at one's talents relative to peers and competitors is still important.
That said, there are times when I've given up and felt like it was the right thing to do. I went to a pretty good school for Physics because I was sure that was what I wanted to do with my life. After 2-3 years, through no lack of effort on my part, it was just super clear I wasn't going to make the cut--I just didn't have it. I worked hard and got okay grades, but as the material got harder, it was just plain to see who was separating from the pack and those kids just had something I never would, and hard work wasn't going to do it. If I didn't put in 10k hours, I came damned close.
I dropped Physics as a major, switched to Math, dropped the idea of academia as a career and have never looked back. An honest look at one's talents relative to peers and competitors is still important.