The highly educated do not owe society anything. No one should have a right to my intelligence. If I want to contribute, I can and will, and if I'm smart enough and execute well enough, I will be rewarded, both monetarily and through watching my creation create real value.
This does not mean that sacrifice and discomfort are the only ways to create value. Wile start ups are roller coasters of emotion, I can bet you that Jobs, Gates, Page et al. Have gleaned much more pleasure from their creations then sacrifice, discomfort and pain.
And the only person who can make them do anything is themselves. Larry and Sergey did not bear a responsibility from society to create Google. They did by their own choice.
