That's not what's mentioned in the email. It's clearly said that mental illness is almost like an offshoot of intelligence, not software development. The phrase 'trading life for a computing project' was a metaphor. I knew before starting to read the comments that there will be people scrutinizing the email literally and giving their opinions. Jeff clearly mentions that obsessing over one thing is not worth it. Life's much more beautiful than that. This is not just for coding, but any profession requiring such heavy use of intelligence.