The skills that get you straight As in school are trying, being organized, dedicated to seeing things through, and being willing to work hard. That's it. It's just a question of priorities.
I think the big answer here is that there is something that causes both not caring about school and succeeding in "innovation" and business. It's called "wealth" and is the most effective predictor of any kind of success.
Americans are always looking for get rich quick schemes. We love to hear the story, "working hard is for suckers, just have a good idea one time and you'll be a billionaire" -- it lets us blame the poor for being poor (the cornerstone of American economic culture) because they obviously just aren't smart enough to come up with a good idea. We like to say "getting As is for suckers, you don't need it" because we want to feel better than those nerds in school who wasted their energy and time trying hard.
Poverty and wealth are both primarily consequences rather than causes. It's very easy to confuse the direction of the arrow of causation though. And of course I say primarily because there are feedback loops that muddy the picture a bit.
Saying wealth is a predictor of success is like saying success is a predictor of success. You're not wrong, but it's not a very interesting statement.
And I don't know about you, but the nerds at my school didn't waste their time on pointless crap like learning to pretend to do physics while not using calculus (preferring to do the bare minimum to get adequate grades) and instead poured their passion into things like sports, playing chess and magic, and teaching themselves how to program.
In high school, lots of people get straight As without any of that drudgery. Just 1.5σ gets one so far out of range of teachers that one need only glance at the books at which one chooses to glance.
I think the big answer here is that there is something that causes both not caring about school and succeeding in "innovation" and business. It's called "wealth" and is the most effective predictor of any kind of success.
Americans are always looking for get rich quick schemes. We love to hear the story, "working hard is for suckers, just have a good idea one time and you'll be a billionaire" -- it lets us blame the poor for being poor (the cornerstone of American economic culture) because they obviously just aren't smart enough to come up with a good idea. We like to say "getting As is for suckers, you don't need it" because we want to feel better than those nerds in school who wasted their energy and time trying hard.