I think you hit the nail on the head. On one hand so many successful IT people have no formal CS training or related degrees, which is less likely in other fields. This is exactly how a lot of people end up being good in this field. The barrier for entry is low so people get to hone their skills while doing the work. Compare this to medical doctors where the barrier for entry is years and years of study, making it more exclusive, even if not completely related to actual skill.

So it's easy to assume IT requires less skill, it's accessible to anyone. Since everybody has some knowledge of computers, they keep their computer chugging along, they assume IT is that just at a slightly higher level. They know enough to form an opinion but not enough for a good opinion. This leads to plenty of misconceptions like thinking game testers spend their days playing games and having fun, sysadmins reboot machines and reinstall some software, etc. (some, in all honesty, aren't that far from the truth :D).

An IT job is probably seen like a mechanic's, the kind of job people can't live without, can't do themselves, and will never really appreciate or hold in high regard. IT is the blue-collar of white-collar working.

Back in late 90s early 2000’s the best hires were the college dropouts. People who went to college to learn CS, got the basics. Then got frustrated and left.

I used to compete with people who got masters at same college I dropped out of. I won easily, I was forced to hire various graduates and they were nearly useless.

> the best hires were the college dropouts

I think this is survivor and selection bias. There were thousands of dropouts in every cycle and you'd never hear of most. For the ones that ended up being the best, school was probably the limiting factor rather than an enabler.

I see some kids these days doing the same, justifying dropping out of school because Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out and they're billionaires, ignoring that they dropped out because they could do better than what their universities could offer them, and they dropped out of Stanford or Harvard not community college or small town high-school.

I went to a good school and from my generation a single drop out was successful in his career. He dropped out because he wanted to develop his company and he did. I have friends who still finished their studies even while building companies with tens of millions of Euros yearly revenue. Everyone else who dropped out ended up in menial jobs. Car dealership salesman, cashiers, etc. I'm not going to argue the value of a career but the point is they were certainly not the best. I think you are the exception, not the rule.

100%. Bill Gate and Mark Zuckerberg both grew up fantastically wealthy. Their decision making process should be different than the average person.

Gate's parents had friends in high places, went to high quality schools, and he was a trust fund kid. He was in no danger of failing and didn't need to worry about money. He could always just go back.

Zuckerberg had a private tutor. They had basically already had a college education by the time they graduated high school.

Jobs was a smart, hard working dude who was in the right place at the right time. America in the 70s is a VERY different place than America now. The ladder has been pulled up.

Trying to emulate that is foolish.

Also, since we are throwing around anecdotes like "I find my untrained co-workers to be better than my trained co-workers": I have never worked with someone who does not have a college degree that I was happy with. It does not have to be in CS. I am well aware there are counter examples, but that has been my observation.

It was a very common opinion amongst the startup crowd at that time.

Now I would hear stories about MIT, and be impressed, but many schools had very out dated programs.

Breadboards were cool, but I wanted to learn software.

Assembly was neat, made me a better programmer. I’ve Never once used it.

Whole series of interesting but not practical skills. I ended up running school newspaper. That was super useful for getting career launched.

That's a good perspective actually. I myself have been critical of University computer science programs for not teaching practical skills.

I always forget because I went to DePaul University which focus is on practical software development as opposed to making me take organic chem for no apparent reason.

This myth that dropouts / bootcamp grads / self-taught people form some hallowed overachieving group needs to stop.

There are plenty of talented people from many walks of life, but statistically speaking, higher education is correlated with higher achievement and productivity in computer science. I can’t even believe it would be controversial. More advanced training and more network effects obviously lead to more opportunities and more productivity, in an aggregate sense.

There’s no mythical “diamond in the rough” formula for scouting amazing talent among dropouts.

And to be honest, a ton of real, actual value for society comes from workers fitting into standardized workplace systems, spending time on anti-harassment training, going through project management exercises that elucidate business value, and trying to absolutely get rid of false “Steve Jobs” like mentality of playing the lottery on hunches about user desires. Many people for whom university education was too structured and “too much bullshit” also lack skills and talents required to navigate that stuff in real workplaces.

That's why they excel in the pure programming roles but have a harder time in a corporate environment.

In the early 2000s there was a big need for skilled developers with strong personalies. Now they prefer developers who follow orders vs skill.

In some places doing less will earn more credit. They don't fit in well in those environments.

The diamond in the rough formula can work if scouting from lower tier universities, especially in countries where competition to get into top tier universities is fierce (eg China).

I think this is a really good summary. You do often get some kind of kudos when people say they're rubbish at computers/IT but then they bring you down to earth by asking you for help with their bluetooth or some random app on their smartphone :-)