OMG stop falling for these "Genius" college dropouts!!
Just to be clear: I myself have mentored in Java people who dropped out of college, didn't go to college, or had a completely unrelated college education. Typically they start delivering within 2-3 months, and after a few more months they are comfortable enough with the work to be called java-juniors. It takes about a couple of years for a junior to become a semi-senior, which means that they need much less mentorship and can keep learning and finding best-practice solutions to problems online.
However, college dropouts who never worked a day as a junior in their life, never had a mentor teaching them how to engineer software, and jump straight into a Leadership position because they are "Geniuses"? These are con-men! They're not real professionals! Would you go to a "doctor" who dropped out of med-school and figured out himself how to do medicine because he's a "Genius"? No, you probably wouldn't, because he's obviously not a real doctor.
Well - same for software engineers. You know how Windows is the worst operating-system and can be hacked with excel files? Maybe it's because Bill Gates never learned how to engineer software.
Remember how all the data on Facebook was stolen by hackers? Maybe it's because Mark Zuckerberg doesn't know how to engineer software.
You know how Sam Altman and Elon Musk blow up billions on stuff that doesn't work, and/or costs orders-of-magnitude more than competing products? Not software engineers, not a Physicist, just a couple of self-marketers (well, Musk did get degrees after dropping out by donating money. So there's that).
Even Jeff Bezos, who did study computer-science, got a job debugging code and then immediately became Head of Development (for a failed fin-tech startup). After two years doing that - he went to work in finance. And it shows. I've used AWS since very early on and have seen the security flaws with my own eyes.
These are not serious professionals, and it's so obvious by just looking at their actual background and track-record. They failed upwards from start to finish, and took all of us with them. Making money isn't proof of being good at your job, you may just be very good at defrauding people. Journalists - where are you? Report facts!