[trymas]

TL;DR: imho there should be a balance between catching your passionate goals and broadening your knowledge pool by getting 'normal' education. Many success stories are marginal cases and can be compared to winning a lottery ticket.

Well I should agree with both of you.

Many success stories must be taken with a grain of salt. Some of them are truly like winning a lottery. Also making idols out of college/school dropouts is not very healthy for society over all.

I agree that today you can make descent money by making web/mobile applications, but do not think that you will be a millionaire or be hired by google/facebook/apple/etc within a year.

But if you are passionate about something you should (or even must) pursue it. IMHO marginal cases should not be idolised. I have seen too many people who believe that every one can code, though ignoring that software development requires great knowledge and education (formal or informal).