[toddc]

A lot of people get the CS degree and stop learning or lose the drive to write or create anything interesting. Who knows, maybe they never had it: It's easier to take a creative person and teach him engineering than it is to teach an engineer to be creative.

Me: B.A. English and Classics. I'm getting a masters in CS--only because I already read/have read many of the graduate texts. I started programming at an early age, but I wasn't interested in CS because the universities were still insisting on Fortran and Assembly, and I'm sure Cobol was on the list of requirements too. Lastly, deep domain knowledge is priceless--no fancy algorithm trick can beat it. Someone without specialized domain knowledge can't even envision what he doesn't know.

Success in software and startups is largely determined by one's commitment to keep learning and trying to improve.