[garden_hermit]

The counterfactual is still useful to think about, because what works for the poster may not work for the modal person. There is a big self-selection problem—if the poster wasn't a successful software engineer, we wouldn't be hearing about their life on an HN post. We are also engaging with their comment, because they are exceptionl and have an interesting life story—who read this article but didn't comment? And whose comments were ignored because their story was less interesting?

This person is clearly successful, but the question is whether their unique schooling experience was causal to their success, and we honestly have no idea. This person may have been equally, or maybe even more successful had they did typical schooling and college. Or maybe not. We also don't know if this person's experience translates to other children—does everyone benefit? Or are there hundreds of less successful unschooled children for every one success?