[shubhamjain]

> I'm 30 and missed my chance to be a kid prodigy in programming or math and clearly not happening now.

This is exactly how I felt in my early 20s. As young as I was, I still felt I had fallen behind the curve. There were programmers far younger than me contributing to major OS projects, hacking their own operating systems, and creating video games.

I think already has said how it's never too late, but I want to say something different that I wish I should've known. Programming is one of those fields where you can grow in unimaginable amount of ways. You can be a competitive programmer, if you can think fast in a high-pressure environment. Like making apps and products? You can become a full-stack engineer and join an early startup. Have a fun artsy side? You can be a game developer. Like detective work and combining multiple hints together? Maybe security engineering is for you.

The fact is that you can play on any of your strengths and become something unique. You'll stop comparing yourself, because you'd realize you're bringing something better to the table than the prodigies. The competitive programmers might be great at thinking in terms of algorithms, but they absolutely suck (from what I have seen) at startups where you need quick hacky skills to combine things together.

My advice is to ignore the noise. Let your interests drive you, and you'll become eventually stop thinking about the how famous programmers are better than you.