[lobofta]

If I had two SWE candidates with the same genes where one dropped out of high school to build a portfolio of software and the other followed the traditional CS trajectory, then I'd pick the one who "wasted" their time trying to solve the halting problem.

I am biased because I did drop out of high school, yadayada. My career has seen consistently a much steeper incline than nearly all CS graduates I've ever met. Plus, I got to build a bunch of useful and cool stuff, while others were wasting their time studying.