[ebiggs]

Not only is this irrelevant to a hacker-entrepreneur it's also somewhat irrelevant to a simple programming career. The sheer dearth of good programming talent makes it a fairly easy field to break into if you're highly motivated. You will undoubtedly be a lot better after 10-20 years of experience than you will just starting, but I've seen countless examples of kids who are more capable and better resources than some more dispassionate experienced programmers. It's such a fast moving field, and so diverse - that the opportunities for green talent are massive... far better than most other technical fields.