The stories I find always have one thing in common: the writers "make it." They get the job, get into a Bootcamp, or launch a profitable sass app; whatever their goal may be, if they're writing about it, they've achieved it.<p>Similar question asking for anecdotes here:<p>https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/6w30de/for_those_who_travelled_down_the_selftaught_path/
Every succesful spot on the earth is subject to "survival bias". For each Neymar and Messi there are hundreds of thousands of kids literally killing themselves trying to be the next football superstar. Most of them are going to fail but the next Neymar will for sure come from this pool.<p>The "self thaught" career is the same, with the difference that a lot more people trying it succeed. But it is still difficult and a lot of people won't.
It's less likely a traditional "survival bias" scenario because effort matters. I'm sure participants who commit the strongest get the best outcomes (and a more likely to write about it).