My company seems happy to hire qualified college dropouts. A college diploma is a signal that you've learned something, but to be honest, it's not a very strong

My company seems happy to hire qualified college dropouts. A college diploma is a signal that you've learned something, but to be honest, it's not a very strong signal. Some of our most talented engineers didn't graduate college, or didn't major in CS, and I know several CS majors who aren't very competent at all. (I might be one of them--I'd say I was when I first graduated. Big, mature bureaucracies want formal signals. Small/young businesses and startups care about competence. Google is very large, but I suspect still manages to act "young" in many respects.