I agree with pretty much everything you've said (your comment on the tension between billing and learning being particularly poignant), but you're talking about

I agree with pretty much everything you've said (your comment on the tension between billing and learning being particularly poignant), but you're talking about a 14 year path versus the gist of the article, which talks about shipping commercial products with 400 hours of self-learning - an unrealistic expectation for most people. You're probably better off planning for the decade-long path (starting humble, and improving incrementally) than thinking that anything remarkable is going to happen in your first couple of years.