You're ignoring the "intrinsically" part. The OP is assuming that being self-taught is a signal that someone is interested in coding, because that's the journey

You're ignoring the "intrinsically" part. The OP is assuming that being self-taught is a signal that someone is interested in coding, because that's the journey they were on. People could be interested in getting a lucrative coding job and use that as motivation to learn to code on their own. That doesn't mean they're interested in coding itself. They might just want to get paid a lot.