Of course it's possible! But recognize the uphill battle you are going to have. To get to the level to be an actual real programmer in an actual real startup

Of course it's possible! But recognize the uphill battle you are going to have. To get to the level to be an actual real programmer in an actual real startup producing code that doesn't suck, if you start now, and spend at least 4-5 hours a day every single day coding, and you really happen to be a genius .. optimistically, you will get there in maybe 4-5 years. The "real" hackers took much longer to get to their skill level .. I would say most start around middle school? Guys you agree? (I started when I was 12) so that was when I was a kid and could sit in front of the computer for 10+ hours straight .. I am guessing as an adult you don't have that much time but you have also the intellectual maturity of an adult so you can get there faster than the kids. I don't think it's a DNA thing .. although some argue that understanding recursion is a "talent". I think you just have to allow yourself to think in new directions and you can do it. If you just want to hack out a quick me-too webapp in Rails you won't need that long. it's theoretically possible, if you have a really good idea, for you to come up with a website that works well enough for you to make some money. Then you can hire someone to do the real work. Just understand what you are asking to do is equivalent in terms of amount of work to the kind of commitment it would take from you to get another phd. If you aren't willing to make that kind of commitment maybe you can trick some programmer to do it for you ..