I very much agree with this. I'm a woman and at age 13 I was, if not actually "hacking", at least teaching myself to code simple games/graphics. However, "deli

I very much agree with this. I'm a woman and at age 13 I was, if not actually "hacking", at least teaching myself to code simple games/graphics. However, "delivering solid product" is a very big leap from that. I'll never be an elite ninja rock star coder or a big name entrepreneur. Conversely, there are plenty of posts on HN from people, mostly 20-something and male, saying they just taught themselves to code from scratch within the past year. Some of those people are already doing pretty damn awesome things, and thankfully they usually get encouraging feedback rather than told they'll never make it because they weren't geeky enough in junior high. (And I was a big nerd all through school, so believe me, I'd love that to be a meaningful qualification!)