There. Go. Apply. Put together a resume. Tell them why you want to work for them. Tell them what you've done. Email them. Hell, point them to this thread, about how they were the one company you could think of that you want to work for.

Let them decide if you are qualified.

The smartest people I know claim to know the least. It's that double-edged sword: the more you know, the more you know you don't know.

If you want, I'll take a look at your resume and cover letter. My email address is in my HN profile.

But seriously, if you want something, go for it.

Don't be the 'no' in your life.

> I would love to go to work for a company out there that is already making a dent in their market (e.g. Twilio) but I just don't know if I am "qualified" enough to work for some of these companies.

Please do not make such decisions on behalf of any company (or large decision maker, for that matter). Reading your introductions, you're vastly more qualified -in ways most candidates can't even begin to compete- for a number of valuable scenarios.

This is something I see people shooting themselves in the foot a number of times: being presumptuous, making decisions on behalf of others, that puts all parties involved _worse off_. Please don't do that, for your own sake.

I'm 25 and a college drop out as well. I work at Twilio. Shoot me an email, I'd be happy to chat. jdb at twilio

Yes. What's the worst that can happen? You don't get a job? Well you don't have one now, anyway.

Edit: maybe should say "employment" not job. You sound like the sort of person who is working on things, regardless. So if you want to try working for someone else, then apply. There are definitely some employers that won't consider you because you don't have a degree, but there are many others for whom your actual accomplishments are much more important.

Sometimes you need the guy with twenty years of project management experience and huge projects under him who can just jump in and grab the reigns and go from there. Sometimes it pays to take a chance on an eager person (of any age) who wants a shot. If it doesn't work out, you get rid of them. If it works out, you have a diamond in the rough.

And, as someone who was afforded that opportunity myself, there's no better learning experience than being in the real world and surrounded by incredible people. Part of what keeps me in the company and position I'm in is that I am surrounded by many of the people I've known for over a decade that are real powerhouses. They're smart as hell and work hard as hell and I am constantly challenged by them. They make me feel dumb and I'm better for it. I might have a better grasp of some common things a college graduate would walk away with, but I wouldn't trade it for anything and I think I'm a better employee now, because I was molded here and not in a class room.

Not that I have anything against "the system" or against "college boys" (well, maybe just a tiny little biase). I'm just a really huge fan of self-starters and nothing makes me as sentimental as stories of successful self-educated and self-motivated people.

Make it clear what your passion is, what you've learned already, and what you want to learn. Then apply everywhere that looks good. You'll do fine.

Sounds like a resume to me..

Really, go for it. They'll be fighting over who hires you.

It almost certainly won't matter to the right kind of hiring manager at the rig kind of company.

It will 100% matter to just about any recruiter. Many vacancies only path to an interview with a hiring manager is via a recruiter - if you want any of those jobs, you've got a big hurdle to overcome. But I'm guessing you don't want those jobs anyway (well, except perhaps that mythical 2004 Google offer...)

I've also interviewed entrepreneurs and the other side of the coin is a concern that they want to return to an organization because they are burned out.

Finally is the fear that you will work there for a short period, understand the business, and raid staff and launch a competitor.

I'd say that should make you stand out, not hurt you in any way.

If that's not the case, there's no hope for the rest of us.

I'm 26 and a college dropout. We've got several college dropouts on the team - we're about "doers", the people who get it done. http://www.twilio.com/doers

You have to at least give them the chance to reject you. It's tacky, but the only motivational poster quote that's ever resonated with me is "You miss every shot you don't take". Truer words have never been spoken.

Go get 'em!

I dropped out of the ninth grade and by the time most of my peer group was packing for college, I was flying a thousand miles from home, to SF, with only the clothes on my back to sign a contract with Netscape. I had no formal education, no college, no diploma, and no family connections of any sort. Just an interest, ambition, work-ethic, and minor experience that I was able to cull from limited resources (an underfunded public school that still used Apple IIs, a single mom with three kids a low paying job and no child support, and a history of being a real legitimate troublemaker).

Through the iPlanet Alliance of the late 90s, I was able to parlay that into a career at Sun and I've made great money, worked with incredible people, made valuable contacts, and had the satisfaction of helping big companies and organizations around the planet do some pretty sweet stuff that, while meaningless to most of the world, makes me feel like I'm doing something important.

I don't have any specific steps that I can list out to take you from where you are now to where you want to be. Only a tale of my own path and what I found important and not so important along my way which will hopefully dispel many of your fears and self-criticism. I also don't want people to take my story as bragging. Seriously, please understand that I was the family's trouble making black sheep with little ahead of me as a teenager. I just want to convey to young people out there that you can do what you want, despite perceived hurdles. An expensive college education is valuable; not necessary. Connections and a well-off family are valuable; not necessary. Even something as simple as a high school diploma is valuable, but not necessary.

If I can get where I am (a good position to be in life, though nowhere near as awesome as most of the people reading this, I suspect) with all of those strikes against me, then you -- with some college and some startup experience -- can get where you want to be. You just have to build on your best traits, like having a strong work-ethic. Find something you enjoy doing and do it so well and with such obsessive gusto that people can't help but notice you. Even if it's in writing opinion pieces, writing code, advising startups on technical issues, helping in popular forums. Whatever gets some people to notice you. Get your foot in as many doors as possible. Even if it's only networking, for now. And when you get an opportunity, exploit the hell out of it.

Oh, and have balls. Seriously, it can pay to take brash and bold actions, in life. Especially when you're younger and the older folk can see you as a real bundle of potential just waiting for a nudge and a chance. (I think that when you're outside of your 20s, people start to react to that attitude with "if you were going to do something, you'd have already made your grand moves by now").

By brashness and exploiting opportunities, let me give a real brief example:

Before I went to SF, my only experience was - believe it or not - call center work. People called up and I helped them fix stuff. Mostly end users, even. Nothing complex and nothing that special. It paid less than $10/hr, had fairly high churn, and for a lot of people was a position they were filling because they had to fall back on something (that is, a lot of people working around me were in their 40s and 50s while I was not even drinking age and this was something they had fallen back on from something else).

For many, an apparently going-nowhere hole. For me? I worked hard. The job was very 9-5, but I worked well into the night as well as weekends and holidays. I took on jobs and tasks and projects that I didn't have to. I put out enough fires that I became the go-to guy when you wanted things done right. Some contacts I'd made through the job saw this pattern of behavior and after a year in this position, offered me an interview. Overnight, I dropped everything to take the interview away from home. Two weeks after that, I had emptied my apartment and left my town, family, and friends with literally nothing except the clothes on my back and $900 to my name. I moved to the bay area, where at the time getting a place to live was impossible. There were actually bidding wars for low end crappy apartments in average or worse areas of town. And there was me, with no real rental or credit history just getting started.

I was too focused on work to fight through the tape of getting someone to finally rent to me, so I lived at work, instead. I worked sixteen hour days plus weekends and holidays. I slept under my desk and lived out of the free vending machines and soda machines. I used the employee showers and since I didn't have a place nearby to wash clothes, I just kept buying more so I always had fresh clothes in the morning. Hell, there was a mixup with my first few checks, so for two of those first months, I didn't even have money. I remember one time I actually had to borrow $20 from a coworker just so I could get a cab to go to the DMV and get my ID.

Anyway, the point is - your lack of degree or resume doesn't have to stop you. None of what you listed has to. Put together a good resume that emphasizes your strengths (read up on writing a resume - there are ways to focus your resume if you have experience but no education or education but no experience and so on). Shop it around. Talk to as many people as possible. Build up a portfolio and reputation online that people can refer to and become familiar with you through. If there's a project you really dig, participate in it (you've probably seen recent articles on HN about how you can leverage your github records and open source experience on your resume). And if there's a place you really want to work or a particular project you really want to be part of, reach out to them.

Seriously. Read up on Twilio if that is an interest. Check out their rules and requirements so you can avoid hitting an obvious speed bump and get disregarded for ignoring something in their process -- but contact people there and tell them of your situation and ambition. Startup-ish companies are even more likely, I think, to appreciate ambition and work-ethic and enthusiasm over "but how many companies have you founded?" or "when did you get your degree?". Bigger companies are often far harder to approach, because they have rigid processes and discard applications over any minor deviation quickly. Frankly, I'm a bit lucky that I skirted that problem in my case, since I went to well established big companies with more corporate culture than startup culture.

Also, as jasonlotito points out in his comment here, the smartest people seem to have the least appreciation for themselves. That isn't just in this field. It's like that in all fields. The best people most often are the most self critical. Musicians, actors, writers, programmers, CEOs. Part of what makes these people the greatest is the fear that they're not. The fear that they are defrauding everyone and they've merely lucked into their situation and any day, someone is going to discover it and call them out on it. So they work hard to stay ahead.

This was long. I said I had a good work-ethic; not a sense of brevity. :D

I was also my family's black sheep. My story is different I suppose (briefly): I left full time scholarship to study arts--I went to Florida with $500 my brother lent me. I didn't have money for food so I ate Starbuck's left over pastries for the first 2 weeks. I ended up taking 6 courses that first semester and worked 2 jobs to support myself. It was tough time but it was the most lucid time in my life.

While I did well at the arts school, I didn't end up doing arts after all. I am a web developer now--happy hacking my after-hours projects and chasing dreams. Taking good care of my family is also one of my dreams!

I usually think to myself, people should have ambitions and dreams. But only a real man/woman is willing to lay his/her life down for those dreams.

How does one accidentally sell a company?

ok so this is a fair question.

What I really mean by this is that I was not looking to sell I was not out actively marketing the company or anything like that.

We had a product that made a dent in its market, I liked what I was doing and I was having fun doing it.

A bigger company with a presence in a lot more markets came along and made me an offer, I said no and came back with a number I deemed was improbable. They paid it anyway.

Companies want someone that can do the job. 1 indicator is the resume, and you simply have to fill it out with work you did.

Be sure to frame the college dropout in terms of the opportunity you had, so they know you didn't just quit, but had a better offer. If you treat it like a negative, so will they.

Things to do:

1) Make a resume and cover letter. Have many people look over it and give feedback. Take the feedback.

2) Do some practice interviews. Either a friend can do this, or second-tier employers can do this (start by applying to places you would consider as backups, and then apply to the first tier where you really want to work).

The major problem I've seen from people with your type of background is failure to understand what the employer expects and wants in terms of job application and interview. On a very high level, your goal is to convince them that you'll make them more money than you'll cost them, but you have to be fairly subtle about it in a bunch of ways. You also need to make sure you don't subtly convey things that will imply you'll cost them money (arrogant, hard to work with, needs babysitting, etc.)

Personally, the downsides tend to be limited to activities where you want to get credit - for example, buying a home or similar where they want to see that you're capable of making income.

I don't know if you remember this story from HN a few weeks ago, but you should keep it in the back of your mind as you interview:

"How MIT Accepted a Student with No High School Degree, Thanks to His Brilliant Programming" http://www.geekosystem.com/how-mit-accepted-a-student-with-n...

I would like to see his actual code that got him accepted, but I wasn't able to find it. Anyone else more luck?

I'd recommend not filling out a resume and just talking directly with the people you'd like to work for. If they have an HR department it's probably already too late.

You're different than most candidates, embrace it.

I sit more on the design side of things, but in my experience people tend to be more interested in what I've done/built/created than simply where I have worked or went to school.

Yes.