Silicon Valley job growth has reached dot-com boom levels, report says

Aptitude for what kind of thing? Since this is HN, I'll guess it means becoming a programmer, but you might also mean non-technical startup partner, other entrepreneur, or something else.

If you are dreaming of being a programmer but have no programming experience, I'd have to wonder what it is you are dreaming. It's not a glamorous profession when seen from the inside, but if you've been programming for a while and love programming enough to want to do it whether you are paid or not (like me), then it makes sense to try to get paid for it. But you'd have to program for a while before you could know that.

I think someone in your position should just find a job, any job that leaves your evenings free--Home Depot is hiring--and try to teach yourself to program every evening after work. Programming is frustrating for quite a while, so don't let it make you feel stupid. Just see if it starts to grow on you eventually or you gradually lose interest. If it grows on you, then start attending in-person meetups, participating in projects online, building things of your own and (later) showing them off, and talking to people you meet about your interest in a programming job somewhere.

Continue building skills, relationships, experience, and your resume by being strategic about gaining experience. If you can live with a Home Depot-level salary, you'll probably find small companies that won't care about your lack of college if you don't care that they don't pay much. Big companies like Google or Apple probably won't even talk to someone without either an impressive degree or an impressive list of professional accomplishments. You can eventually come up with the latter if you really do come to love programming, but until then, a bootstrap strategy suggests starting with programming for free (after work), then programming for a small company (that might not pay much), then specializing your skills a bit into whatever area you do best, then working at better (but not giant) companies, then deciding what to do from there.

If you find that you hate programming, don't despair. My Silicon Valley plumber makes $140/hr and thinks my programming job sounds like having to do math homework all day long for a lifetime (as if that were a bad thing, go figure), while his is driving around saving people and socializing, running his own company, working whatever hours he feels like...and the grime washes off at the end of the day.

Austin, TX (where I live now after being in the Valley for 10 years) also added a similar amount of jobs in 2012:

http://www.deptofnumbers.com/employment/texas/austin/

Many of those jobs are in high-tech. A nice side benefit is that, due to the much lower tax rate and cheaper cost of living, you can actually be comfortable on a lower salary. My co-founder rents a 2000-sq.ft. house for $1250/mo.

tl;dr: Check out areas other than the Valley as well if you want a job in tech, and factor in quality-of-life to your decision on where to live.

The "find a job at Home Depot and program at night" strategy is basically what I plan to do. And yeah, plumbing is on the list of possibilities too. But I hope I find something I like in programming.

Somehow it feels like I've been waiting for "permission" to do this, which is bizarre and makes no sense. But the five replies I've gotten to the first comment are confirmatory enough that I think I can keep my mouth shut, stop doubting, and just pursue this for a few months. Then I can pop up for air and see how far I've gotten. Again, thanks.