Spin aside. His story would be really inspiring for folks i have met who think that for one to learn how to program, they need to go to Uni and apply for a cs degree which is bullshit.
This is one of the reasons I have a lot of hope in online education. When it becomes mainstream, HR departments won't be able to ignore it.
Aren't people who are motivated to teach themselves coding the very kind of people who would want to avoid dealing with Suit HR departments? Wouldn't they be more interested in working at a smaller firm, especially a startup, if they had to work for someone else at all?
What bugged me about the spin was the comment about Systrom receiving no formal training, unlike Zuck. Zuck built Facebook with next none of the "formal training" he was supposedly getting during his short stint at Harvard. Systrom actually graduated and then went on to be exposed to some pretty big name companies in the tech world.
Good on him though, and yes, inspiring stuff.