Is there a point to this other than telling us how amazing you are because you know some facts? As a self taught programmer there's probably just as many things that I can do that you can't. And how would you rectify your lack of knowledge in those areas? That's right, go and find out for yourself. The amount of hours you list are meaningless also (there are only 168 hours in a week by the way); self taught programmers have spent more time on the areas they're interested in. Not everyone who's self taught started by bashing out web-apps in Ruby and you do us all a disservice by tarring.

At the end of the day you learned some facts in a structured setting. It is entirely possible in a non-structured setting. The beauty of self-tuition is you take it as you need it, and you dig deeper when you find an interest. It is true that self-tuition as part of your job doesn't always allow one to delve as deep into a subject as one would like, however the best self-taught programmers are self-taught in their own time.

To answer the original question: No, you don't need a CS credential to be successful in the tech sector. I'm a CTO of a successful medical software house, I've developed my own databases, distributed systems, languages, frameworks etc. I'm a polyglot, knowing high and low level languages (as well as many assembly languages). Before that I worked in the games industry where I developed high-performance 3D graphics engines, animation systems and physics engines. And yes, I can read The Art of Computer Programming[1] and understand it. All without a math or CS degree. I have never had a problem finding work, and often when I have looked for work in the past I've been inundated with offers.

As a CTO when I receive CVs the education section is almost irrelevant to me. It's a useful guide, but it has very little bearing on whether I bring someone in for an interview.

I have worked with many graduates over the years, and they're mostly useless when they join the world of work (unless they'd spent their childhood self-tutoring). There's clearly benefits to the academic knowledge, but mostly you won't even need it. It's only when you start to dig a bit more that missing knowledge pops up. Then you just go and learn it.

However, if you've not learned how to learn then a formal education may be the best choice. When I had the opportunity to go to university I turned it down because I was sick of the stifling educational environment up until that point, but by that point I'd already been teaching myself to code and everything about computers from the age of 10.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Computer_Programming