Right on, man. I'm following the same path--couldn't afford college, decided to start a business, then freelance, then became a yuppie, then started living in my car to write software, started selling it, and now I'm making money (minimum wage, at-least) writing the software I want to. I've so-far released an OS and desktop sync client for this weird tablet, and now I'm writing a libre handwriting recognizer.

If you have faith in yourself, and follow your spirit, you can be successful and not accountable to anyone--complete intellectual and creative freedom. However, it does require some nerve to stand against the corporate machine.