I am 17, live in the US, and am not going to go to college even though I was planning on applying to Stanford (I am very ambitious).
I made that decision because I have a lot of momentum in business and entrepreneurship, and I feel like college will not be able to teach me more than I can learn where I'm at now.
I recently started an online teenage entrepreneurship community, and I would love for you to join. There are some teens in the community with professional experience in computer programming (they get paid good money), although they don't have a degree and haven't even graduated high school. They are self-taught, and I'm sure they would be more than happy to give you some advice on learning to code.
I will post the Seth Godin podcast now, thanks for the suggestion. This is the first day I've ever posted on HN, so I'm figuring it out.