> I'd say if you don't want to work for a large, respected company first, it's a waste of time.
I wouldn't necessarily say that.
I don't have a degree (well, an Associates that ain't worth much). I've been employed as a software developer for 25+ years now (since I was 18 years old).
I wish I had pursued a degree, though.
Back then, when it came to my education, I was pretty lazy - at least when it came to more structured learning. I liked to pursue stuff on my own, though, at my own pace. I've done well in that manner.
In 2011, I "discovered" the idea of a MOOC: I took Andrew Ng's "ML Class" - and successfully completed it. That led me Udacity's CS373 course in 2012 - which I also completed successfully.
That isn't to say I didn't struggle with both of those: I had no experience with probabilities and stats, and I hadn't touched linear algebra since high school. But with the help of resources on the internet and elsewhere (along with help from others on the internet, and fellow classmates), I managed to complete both successfully, and I learned a lot in the process.
Last year, I started Udacity's Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree. Today, I'm working on term 2. We're dealing with localization - basically learning SLAM, which was covered in the CS373 course, too. Prior to that, we learned about how Kalman filters (standard, EKF, and UKF) all worked to integrate sensor data. In the first term, as part of one of the projects I implemented NVidia's End-to-End CNN to drive a virtual car around a track.
All of these experiences, and others outside of all this, have taught me that perhaps I cut myself short by not pursuing a degree when I was younger. My current plan is once I finish this Udacity course, I'm going to get my BS online, then work toward an MS in comp sci. It isn't a matter of "I think I can do it" - I know I can do it. It's more a matter of absoluting proving it, and likely learning a lot more along the way.
I don't think a degree is a waste of time, unless you intend never learning more stuff as you "grow older". If your only goal is to "make money" and all that, maybe it is. To me, though, had I gotten my degree back then, I believe I would be much, much further along today. I can't change that, though - so all I can do is move forward.