>I’ve definitely first hand seen a lot of FAANG engineers (yes even them, some with PHDs) not realize something I had learned from experience during my first year working with computers

I have a close friend that's the smartest person that anyone who meets him knows, no question about it. He's got a PhD in Physics and has also contributed a huge technical achievement to a FAANG company, that everyone uses every day. He's great at a lot of stuff, but not everything. We work on side-projects sometimes, and I'm the self-taught guy in this scenario. I know that I bring just as much to the table as he does, just in different ways. If either one of us tried to do the things we do together, alone, the result would be less than 1/2 as good. Recognizing this and letting each other shine has served us well.

I can only think that teams made up of a mixture of people with different backgrounds would do better than a team of all CS graduates, or a team of all self-taught developers.