There's no real proof in this article that anyone out proforms anyone else. The author lists a few notable cases with a few notable people, but I have to ask.

Didn't those people get an education? Didn't they go through school?

I did a quick search and linus has a masters in computer science.

What is a self taught engineer then?

I would expect that an article with this kind of claim in the title, would have some data about code quality, qualitative reivews from coworkers and managers, with different cohorts of devs, over some time frame.

This piece right now, just seems like an opinion without substance.

Additionally for what it's worth, I personally think of myself as a self taught engineer, so I'm biased to actually agree with the author. However I feel like this claim lacks substance.