[hortense]

You start spending all your time programming in middle school. By the time you enter college you know everything needed to write simple emulators, and then you meet other students that motivate you to up your game and complexify your projects, like working on a Nintendo Switch emulator.

It doesn't require being a genius or a fast learner, it just requires the good fortune of having programming be your passion.

If you want to catch up to these guys when you only start to learn programming in college, it's doable but it requires you to be a fast learner and also be somewhat passionated in programming.