Ask HN: can I teach myself the skills needed to succeed in NLP/IR/PA/DM?

where NLP = natural language processing, IR = information retrieval, PA = predictive analytics, and DM = data mining (had to fit the title in 80 chars :P)

for example: http://www.recordedfuture.com

their jobs page makes it sound like they want PhD geniuses. I don't have a PhD and don't really think a PhD program is right for me. that being the case, is it possible for me to do anything meaningful in this sort of field, even on a smaller scale?

I have some textbooks and read articles and blogs on the field, but I get the impression that to do anything commercially viable it has to be serious, grad-level work, not some toy someone like myself could build.

is this the case, or are there examples of successful products in these fields built by people that weren't hardcore experts?