I started coding at like, 12. It was mostly fun little "side" projects like game addons and personal websites. I was praised amongst my friends as the "programmer genius" and I built a reputation online.

Eventually I ended up landing myself a web programming job when I turned 16, ended up hating it. Got another internship offer at 17 at a legit web search company. I hated that too.

I eventually decided I hated programming and stopped going to the search company (eventually got laid off for truancy). I spent my senior year of HS and freshman year of college partying a lot getting bad grades with no real direction.

Then I discovered C.