My father bought me an IBM PC when I was 12. It ran MS-DOS as the operating system.
The PC came with several manuals including one on MS-DOS and another one on the Basic Programming Language. At the time, the city where we lived had a nice race course and often we would go there on the weekends. My father jokingly said to me 'I wonder if you could find me the winning horse, using your new computer.'
I was intrigued by this and decided to give it a try. Consequently I learned the Basic Programming Language. The program I wrote to predict the winning horse failed in identifying it and quite miserably. So I asked my father's friend, who taught mathematics at the university, what was wrong with the math in my program. This led to my getting interested in mathematics, statistics along with programming and computers. Once I completed my computer science degree in Los Angeles, I started working as a computer programmer.
Since then, over the course of 20 plus years, I have had the pleasure of working in silicon valley for large companies like Intuit, AAA, Kaiser Permanente, AT&T, PG&E and Addeco as well as small ones. I have worked as a Software Engineer, Software Engineering Team Lead, Enterprise Architect and Technical Program/Project Manager. Working for a wide variety of businesses in different industries has allowed me to gain a broad range of technical skills and develop a strong business acumen.