[JohnFen]

That's an interesting point. I started my first successful business at 25, but I came from a poor, blue-collar family. I was a tech-head since I was 12, though. Being poor is why I became a software engineer -- my primary interest as a child was in electronics, but I learned early on that you had to be able to afford to buy parts and tools to really do that. I had access to a mainframe computer through my school, though, so programming was free to me and that's what I did.

I never lost the electronics bug, though, and the first computer I ever owned was one that I designed and built myself when I was in high school.

Thinking back on it, although I didn't know it at the time, learning how to work around scarcity really did teach me a lot of skills that were critical to my business and professional successes. That remains true to this day.