[pavlov]

I worked as a graphic designer and digital painter before getting a degree in film editing. I've ended up as a programmer making software tools for artists (and affiliated people in production environments).

If you have a passion for art, don't ignore it. The beauty here is that it's possible and useful to combine your software expertise with almost any other field. You don't have to decide now to go down that route; the opportunities will present themselves eventually. If you're going to do a startup later, the ideas worth exploring will almost certainly stem from experience you have outside of the programming domain. (The world has enough bug trackers and JavaScript frameworks; you'll have better luck making an impact with something else.)