[prodigal_erik]

I guess it depends on why they started so late. I don't know how causation works but I see a strong correlation. Almost everyone I know who's any good has talked about being irresistibly drawn in as an early teenager. Maybe the clock-punchers who had shrugged off computers as boring until they noticed software happens to be an extravagantly-paid desk job (which it wasn't when I graduated, I just lucked out) are doomed to mediocrity through lacking intrinsic interest and even obsession. They'd be selling real estate if that paid better, and indeed some of them were.