I basically missed the whole thing. Partially because of my location (Phoenix isn't exactly a hub of tech startups - while there is more activity now somewhat,

I basically missed the whole thing. Partially because of my location (Phoenix isn't exactly a hub of tech startups - while there is more activity now somewhat, back then it was much different), and partially because I stuck with my employer at the time and didn't participate outside of that. I was working for a long established software company that developed an insurance claims management system using a variant of COBOL. I didn't participate in that side of things, though - I was involved on a different team for development of an internally used application which was written in VB6 with an Access DB backend MDB file (ugh). I basically worked there for about 6 years doing that, and completely missed the whole "dot-com" thing. Might have been a bad career decision, but then again, maybe staying in Phoenix was also one. But the pay has been steady, it has kept a roof over my head and the electricity on. Since then, I have moved on to other jobs and continued with my career. I haven't become rich, and at my age I don't expect to ever hit a unicorn and be on the bottom floor of a startup and retire early. I am expecting to work until I die, whatever form "work" takes. Currently, it is still coding as an SWE and hopefully that will remain the way it is for a while.