When I was a junior in high school (15 years old), my local (dialup!) ISP offered linux shell access for the small handful of people who even knew what that was

When I was a junior in high school (15 years old), my local (dialup!) ISP offered linux shell access for the small handful of people who even knew what that was. The /etc/passwd file was not shadowed, and I ran john the ripper against it and "hacked" a bunch of accounts. The owner of the ISP was pissed and found me out, but decided to give me my first job as a tech support rep there. I was a dumb script kiddie and never went to college, but that experience helped me land another job post-high school, and a few more jobs later I have a pretty good career at one of the big companies.