Max Levchin
Now: Vice president of engineering, Google; co-founder of PayPal and founder of Slide
First Job: Programmer
My first "job" was actually programming. This was back in the USSR, in the mid-'80s. I was about 13, and completely high on writing code, but had extremely limited access to computers. Most of my "programming" those days was actually done on paper: I'd sit in a park with a notepad and literally write software with a pencil -- my family certainly did not have a computer, and there were none at school.
Fortunately, one day I randomly heard that a college nearby just got allocated a few computers by the government, but had no programmers. So the next day, I showed up to this little makeshift computer lab and offered up my programming skills in exchange for after-hours lab access.
Initially the scientists in the lab didn't really believe I knew what I was doing, but they had few other choices, so they gave me a try. I wound up building all kinds of stuff for them over the next three years, from image-editing packages, to printer drivers, to some pretty complex numerical analysis software. In the evening they'd all go home, but I could stay as late as I liked and work on my own ideas.
Despite being paid in barter, no amount of money (Soviet rubles or hard currency) could have lured me away from that gig.
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Last updated October 29 2010: 7:00 AM ET
