Karl Martino: How I Got A Career. These are the sorts of stories I love. Karl’s story reminds me of another programmer I know who started out doing clerical work at a chicken processing plant in Arkansas and figured out how to automate her work on a fancy electric typewriter. She went on to get a master’s degree and cash in on the dot com world before everything went to hell. (He’s going to update the piece soon, but I went ahead and linked to it anyway.)