Early adulthood flowed by in a string of odd jobs.

He worked in poison ivy removal (he stopped getting a rash after the fourth or fifth outbreak) and had a short stint at UPS before starting work at Chick-fil-A, where he made $9.50 an hour. He promised himself the job would be short-lived, and spent his mornings and nights reading computer-related training material.

But more than a year in, as he was cleaning the floors at Chick-fil-A, a moment shook him.

“I was squeegeeing water up, and these guys walked in,” he said. They were technicians, sent there to fix the restaurant’s computer network. They were close to his age, and he couldn’t help comparing their work with his own. “I just told myself: Here’s the risk, here’s the reward. What are you going to do?”

It took a few months to finally quit. He was getting a lot of hours at Chick-fil-A, and helping his mother, who now works at a day care, to pay rent.