I can trace the start of my (reasonably prosperous) career in IT, to one off-hand comment at a Linux User Group meeting some 20 years ago. I was a student and mentioned to someone that I was looking for part-time work. Another fellow overheard and I was hired over the phone the next day.

Fair to say much of the way my life turned out is thanks to Linux and open source software.

That's awesome! I had to kinda "force" Linux on my workplace at the time but it was really rewarding to get an efficient network/server setup going for them. I also ran it as my desktop there (though had to use Wine a bit ;)). Good times :)