Once I realized that I was not going to be that good at math (I bailed on a Ph.D program a few months before I was supposed to start), I went into quant finance to make money. I was okay at it, but not great. From there, I somehow ended up in the software world (mostly, I'd say, because I learned to program as a quant trader, certainly not through my coursework).

I ended up in marketing by chance: I am the 1st employee at the current startup and naturally evolved into that role because I am technical but not an engineer and like to write/say stuff.

Marketing, especially product marketing, is one of the most under-rated and under-recognized role in the startup world, but in many B2B businesses, it's just as important (or so I'd like to believe) as engineering and sales.