17 (almost 18): data processing department, starting in 1996; 20: Florida, in Summer 1999; quit almost exactly a year later, at 21; got my first computer job again at 25, in 2004. So it was actually a 4-year gap (!).

I left the computer industry just months before the big dot-com crash, but I was really burned out by then, and predicted the crash anyway. (IPOs had gotten completely out of control.)

And no, I don't have a college degree or much in the way of a college education at all, unfortunately. I'm really not proud of that, but I haven't been disciplined enough for college until more recently, and now I'm too busy and have other goals. I would never brag to anyone that "I've gotten this far without a college degree"; I'm not fond of that trend these days, and I do think that having at least some college education is very important.