I was telling him about the experience of the terror of mid-2002 - layoffs everywhere and a really tough job market, stock market post-collapse, massive rise of offshoring in actuality but more importantly the nearly-universal assumption among business leaders and investors that eliminating US employees was the way forward, the entire career looking incredibly iffy, etc.

He was in highschool at the time, he says. The highschool guidance counselor was doing their thing and he was interested in computers, softwarer, etc. She told him that programming was all going to India so he should do something else like law school or business.