I started down this path in the stock world when the startup I was working for went bankrupt in early 2013. At the time I had minimal savings to support my wife and two kids so we had to uproot and move to get a new job.
That experience is what pushed me to expand my financial horizon to end up here. If you want to hear more about my stock beginnings, I talk about it in some podcasts here and here.
Here I am 11 years later and yesterday my project was closed down. Deja vu. Turns out the world of new technology development has risk :)