The Decision That Wasn’t a Decision: How One Choice at 14 Changed Everything
I was fourteen years old, working at a pizza place in a shopping mall food court, making $2.65 an hour.
That job wasn’t my destination. It was just the job. But it was the key to something much bigger—something I didn’t recognize at the time.
My name is Joel Comm, and I’ve been in the internet business since 1980. I’ve launched companies, built products, spoken at events, and watched the technology landscape transform from the inside. But none of that happens without a single moment of choice at age fourteen.
The Decision That Wasn’t a Decision
I was a typical upper-middle-class kid in Northbrook, Illinois in the late seventies. I loved music, video games, books—especially comedy books. I was a computer nerd before the internet was even a thing.
In 1977, Radio Shack released the TRS-80 Model 1. I’d never seen anything like it. A keyboard, a monitor, a cassette player for storage. Just 4K of RAM and a whole world of possibility. I spent more time staring at the Radio Shack catalog than I care to admit.
I had to have one. Not because I knew I’d become a programmer or build a business around it. I just knew I had to have it.
So I took a job at the food court and saved every penny. Slinging sandwiches and pizza. Watching the mall. Saving up for something I couldn’t quite name.
1979: The Year Everything Changed
By 1979, I’d saved enough. I bought the TRS-80.
My mother asked me, “What are you going to do with a computer?”
I didn’t have a good answer. I just shrugged and said, “I’m going to use it.”
And I did. I played games on it. I wrote a database program for my father’s friend’s cabinet business (though I outsourced the actual coding—a lesson I learned early about knowing what not to do). I connected a modem and dialed into the earliest bulletin board systems. I watched the internet being born, in real time, from my bedroom.
That decision—to save money for a computer I couldn’t fully justify—led to everything. Forty-four years of being online. Multiple businesses. A career in technology. Speaking engagements. A podcast. Books about AI.
All of it traces back to a fourteen-year-old kid working for minimum wage at a mall food court.
Why This Matters Now
We live in a world where people are paralyzed by not knowing the “right” decision. They want to see the entire path before they commit. They want guarantees.
But that’s not how pivotal moments work. You don’t know you’re making one until you’re halfway through living it.
The decision I made at fourteen wasn’t grand. It wasn’t even that unusual. A kid working a job to buy something he wanted. That’s not revolutionary.
But the person I became because I made that choice? That’s everything.
The real lesson isn’t about computers or technology. It’s about what happens when you follow something that genuinely interests you, even if you can’t articulate why. It’s about saying yes to the thing that pulls at you, even when it doesn’t make sense yet.
The Work You Do Before the Work
There’s something important about the grinding, unglamorous part. The food court job wasn’t my dream. It was the price of admission to my dream.
I didn’t think of it that way at the time. I just thought I needed money for a computer.
But looking back, that’s what separates the people who follow through on something from the people who don’t. The willingness to do the work that nobody sees, that doesn’t feel special, that’s just saving money sandwich by sandwich.
Then one day, you have the thing. And then one day, ten thousand days later, you realize that single choice reshaped your entire existence.
Listen to the Pull
If I’d waited to understand the full implications of buying that computer, I never would have done it. If I’d demanded a clear ROI before working the food court job, I’d have done something else.
Sometimes the most important decisions are the ones that don’t require perfect clarity—just enough interest to move forward.
I can’t tell you what decision at your age fourteen will matter in forty years. I can’t predict your trajectory. But I can tell you this: when something pulls at you, when you’re willing to work for it before you fully understand it, pay attention.
That’s where the real story starts.
Want to explore more about how technology and personal decisions intersect? Listen to my AI for Everyone podcast, where I share stories of people navigating this tech-shaped world. Or subscribe to my newsletter for the stories and insights I’m watching unfold right now.
