Remember your first job? Remember what it was like to be a newbie trainee? As it turns out, sometimes the lessons that you take away from your first job aren't the ones that you thought you were being trained to learn. The scut work of a first job can, over time, become the lifelong lessons that undergird an entire career.

At least that's what we learned from 15 well-trained leaders and accomplished performers, all of whom looked back on their first jobs as a source of their current success. What were those first experiences all about? And how did those first jobs create lasting lessons? Read about their workplace training -- and see how the results of that training can go on working for a long time.

jerry@flatironpartners.com [1]), a venture capitalist who cofounded Flatiron Partners in 1996, has since funded such companies as GeoCities, Kozmo.com, StarMedia, and TheStreet.com. The firm's financial backing comes entirely from Chase Capital Partners, the private-equity arm of Chase Manhattan Corp.

jevans@wma.com [2]), a Manhattan-based literary agent, represents such authors as Marcia Clark, Nicholas Gage, Quincy Jones, Fran Lebowitz, Peggy Noonan, and Liz Smith.

gfcolony@forrester.com [3]) is one of the most frequently quoted commentators in the high-technology industry. Forrester Research, the market-research, analysis, and consulting company that Colony founded in 1983, has a staff of about 90 analysts and a market cap of more than $1 billion.

trishmi@techaccess.org [4]) joined Microsoft as a program manager in 1988 and retired in 1996 as a millionaire. Together with her life partner, Jill Hull Dziko, a social worker, she founded the Technology Access Foundation, a nonprofit organization that offers training, summer jobs, and scholarship programs to children of color who live in the Seattle area.

rjoss@gsb.stanford.edu [5]), former CEO of Westpac Banking Corp., Australia's oldest bank, was appointed dean of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University in September 1999.

media.chicago@fbi.gov [6]) became one of the FBI's top-ranked woman agents in the field last year when she took over operations at the FBI's Chicago field office. Only 3 of the FBI's 56 field offices are headed by women, and Chicago's office is the largest of them.

mike@aquariumventures.com [7]) cofounded Aquarium Ventures with Peter Venech, a Yale sophomore, earlier this year with what they say is a total commitment of $1 million from a network of angel investors.

knussbau@aflcio.org [8]) is the founder of 9to5, a national working-women's organization, and is the director of the AFL-CIO department that works on issues of special concern to women.

ckatz@1stup.com [9]), 25, is a cofounder of 1stUp.com, which was acquired by CMGI last year for $60 million. 1stUp provides free Internet service to more than 3.5 million subscribers and has service deals with AltaVista, Excite, and Lycos.

philmorr@mit.edu [10]) was the subject of an investigation in 1952 by a congressional anticommunist committee. Morrison, who is 84, has been the book reviewer for Scientific American for more than 30 years.

patrick_dunne@3i.com [11]) is in charge of marketing worldwide for 3i PLC, a venture-capital firm with 30 offices in Asia, Europe, and the United States. He is the author of Directors' Dilemmas: Tales From the Frontline (Kogan Page, 2000).