Spike Jonze - Born Adam Spiegel (the heir to the Spiegel Catalog fortune).
He started off as a photographer and writer for Freestylin', a magazine about BMX and freestyle biking, along with Mark Lewman and Andy Jenkins. The three eventually moved on to Dirt Magazine, which was distributed freely with Sassy Magazine and quite possibly the best use of glossy paper ever.
During the break between magazines, he started filming and directing skateboarding videos, most notably World Industries "Rubbish Heap" and Blind's "Video Days." (Interesting where-are-they-now bit about Video Days: one of the skaters featured was Jason Lee, who's now better known as that guy who did the stinkpalm thing in Mallrats).
From there, he started getting noticed more and began directing music videos for indie and punk bands like Sonic Youth, Rocket from the Crypt, Velocity Girl, the Breeders, and so on until the world started paying attention to his Beastie Boys videos.
He's now directing Puff Daddy videos and Coca-Cola ads. Most who knew of him then have already gone through the mourning phase and now pretend he never existed.
It's still an unconfirmed rumor that Freestylin' let him be a photographer because his real job title was "Underage Sugar Daddy" (that magazine never sold well, but lasted 4-5 years with good distribution).