system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:Why do rockets go in a curved path right from the beginning?
gpt
In order to stay in orbit, when falling down, you need to miss the Earth.  
To do that, you need to be going really really fast to the side.  

So rockets eventually start pointing all the way to the side and start firing in order to build up enough sideways speed to miss the Earth. 

However, if you tip the rocket slightly, you make if slightly off balance, meaning gravity is going to pull it in the direction it's tipped. Sorta like a pole falling over.  
Since you want the rocket to turn that way anyway, you can save some turning equipment and let gravity do the work. 
But if it's tilted the wrong way, your rocket turns the wrong way, and that's really bad. 

So you tip it early yourself. 
    
You still want to get out of the thick air as soon as possible, so that's why it's mainly still going up.  
You also still don't want to turn too fast, so you keep some control to stop it from flipping, but otherwise you let gravity do the work.
  
Another consideration is that the buildings to launch rockets are expensive.  
If something goes wrong and your rocket can't go to space today, you want the exploding flaming wreckage to fall somewhere there's nothing important. 
So best start pointing it away from the expensive rocket buildings.