“I think I felt I had to do certain things coming out of school, but quickly realized that wasn’t the life I wanted to live.” – Rachel Cook, Microlending Film Project
How this former investor has applied investing insights to running a retail business (and what he’s also learned about how much harder it is than he thought as an investor)
“This is the most creative job I’ve had since graduating college, and it’s definitely where my energy comes from.” – Vijay Brihmadesam, co-founder of Tava Indian Kitchen
How a high school dropout and massage therapist became an MIT robotics engineer working at McKinsey and Pixar
“Pixar is unique in the way it balances the need for the artist to explore with the need to get things done.” – Naomi Davidson, Pixar Animation Studios
How a McKinsey alum volunteered her way to becoming the Chief of Staff at Khan Academy
“I spend a lot of time thinking about scaling our organization and figuring out how to preserve the culture.” – Jessica Yuen, Khan Academy
What an engineer, Stanford MBA, and pro photographer (who did a photo shoot with Barack Obama) has learned about careers and relationships (oh, he also founded a VC-backed social gifting startup)
“We’re building a social gifting framework that allows me to get a gift for you by crowdsourcing the creativity of our common friends.” – Dana Underwood, The Muse Factory
Why this Harvard lawyer left the Boston Consulting Group to start an online language learning company
“We help people learn Chinese through video content, like music videos, commercials, news, and inspiring talks.” – Alan Park, founder of FluentFlix
How this entrepreneur started out selling on eBay, founded a Mashable-rated career site, and raised $1M to start a merchant loyalty company
“Investors want to rush in and invest when you position their fear and greed together: their greed to make a billion dollars and their fear of losing the deal.” – Yu-Kai Chou, RewardMe