“It’s amazing how much an actual interpersonal interaction matters.” – Amrit Dhir, Google Partner Development Manager
How an early Microsoft alum was rejected by the toy industry, then went around it and built one of the world’s biggest board game franchises
“It’s not about how many times you get knocked down; it’s about how many times you get back up.” – Richard Tait, co-creator of Cranium
An entrepreneur turns down McKinsey to start a tech company; now his startup has Hearst, Gannett, Time Warner Cable, and AOL as customers
It’s when you take that leave of absence or quit your job to focus on the startup full-time that it becomes real. – Roger Lee, president at PaperG
What a healthcare PhD learned at McKinsey about “relationship capital” that helped him create a new career as a Ruby on Rails software developer
“Part of job satisfaction is knowing that you’re doing a really good job.” – Adarsh Pandit, thoughtbot
How a college grad without programming experience started a Y Combinator company and created a blog with hundreds of thousands of readers
Paul Graham was like, “This could be the Altair Basic.” – Jason Shen, Ridejoy
How a former Peace Corps volunteer addressed criticisms of “selling out” to Wall Street, and now leverages his finance and consulting experience to serve as a mayor
“One of the important messages Harvard imparted on all of its graduates was that you should focus on tri-sector competence.” – Yiaway Yeh, Palo Alto mayor
Why this cardiologist left medicine for the business world, and how one of his patients who died defined what matters most to him
“Just listening and communicating, even if it takes some extra time out of your day, is extraordinarily important.” – Tarun Mahajan, doctor and BCG consultant
The biggest entrepreneurship lessons this science major learned in two failed attempts starting a company, before nailing it the third time with a multi-million dollar venture-backed food startup
“In a startup, there are many situations where you just don’t know what you’re supposed to do because you’ve never seen it before. But it’s also really exciting because you get experience you may never get in a traditional job.” – Kevin Yang, EAT Club
How this professional re-invented her career from non-profit to marketing at a tech company (oh, she’s also a professional symphony cellist)
“You can re-invent yourself during a career transition. Don’t be confined to who you were or what others expect of you.” – Stephanie Lai, marketer at Smule
Why this entrepreneur started a non-profit to provide mothers in developing countries with an innovative infant warmer he designed after selling his startup for millions
“The idea wasn’t to start a company. The idea was to get this product out to everyone who needed it.” – Linus Liang, co-founder of Embrace