At the end of drama school, I made a contract with myself: I'd try acting for five years. I was 26. I had already spent eight years working in restaurants and gas stations. So I had seen enough small businesses to understand that that's what acting i...
My role models in the business were the older guys on my team when I first got there: Gray Scott, Adrian Smith, Roland Taylor. These were the guys who took me under their wing, and really schooled me in terms of what the business was about.
In student government in high school, I learned how to deal with people, and in college I studied Eastern philosophy. I'm also an avid team-sports fan. I think I just blended them all together and came out with a business management philosophy that c...
I started my career as a journalist, writing about science and technology for 'Business Week' magazine. Then I decided to make a career shift. I went to graduate school in computer science, and I began developing educational technologies - in particu...
I founded Atari in my garage in Santa Clara while at Stanford. When I was in school, I took a lot of business classes. I was really fascinated by economics. You end up having to be a marketeer, finance maven and a little bit of a technologist in orde...
It's just become such a business, getting into college. I see that a lot in my friends, their parents were so on top of them about getting into an Ivy League school since they were so young, they were just drilled and drilled and drilled, to the poin...
At the Harvard Business School, I really felt I had gained the ability to resolve difficult issues. But I also felt that I wasn't in the mainstream with my fellow students. During job-hunting season, for example, everybody shaved their beards for int...
I don't get a chance to be funny with the thrillers. I like to be funny, and I think I am really funny. So with 'Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life', it was fun to let loose.
After high school, I went to Stanford University and majored in English. Of course, that gave me a chance to do lots more reading and writing. I also received degrees in London and Dublin - where I moved to be near a charming Irishman who became my h...
I always think about which blood drive was going on in Georgia that day when that husband or mom or school teacher rolled up their sleeve and actually gave me a second chance at life. It's the ultimate gift of life, and I'm the one who was on the oth...
Parikrma aims to give underprivileged children an equal chance at education so they can integrate with kids of private schools and, later, with the society. I want these children to hold high-end jobs at multinational companies and not work at the lo...
I hated the idea of a high school sweetheart. Growing up, oh my God, it just made me sick. I wanted to have a range of cool boyfriends. I wanted to travel around and date these interesting men. Then it just happened. You fall in love.
Orlando's a really cool guy. They hired him for 'Lord of the Rings' out of drama school. He's very new at this still and doesn't have a lot of experience. So we were in this together and we've tried to help each other out. We felt very equal which wa...
I went to engineering school, which I thought was what I wanted to do, for about two weeks. We had an orientation class and we met this guy where he worked and stuff and it was cool, but I was like, 'There is no way this is going to be my life.'
I still have my school friends who are actually friends. It's nice that they don't think much about my singing career. They think it is cool, and they are happy for me, but they don't really bother me about it. To them, I'm still just the schoolgirl ...
I was born and grew up in Phoenix, and I left there when I was 17 to go to Interlochen Arts Academy - a boarding school in Michigan - for a year, and then I went to college for a year at The Boston Conservatory and landed the 'Spring Awakening' tour ...
I never thought then I'd be doing what I'm doing now. At my high school, being on the girls soccer team was the cool thing to do, but that was definitely never going to happen for me, so I played music. Not because everyone thought it was awesome, bu...
I joined MySpace in September 2003. At that time no one was on there at all. I felt like a loser while all the cool kids were at some other school. So I mass e-mailed between 30,000 and 50,000 people and told them to come over. Everybody joined overn...
I went to Northwestern because I had gone to a really nontraditional high school. I was like, 'It'd be cool to have a traditional college experience.' Then I was like, 'Oh, but none of these people understand what's cool about me. My specialness is n...
My mom was the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Chicago Law School, in 1946. She had leadership roles in the law, in government and the corporate world. She was a great role model in that she felt anything was possible.
If a kid is being bullied at school, my advice to them is to punch the bully in the face. The government can create as many boards, commissions, and informational sessions on sensitivity that it wants. The fact is, we still have bullies, and we still...
