Sangbae Kim

“Your job is your biggest hobby”, Sangbae Kim remarks on the coolest thing about his job as Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I’ve been working on various types of bio-inspired robots”, he tells about his working projects besides lecturing.

Tomaso Poggio

“You can win the Nobel Prize and you can also possibly become a billionaire”, Tomaso Poggio, Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences talks about the opportunities and the excitement he feels towards the topics he’s researching on. “I got in love with the Theory of Relativity and Einstein, when I was a kid”, he explains his early ambitions.

Gina O'Reilly

“My strength is really that I am a pretty good generalist. I used to think that was a weakness when I was younger because I was not really good at anything.” tells Gina O’Reilly about her role and its requirements as the COO at Nitro. Another misconception she had when she was young: “I used to think when I was younger that work was the crap thing you do from 9 to 5 and life was all the other hours in the day. I am fortunate to be in a role that I genuinely enjoy.”

Francine Gordon

“I wound up on the faculty as one of the first two women on the faculty at the Stanford graduate school of business at a time when … there were only 5 women out of 600 students in the whole student body.” explains Francine Gordon, CEO of Womennovation, about her interest in the advancement of women. About her own path she tells “I’ve done a variety of things” and “I have taken advantage of opportunities.”

Steve Aitken

“Everything I do makes a big impact on the company.”, that’s what Steve Aitken enjoys about his role as Project Manager at Jaybird, an active lifestyle brand making Bluetooth headphones and wearable devices. The other side of the coin when working in a small company is “not having a huge variety of expertise”, Steve explains. “I need to be an expert at whatever we are doing.”

Joy Chen

“As long as you put your mind to it, you can do it”, was the best advice, Joy Chen received from her mother back in the days. As the CEO of YES TO, a natural skin care company, she values to work hard and celebrate together with her team. If somebody with a different background could do her job? “I don’t think, extended education is necessary to be an entrepreneur.”

Alessandro Cante

“The coolest thing about my job is that I can ride an incredibly steep learning curve. Not only because I see a lot of different topics but also because you are constantly challenged by a lot of different people”, tells Alessandro Cante about his job as a Consultant at Detecon Inc. His advice to his 14-year-old self: “Try to figure out what you are really good at” and “try to become the best at doing it.”

Michelle Li

“As a Customer Care Program Manager my job is to make the customer’s life really easy”, explains Michelle Li her job at Jawbone, a consumer electronics company that produces Bluetooth headsets, speakers and fitness trackers. Her advice: “Wherever you can help other people, I think, you should do it. Paying it forward is really important in your own career and in others’ careers.”

Marcello Schermer

“We work with telecom companies mostly around the world and help them bridge the gap between them and the startup world”, tells Marcello Schermer about his job as a consultant with Detecon in San Francisco. The good and bad about his job? “I worked on 4 continents this year, which is really amazing” but “you never really know where you gonna be 2 weeks from now, 2 months from now, 4 months from now.”

Ame Elliott

“Figuring out ways to ask for help that feel authentic to yourself is a great tool for success in life”, Ame Elliott would tell her 14-year-old self. “The key thing that you need is empathy and the ability to uncover unmet needs and then communicate that to a different audience”, she reveals about her job as Design Researcher at Ideo.

Cindy Alvarez

“Don’t be afraid to ask questions and ask for help!”, would be the first piece of advice, Cindy Alvarez would give her 14-year-old self. As Director of User Experience at Microsoft, she optimises the utilization of Yammer: “Because it’s a social tool, it’s really important that people are able to use it well and feel comfortable with it.”

Maroane Abdallaoui

“Seeing the future happening”, is the best part of Maroane Abdallaoui’s job as Open Innovation Manager for PRIME, promoting the Paris region as a center of innovation. When it comes to dreams he advises to “be patient. It’s not because it didn’t work out the first time that you have to abandon your dream.”

Sean Patrick Butler

“By far the coolest thing about my job is that 99% of the people I work with are not lawyers.”, tells Sean Patrick Butler about his job as attorney with Cisco’s Cloud Networking Group. Talking about his education he clarifies: “Everybody thinks a law degree is a very versatile degree and you can do anything with it. That’s a misnomer.”

William Grundfest

“The work I would do for free. I am delighted to write and speak and perform”, enthuses Golden Globe award winner Bill Grundfest about his job as a Content Creater, Writer and Producer for Television. “I then moved to Hollywood, where I got lucky and was able to write a lot of television. ‘Mad About You’ was the big, big hit.” He won a Golden Globe Award and three Emmy nominations along the way.

Julie Lorch

“The cool thing about my job is seeing something get built”, tells Julie Lorch, Head of User Experience at DoSomething.org, about her love for UX design. A piece of advice she would give her 14-year-old self: “Make time for hobbies because a lot of times your curiosity is in your hobbies” and “those can also lead to great opportunities.”

David Charron

“You teach what you don’t know. So teaching is about learning”, reflects David Charron about his job as a lecturer at the UC Berkeley MBA program. His piece of advice, when approaching life: “Keep your cognition flexible by doing different things, getting different experiences and being open to new experiences.”

Joanna Weidenmiller

“The FBI came to me in my sophomore year in college and recruited me into the FBI to work for them in the international training unit.” tells Joanna Weidenmiller about her life before becoming the co-founder and CEO of 1-page, a recruiting company. Today she is excited to “have an incredible team of people that are smarter than me and I get the hell out of their way - that’s my job: I stand up and I am the voice of the company.”

Eileen Carey

“My day is really whatever happens from 7am until midnight.” describes Eileen Carey her role as a founder and CEO of Glassbreakers, a mentorship community for women. She encourages others that “anyone can be a CEO as long as they are passionate about what they are doing.”

Gretchen Tibbits

“The coolest part about my work is that we sometimes have exotic animals in the office.” Gretchen Tibbits, President & COO of Little Things, loves everything about her job. Her responsibility is leading all the company’s teams - that’s her inside job. Her outside job is going to various events, sharing the story of Little Things and building partnerships. “A tool for running a business is knowledge in finance and you should be able to think on a visionary level and translate that down to how the team executes.”

Bogdan Rackow

Konzept und Grafik für diverse Werbung

Elisabeth Oberndorfer

“Love it, change it or leave it”, rät Elisabeth Oberndorfer ihrem 14-jährigen Ich in Hinsicht auf die Wahl ihres zukünftigen Jobs. Sie ist sowohl freie Journalistin in San Francisco als auch Vereinsobfrau bei Digitalista. “Als freie Journalistin ist die Schwierigkeit vor allem, dass man wirklich in den Medien unterkommt, da hat man sehr viel Unsicherheit dabei.” Worum es bei ihrem Job bei Digitalista geht? “Eigentlich bin ich der Kleber für alles.”

Renaud Visage

“The coolest thing about my job is setting the vision for the company and having an impact.“ As Cofounder and CTO of Eventbrite he has to make sure that this online market place for eventorganisation keeps track with the changing enviroment in the field. So his team should “not rest on our laurels. Technologies are changing every day, we have to know what is coming and who the players are.“

Kyle "Beef" Bautista

“Being able to travel all over the place. And probably the absolute coolest thing is being in a crowded stadium, tens of thousand of people all chatting the same thing and sharing that passion you have“, Kyle “Beef“ Bautista, General Manager at Complexity Gaming, explains the aspects about his job he’s dedicated to. The skills, which really are helping him in his everyday job are certain social skills, problemsolving skills and also “being able to create project tasks, time management and conflict resolution.“

Thomas "Sodapoppin" Morris

“It’s just really fun. Plus: I love attention. So it’s like: Yeah, notice me!” Thomas “Sodapoppin” Morris always liked to play videogames, even in the past when he got no money out of it. His daily routine in his job as a Streamer at Twitch is playing games for about eight hours and more. The coolest thing about his job? “It’s just probably the fact that I get a lot of money.”

Andrey "Reynad" Yanyuk

“The coolest thing about my job I guess would be to travel. Seeing friends in different countries every weekend.“ That’s what Andrey "Reynad" Yanyuk, Owner of Tempo Storm, pro Hearthstone player outlines as the most exciting part of his job. His main advice to his 14-year-old self? “If you are really good at something, don’t be lazy because of it. Make sure that you work hard anyway.“

Jesse Draper

“I started a talk show called ‘The Valley Girl Show’ and I always had this idea for a fun talk show based around business, entrepreneurs and CEOs.” Jesse Draper is CEO, founder and actress and encourages everybody to start one’s own company. “The coolest part of my job is that I don’t have a boss. So I am my own boss and I am the boss of everyone else.”

Seth Goldstein

“We make it really easy for people to DJ using their iPhone.” As Co-Founder and CEO of djz.com, Seth Goldstein is surrounded by a lot of music. The limitation? “It’s hard to disconnect, because there’s always more. There’s always more information, there’s always data, there’s always email, there’s always Facebook, there’s always Instagram.”