Podcasts about Palo Alto High School

Keywordssuicide prevention, mental health, Palo Alto, youth advocacy, cultural pressures, early education, stigma, hope, Karina Kedakia, Kevin HinesSummaryIn this episode of the Hinesights podcast, Kevin Hines interviews Karina Kedakia, discussing her journey from Palo Alto to her current role in mental health advocacy. They explore the impact of cultural pressures on youth mental health, the importance of early education in suicide prevention, and the need for destigmatization of mental health issues. Karina shares her vision for a more inclusive approach to mental health education, emphasizing the importance of reaching younger audiences and providing them with the tools to navigate their mental health challenges. The conversation concludes with a powerful message of hope for young people struggling with suicidal thoughts.TakeawaysKarina Kedakia shares her journey from Palo Alto to mental health advocacy.Palo Alto High School experienced a troubling rise in suicides during Karina's time there.Cultural pressures, especially among high-achieving students, contribute to mental health struggles.There is a need for early mental health education targeting middle school students.Stigmatization of mental health issues remains a significant barrier to seeking help.Karina emphasizes the importance of teaching self-talk and mental resilience to youth.The suicide prevention community must reach younger audiences effectively.Karina advocates for a comprehensive mental health curriculum in schools.The conversation highlights the importance of community support in mental health.A message of hope is shared for young people facing mental health challenges.Sound Bites"Suicide prevention is very important.""You can control how you talk to yourself.""You matter to us. Please be here tomorrow."Chapters00:00 Introduction and Background01:47 The Impact of Academic Pressure in Palo Alto05:51 The Need for Comprehensive Mental Health Education09:44 The Challenges in Suicide Prevention16:47 Destigmatizing Mental Illness and Providing Support19:54 The Power of Positive Self-Talk

Join our host on the Context Coaching Podcast as we welcome Theron Wilburn, former athletic director at St. Francis High School, Palo Alto High School, and Cathedral Catholic coach. Theron shares his extensive journey in the world of high school athletics, from his early aspirations and career choices to his impactful stints at various institutions. Learn from Theron's dedication to building relationships, fostering culture, and his valuable insights on career sustainability and personal growth. His stories and advice are a must-watch for anyone involved in sports administration or coaching! 00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome 00:25 Early Life and Career Beginnings 01:18 College and Career Pathway 03:39 First Job and Early Challenges 04:49 Transition to Palo Alto High School 07:31 Experience at Cathedral Catholic 09:07 Return to the Bay Area 12:15 Building Relationships and Culture 22:22 Career Reflections and Advice 29:14 Staying True to Yourself in Professional Environments 30:25 Building and Sustaining Professional Relationships 32:25 Networking and Professional Development 37:32 The Importance of Exposure and Travel for Students 44:07 Trusting the Process and Overcoming Adversity 46:39 Reflecting on Trust and Professional Relationships 50:27 Advice for Aspiring Professionals

If Silicon Valley has an official matriarch, it might be the Palo Alto based educator and writer Esther Wojcicki. Popularly known as the “Godmother of Silicon Valley”, Wojcicki is the mother of former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, 23andMe founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki and anthropologist and professor Janet Wojcicki. And, of course, she's also the mother-in-law of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. So how does “Woj”, who, as the founder of the Media Arts program, taught for many years at Palo Alto High School, make sense of the last twenty years in which the zeitgeist has shifted from an evangelical faith in technological progress to a deep suspicion of it. And how does Wojcicki look back at her own family history in this period which has been marked by both astonishingly good fortune and terrible tragedy?Esther Wojcicki is an educator and the author of the 2019 bestseller, "How to Raise Successful People."Wojcicki's daughters are YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, 23andMe founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki and anthropologist and professor Janet Wojcicki. Wojcicki is founder of the Media Arts program at Palo Alto High School and vice chair of Creative Commons. Known as the "Godmother of Silicon Valley," she has been involved with GoogleEdu since its founding and helped establish the Google Teacher Academy. She is an expert in blended learning, the subject of her 2015 book "Moonshots in Education."Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

15-year-old Karen Stitt was a student at Palo Alto High School.  On September 3rd, 1982, she was stabbed to death in Sunnyvale, California.  Her murder went unsolved for almost 40 years until forensic genealogy was used to identify her alleged killer, Gary Ramirez.https://linktr.ee/drinkingthecoolaidRESOURCES: Karen Stitt: Arrest made in brutal 1982 killing of a California teenager, officials say - CNN DNA cracks 1982 murder case: Man arrested in case of teen girl stabbed 59 times, police say (msn.com) Gary Ramirez arrested for 1982 fatal stabbing of Karen Stitt (nypost.com)  Karen Stitt Killing: Hawaii Man Arrested in Decades-Old Cold Case (people.com) Hawaii man arrested in cold case hunt for killer after girl was raped and stabbed 59 times in 1982 | Daily Mail Online Cold case: Maui man in court 40 years after Palo Alto teen's killing (eastbaytimes.com) Karen Stitt's friends, family remember a vibrant soul who was brutally murdered | News | Mountain View Online | (mv-voice.com) Makawao man to be extradited to California | News, Sports, Jobs - Maui News Cops chased dead ends for 40 years in a California teen's cold case. Then a suspect's relative emerged. (yahoo.com) What is Genetic Genealogy and How Does it Work? Genealogy Explained Cold case: Maui man in court 40 years after Palo Alto teen's killing (mercurynews.com) Medical issue delays court hearing in Sunnyvale cold case killing of Karen Stitt (ktvu.com)   Support the show

John Canzano talks to Alex Simon of the San Jose Mercury News about his story on Andrew Luck returning to the game of football as a coach at Palo Alto High School and the reception he's received to the role. Subscribe to this podcast for more great content.

John Canzano talks about the Pac-12's misfire on basketball scheduling and gives his final take on the upcoming Week 3 football games in the Pac-12. San Diego CBS 8 sports anchor - and former Beaver - Marcus Greaves talks about the Aztecs visiting Reser Stadium, and OSU receiver Anthony Gould gives a scouting report on SDSU and why he likes playing in afternoon games. Plus, Alex Simon of the San Jose Mercury News talks about his story on Andrew Luck returning to football as a coach at Palo Alto High School. Subscribe to this podcast for more great content.

Will Parker sits down with the admin team of Palo Alto High School to discuss the Grow Leadership Academy, a mastermind lead by Will. … Continue readingPMP352: Grow Your Leadership with the Palo Alto High School Admin Team The post PMP352: Grow Your Leadership with the Palo Alto High School Admin Team first appeared on Principal Matters.

On today's episode: journalism educator Ellen AustinAustin is a nationally recognized and distinguished journalism educator. She was the director of the journalism program at the Harker School in San Jose, taught journalism and English at Palo Alto High School where she created The Viking – the first all-sports, regularly published high school publication – and she previously taught journalism and English in Minnesota.Topics: 02:48 Austin's journalism journey 07:14 Puting “English language arts” to work with journalism 13:00 The need to build agency and problem solving skills 17:28 Understanding students' (and teachers') free speech rights at school 22:56 The importance of creating representative newsrooms 30:21 Unpacking distrust around “the media” and the future of journalism

As a collaborative team, Dean Bensen and Demetra Theofanous create narrative pate de verre wall sculptures utilizing nature as a vehicle to communicate environmental challenges and metaphors for the human experience. Their work connects the viewer with the natural world and instills an appreciation for its interconnectedness to humanity and its inherent fragility.    Says Bensen and Theofanous: “Our decaying leaf installations reflect on our impermanence and vulnerability. What we do has impact – often unforeseen and unmeasured. A pile of leaves hit by a gust of wind is a metaphor for this uncertainty in our future. It expresses that pivotal moment of change, when things we took for granted are suddenly gone. Existing peacefully with others and protecting our natural resources is a tenuous balance, highlighting our interdependence on others and the earth.” Bensen and Theofanous work both independently and as a collaborative team. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in numerous private and public collections. Recent exhibitions include participating 2018 at the Ming Shangde Glass Museum in China, where they received an award from the Chinese government. Another large-scale leaf installation was on view 2022-‘23 in an exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, curated by Brandy Culp. Attending The College of Idaho, Bensen graduated with a BA in art in 1990. His fascination in glass started a hunger for what he had been missing since his youth, an immersion into the exploration and development of his creative side. Upon receiving his degree, he moved to Ketchum/Sun Valley, Idaho, where he continued working in glass at a local studio. In 1997, the artist returned to California to pursue glassblowing as a full-time career. Immersing himself in the Bay Area glass scene, Bensen began working for many local artists and teaching at places such as San Jose State University, Palo Alto High School, Corning Glass School, Bay Area Glass Institute (BAGI), and Public Glass.  In 2002, Bensen developed a body of work that would become the foundation for his ideas based on the existence of the old growth redwood forest. Using both clear glass and color, he focused initially on environmental concerns. As his concepts evolved, Bensen's work grew further, investigating the life cycles in nature, their significance, and the interplay between the earth and various species. Each slice of murrine served to highlight one of nature's footprints, marking the passage of time and a glimpse of history, the rings of life in a felled tree. Bensen has taught extensively, received a scholarship to attend Pilchuck glass school, and his first solo show, Nature's Footprints, received a full-page review in the San Francisco Chronicle. His work has been widely exhibited, including at the Imagine Museum, San Francisco Airport Museum, San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, the Oakland Airport Museum, and the Ming Shangde Glass Museum in China. He has also worked on a team creating several projects for renowned artist Dale Chihuly, including an enormous chandelier in Dubai.  Theofanous was immersed in the arts from a very young age, but this thirst for expression was temporarily diverted when she received her business degree from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. She graduated and spent time working in San Francisco only to realize there was something missing in her work, and she needed to find a way to return to her creative roots. In 2004, Theofanous entered the medium of glass through flameworking and developed a method for weaving with glass that provides a continuing basis for narratives and investigation in her work. She also utilizes the ancient technique of pate de verre, which offers a detailed and painterly approach to casting that is well suited to creating hyper-realistic sculpture inspired by the natural world. Some of her sculptures now combine this cast glass technique with flameworked sculpture.  Theofanous has been internationally recognized for her woven glass nest and flora sculptures, and is included in numerous private collections, as well as in the permanent collection of the Racine Art Museum. Notable awards include: a Juror's Choice Award from renowned collector Dorothy Saxe, a merit award from Paul Stankard, a NICHE Award, a Juror's Choice Award at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, the Leigh Weimers Emerging Artist Grant, two juror awards from Carol Sauvion, Executive Producer of Craft in America, and an Award of Excellence juried by the Detroit Institute of the Arts in Habatat Gallery's 50th International Exhibiton . She has exhibited internationally, including at the Triennial of the Silicate Arts in Hungary, San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design, National Liberty Museum, Alexandria Museum of Art, and twice in the Crocker Art Museum's prestigious Crocker-Kingsley Biennial. As an educator she has taught at top institutions such as Pratt Fine Arts Center and Pittsburgh Glass Center. She serves as Board President of the Glass Alliance of Northern California, was as a Board Member of the Glass Art Society, and is the President of the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass. Theofanous and Bensen met in 2004, and their friendship soon evolved into a partnership, both in and outside of the studio. In 2017, during an artist residency at the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, they began to merge their sculptural works culminating with an exhibition of woven glass wall tapestries titled Intertwined. Their collaborative work is now represented by some of the country's finest galleries, has been exhibited at numerous museums, and is in the permanent collection of the Imagine Museum and the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. Says Theofanous: “Technique merges with narratives in our work, to express metaphorical bridges between nature and human beings. Inspired by the storytelling tradition of woven tapestry and basketry, I see myself as weaving with glass to connect the viewer with the story of the natural world. Through the delicate leaves in each piece, I seek to depict the cycle of life: growth, discovery, change and renewal. I use the fluidity and fragility of glass to express the beauty and vulnerability inherent in the human experience.”  Theofanous and Bensen will have a solo exhibition at Trifecta Gallery in Lexington, Kentucky, in fall of 2023.  

Malcolm Harris joins Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher to discuss Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. A native of Northern California, Malcolm attended Palo Alto High School and that High School experience is a jumping off point of sorts — and a dark one — for the book that Malcolm joins us to discuss. Malcolm's hefty tome, a history of California told through a Marxist lens, opens with a grim reflection on the spate of suicides that darkened his high school years. Teens who took their lives on the train tracks over which Leland Stanford built Palo Alto and much of the booming Western economy that has made the Bay Area and California in general such a dominant pole of global wealth, innovation, and the allure of good, easy living. It's that darker side to this history that Malcolm brings into focus throughout PALO ALTO, a history of Silicon Valley that traces the region's celebrated ideologies, technologies, and policies to its roots in Anglo settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and the ravages of an extractive system that builds glittering new worlds and opportunities for a few, too often at the expense of everyone else up to and including the earth itself. Malcolm explores how the histories of big tech, the military industrial complex, and Stanford University converge in the story of Palo Alto, braided together in a way that at once builds the world we have today at the cost of a potentially better one. Also, Emmanuel Iduma, author of I Am Still With You, returns to recommend three books: The Return by Hisham Matar, Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah, and A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo.

Malcolm Harris joins Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher to discuss Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. A native of Northern California, Malcolm attended Palo Alto High School and that High School experience is a jumping off point of sorts — and a dark one — for the book that Malcolm joins us to discuss. Malcolm's hefty tome, a history of California told through a Marxist lens, opens with a grim reflection on the spate of suicides that darkened his high school years. Teens who took their lives on the train tracks over which Leland Stanford built Palo Alto and much of the booming Western economy that has made the Bay Area and California in general such a dominant pole of global wealth, innovation, and the allure of good, easy living. It's that darker side to this history that Malcolm brings into focus throughout PALO ALTO, a history of Silicon Valley that traces the region's celebrated ideologies, technologies, and policies to its roots in Anglo settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and the ravages of an extractive system that builds glittering new worlds and opportunities for a few, too often at the expense of everyone else up to and including the earth itself. Malcolm explores how the histories of big tech, the military industrial complex, and Stanford University converge in the story of Palo Alto, braided together in a way that at once builds the world we have today at the cost of a potentially better one. Also, Emmanuel Iduma, author of I Am Still With You, returns to recommend three books: The Return by Hisham Matar, Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah, and A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo.

Wojcicki is a leading American educator, journalist and mother. Leader in Blending Learning and the integration of technology into education, she is the founder of the Media Arts Program at Palo Alto High School, where she built a journalism program from a small group of 20 students in 1984 to one of the largest in the nation including 600 students, five additional journalism teachers, and nine award-winning journalism publications. Wojcicki serves as Vice Chair of Creatice Commons and has previously worked as a professional journalist for multiple publications and blogs regularly for The Huffington Post.Esther has been intimately involved with Google and GoogleEdu since its inception, where she was one of the leaders in setting up the Google Teacher Academy and remains a guiding force. With two Honorary Doctorate Degrees - Palo Alto University (2013) and Rhode Island School of Design (2016). She was California Teacher of the Year in 2002 by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing; a recipient of the Gold Key by Columbia Scholastic Press Association in recognition of her outstanding devotion to the cause of the school press; a board member of Alliance for Excellent Education in Washington, DC and on the Board of Newseum in DC; and a has been consultant for the U.S Department of Education, Hewlett Foundation, Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching, Google, Silicon Valley Education Foundation and Time Magazine Education.  Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/unimpressedpodcast. https://plus.acast.com/s/unimpressedpodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Speaking Out of Place, we talk with Malcolm Harris, author of a new book entitled, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World.  Working our way back from the recent meltdown of the Silicon Valley Bank and the massive, toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, to the founding of the city of Palo Alto by Leland Stanford as a haven from labor unrest in San Francisco and his first endeavor there, the world's largest stock farm, to the founding of the university that bears his son's name, we discover the ghostly presence of Capital.From there we move to an in-depth study of Herbert Hoover and the Hoover Institution, and the formation of Silicon Valley itself.Throughout, we find a common thread that links all. This thread is a continuous, if evolving, effort to sort out people into two groups--those that Nature has deemed superior, from those who are meant to serve. This is the “Palo Alto System.”Inspired in part by the rash of suicides at Harris's alma mater, Palo Alto High School, the author notes that the railroad tracks upon which these young people perished were laid by Leland Stanford, and that the Valley is haunted by the ghosts of people whose lives were destroyed by the “Palo Alto System.We end by discussing his audacious proposal—to give the land back to the Muwekma Ohlone, the first of the dispossessed peoples.Malcolm Harris is a freelance writer and the author of Kids These Days, Shit is Fucked Up and Bullshit, and Palo Alto.

On today's podcast: education thought leader and former journalism teacher Esther Wojcicki.Wojcicki led a renowned journalism program at Palo Alto High School in California for 27 years and is a highly sought speaker on education reform. She is also the board chair of Creative Commons, a nonprofit focused on education and learning, and is a co-founder of the Journalistic Learning Initiative.In this episode, we discuss her teaching career at Palo Alto and the power of project-based storytelling.Topics 03:36 Wojcicki's Palo Alto program 07:47 The TRICK method 10:03 Publishing student work 13:09 Taking the grandkids to Target 17:48 Giving teachers more control in the classroom

In this episode, I interview Esther Wojcicki, a teacher at Palo Alto High School for 36 years, a California Teacher of the Year award winner and the founder of Tract and Moonshots in Education. We discuss Esther's legendary journalism program at PALY, her work in changing schools for the better and her recent book, How to Raise Successful People. I really enjoyed talking to Esther and learning so much more about journalism, education and parenting.

Bienvenidos amantes de la música, Nuestro viaje nos lleva a Palo Alto, California, para esccuchar un concierto de Thelonious Monk inédito hasta ahora. Detrás de este evento hay un contexto de un año muy dificil en la lucha de los derechos civiles de los afroamericanos. (Los asesinatos de Martin Luther King y Robert Kennedy). Pero junto con ello también una historia de empuje y motivación de Danny Scher, un muchacho de 16 años para llevar a tocar a su ídolo musical a su escuela secundaria. Acompáñanos a descubrir este registro en vivo en Palo Alto High School, California. (1968) que es una verdadera tregua de la lucha racial en torno a la música de este gran pianista. 1. Epistrophy 2. Ruby, My Dear 3. Don't Blame Me 4. I Love You Sweetheart Of All My Dreams *Suscríbete a nuestro canal. Si ya lo has hecho, considera apoyarnos como mecenas para hacer sustentable nuestro programa y mantener nuestro viaje en vuelo. (Podrás acceder a episodios exclusivos) *Ayúdanos con un Me gusta, Comparte y Comenta. * En viajealmundodeljazz.com encuentra un reproductor de Jazz Moderno y Jazz Clásico.

Brent Kline is Principal of Palo Alto High School, in Palo Alto, California. His previous administration roles include four years Continue readingPMP294: Ensuring Staff and Student Voice with Brent Kline The post PMP294: Ensuring Staff and Student Voice with Brent Kline first appeared on Principal Matters.

Joe and Ron talk with Ari Memar and Esther Wojcicki co-founders of Tract. Tract is Tract is the online community where kids teach kids through enriching, engaging, and inspiring multimedia content, activities, and community mentorship. By unifying the process of creating fun, TikTok and YouTube style videos with project-based learning, Tract unlocks every child's potential to be an impactful creator while sharpening 21st Century Skills Esther is an educator, journalist, and mother. Esther started the Media Arts program at Palo Alto High School which has over 9 award winning publications. She was the 2002 California Teacher Of The Year. Esther is known as the "Godmother of Silicon Valley" as she has been involved in Google and Google for Education from inception, and raised 3 amazing women. Her daughter Susan is the CEO of YouTube, Janet a professor of pediatrics at University California, San Francisco, and Anne is the co-founder of 23 & Me. Ari is a life long learner, entrepreneur, and former student of Esther's at Palo Alto High School. GET STARTED ON TRACT HERE: https://tract.app/get-started/educator USE ACCESS CODE: TEACHERNERDZ SHOW NOTES: https://wke.lt/w/s/bGyVsR --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/teacher-nerdz/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/teacher-nerdz/support

At the first year mark of The Latest Version, I am checking in with my first six guests. These women shared their stories when I didn't have a finished product yet to share with them. They took a chance with me, sharing their stories about their life journeys and their plans for the future, and I am so grateful to them. Their experiences this past year will sound familiar to many of you. Some are making progress, while others have family issues that may have put their plans on temporary hold, but no one's giving up. All original episodes are available at www.thelatestversionpodcast.com/episodes.Danielle Butin started Afya Foundation, a nonprofit in Yonkers, NY that collects unused medical supplies from hospitals that would otherwise go to landfill. Afya receives these supplies in their warehouse, sorts and repacks, then ships them to hospitals around the world, often in response to natural disasters. Today, Afya Foundation's purpose could not be more vital, as they send off supplies to Ukraine. If you want to donate to Afya, please go to www.afyafoundation.org.Lucy Filppu is a long-time English teacher at Palo Alto High School in California. Last year We talked about her work at a high performing school district. Lucy shared with us that she was working with a writers group to start on a novel. She also has an entrepreneurial side, as several years ago she started writing boot camp for students entering high school. So how's it going? Lucy shared with me that she has a sick family member who is her priority right now. Many of us have shared a simiar experience and we send her and her family much love.Christina McMurray wrote and published a book, “Live, Laugh, Fly,” about her son Scott's battle with a rare pediatric cancer and death at 22. In truth, the book was a bigger examination of a marriage that hit some rocks but, contrary to expectations, came back stronger than ever when Scott's illness hit. A big part of Chris's story are the coincidences and “signs” her family have noticed since Scott's passing, and her confidence that he continues to be a part of their lives. Chris and husband Gene are doing well, and even have a podcast of their own! Chris's book, “Live, Laugh, Fly” can be found on Amazon.Lela Cocoros Goldstein's life after retirement from a busy corporate and consulting career took an interesting turn. Last year she told me about her discovery of the art of collage. I didn't know much about collage, other than to think, “wow, that looks like fun.” And my other thought was, “Lela is really good at that!” My question to her last year was, “How far are you going to take this?” She is still growing as a collage artist and is exploring teaching collage. You can view her work on her Latest Version episode page.Betsy Chappell shows how you can take an interest or a sideline – in this case gardening – and turn it into a business by focusing on a niche. In Betsy's case, the niche is container gardening, enhancing the outdoor spaces of her clients' homes in Lexington, Kentucky with beautiful potted plant arrangements. A year later, her business, Blooms Designs is, well, blooming. She is finding new ways to market her business and is building it up with a particular goal in mind. You can see her Instagram feed at Blooms Designs.Finally, my first interview last year was with Lara Lavi – an old friend who had a promising career as an Americana singer songwriter, but put a lot of that aside to concentrate on her law practice and, more recently, to help manage the career of her very talented son, Cameron Lavi-Jones and his band, King Youngblood. When we talked last year, Lara had just released a single, a cover of Joni Mitchell

In this episode, our team of youth ambassadors interviewed Saumya, a sophomore at Palo Alto High School about the online vs in-person learning mode for kids.

What a Creep: Casey Affleck & James Franco Season 13, Episode 1 A Duo of Acting Creeps   Casey Affleck is a successful actor, writer, and director who was nominated for an Academy Award for the Best Supporting Actor in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford in 2007. He also had roles in a string of hit films like To Do For, Good Will Hunting, Oceans 11, 12 & 13, plus Gone Baby Gone directed by his older brother Ben. In 2009, he and his buddy Joaquin Phoenix decided to direct a Spinal Tap-Esque film where Joaquin would play a hyped-up version of himself becoming a hip hop star after winning an Oscar for Walk the Line. It was called I'm Still Here and was a flop in many ways, artistically and financially (he used his own money to fund it) plus, he was later sued by two women who worked for him for sexual assault and continual harassment on the set by him and his buddies on the set. This lawsuit has not stopped the press fawning over his talent. In this episode, we will talk about the two lawsuits and their aftermath. Trigger warning: sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gaslighting. Sources are:       Casey Affleck Wikipedia       Daily Beast       Daily Beast 2       Magdelana Gorka official complaint       Time magazine       The Guardian       Amanda White lawsuit James Franco Actor James Franco co-starred on Freaks and Geeks and eight movies with Seth Rogen, including Pineapple Express, This Is The End, and Sausage Party. He was nominated for Best Actor in 2010 for the movie “127 Hours,” and won a Golden Globe for Best Actor for The Disaster Artist.  He's directed almost 30 low-budget indie features and shorts, written books, and taught film classes at New York University, the University of Southern California, UCLA, Palo Alto High School, Playhouse West, and Studio 4. Such an accomplished fellow - too bad he's also a big creep. Sources for James Franco  Buzzfeed  Buzzfeed Variety People Magazine NPR LA Times Wikipedia Be sure to follow us on social media. But don't follow us too closely … don't be a creep about it! Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts Twitter: https://twitter.com/CreepPod @CreepPod Facebook: Join the private group!  Instagram @WhatACreepPodcast Visit our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/whatacreep Email: WhatACreepPodcast@gmail.com  We've got merch here! https://whatacreeppodcast.threadless.com/# Our website is www.whatacreeppodcast.com  Our logo was created by Claudia Gomez-Rodriguez. Follow her on Instagram @ClaudInCloud

Due to the nearly two-year quarantine, Palo Alto High School's PE department had to place its annual self-defense unit on hold. Now, Paly seniors will be graduating without having participated in a school-sponsored self-defense class. Olga Muys and Emma Kim investigate the ramifications of this knowledge gap.

Andy Robinson is a junior at Palo Alto High School in California, and he's a co-chair for the Teen Advisory Council of the Palo Alto History Museum, where he helped create a historical time capsule of his city. Andy has also been a volunteer for the U.S. Lighthouse Society's passport program, helping to update information on stamp locations and events. He's written histories for a series of collectible passport stamps to commemorate lost lighthouses. Andy Robinson Andy is also a writer and editor for Verde, a student-run magazine for Palo Alto High School. He's now in the process of starting a California chapter of the U.S. Lighthouse Society, which will be called the California Lighthouse Society. A website has been established for the chapter: www.calighthousesociety.org Joining host Jeremy D'Entremont for this interview is U.S. Lighthouse Society Executive Director Jeff Gales. One of Andy Robinson's inspirations was a visit to California's Point Pinos Lighthouse. Photo by Jeremy D'Entremont. J. Dennis Robinson J. Dennis Robinson is a popular columnist, lecturer, and public historian living in Portsmouth on the New Hampshire Seacoast. He's the author of a dozen books on topics ranging from Jesse James, child labor exploitation, the Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, archaeology at the Isles of Shoals off the New Hampshire coast, and the infamous 1873 Smuttynose Island ax murders. He's also written about 3000 published articles on a variety of history topics, including the local lighthouses. His latest book is a mystery novel called Point of Graves. He discusses his new book in this interview, as well the iconic importance of the region's lighthouses. Shalana Millard co-hosts. Listen to the podcast with this player:

Listen up, Padre Football Fans! The second episode of our Padre Football Pregame Podcast is out. In this episode, Coach Walsh discusses how technology has changed his coaching game and he talks about the team's preparation for Friday night's game against Palo Alto High School. Go Padres!

On this episode of the TBH podcast, we talk to Caroline Zhang! Caroline is a Palo Alto High School student, artist and creator of Z Magazine. We discuss Caroline's recent decision to start therapy as well as her passion for art and why she started Z Magazine. Z Magazine is a digital arts and culture magazine that provides Bay Area youth with an accessible platform to share their art as well as receive recognition for it. Learn more about Z Magazine by following them on Instagram or checking out their website. If you'd like to chat with Caroline or see her artwork, you can follow her on Instagram here or here.Thank you for listening to the To Be Honest podcast! We hope to be an open platform to youth and young adults across the Bay Area who would like to talk about their experience(s) with mental health and substance use.If you would like to share your own behavioral health story, please email us at tbh.today@gmail.com.  Learn more about the To Be Honest campaign and discover resources at www.tobehonest.todayFollow us!Instagram: @tobehonest.todayFacebook: @TobehonestTodayTwitter: @tobehonesttodayTo Be Honest is a behavioral health stigma reduction campaign for youth, transitional aged youth and their families in Santa Clara County, created by Momentum for Health and sponsored by District 4 Inventory Funds (Santa Clara County), Republic Urban Properties and Kaiser Permanente's Northern California Community Benefit Program.Editors: Avery Cruz & Peyton DillehayMusic: Julia SteeleRecorded: December 21, 2020

"We're trying to get kids to be interested in something and develop a passion for it. My goal is to empower kids. I've been working on that my whole life." So honored to have Esther Wojcicki, the Godmother of Silicon Valley, on today's show! Esther is Co-Founder of TractLearning, Inc. and the Founder of the Palo Alto High School Media Arts Program. In this episode, she shares her inspiring journey from her dream of becoming a journalist to finding her path towards becoming the amazing teacher that she is! Esther also talks about some of her teaching philosophy, her most recent endeavor in education technology, and most especially her “TRICK” in raising successful people. So excited for you to hear this wonderful conversation on #TheKaraGoldinShow Show notes at https://karagoldin.com/podcasts/159 Enjoying this episode of #TheKaraGoldinShow? Let Kara know by clicking on the link below and sending her a quick shout-out on social! Follow Kara on IG: https://www.instagram.com/karagoldin/ Follow Kara on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karagoldin Follow Kara on Twitter: https://twitter.com/karagoldin Follow Kara on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KaraGoldin Mentioned in the Episode: Esther Wojcicki's Twitter: https://twitter.com/EstherWojcicki Esther Wojcicki's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/estherwojcicki/ Tract: https://tract.app/company/about How to Raise Successful People: https://www.amazon.com/How-Raise-Successful-People-Lessons/dp/1328974863  

This podcast is a deep dive into the Asian American experience at Palo Alto High School. Inspired by the recent rise in Asian American hate crimes, and the increase in people speaking out against anti-Asian American racism, Ash and Arati discuss students’ personal experiences as well as talking about how Asian hate is not new. Intended for anyone who wants to learn more about Asian American students’ experiences, or who wants to feel less alone in their struggles.

Palo Alto High School seniors of the Incubator Journalism class discuss their final year of high school, during the pandemic. Hosted by Josephine Andersen and Juliana Griswold. With guests Jacquelyn Lai, Owen Longstreth, Michaela Seah and Gwyneth Wong.

This podcast is a deep dive into being nonbinary at Palo Alto High School. Ash and Arati discuss different aspects such as social acceptance, mental health, and the role of the school system in helping mitigate transphobia, all through the lens of nonbinary interviewees at Paly. This podcast is intended for anyone who wants to better understand nonbinary people, no matter their current level of understanding.

Join the Ch@t! Listen-in as I chat with Dr. Nathan Oakley, Chief Academic Officer with the Mississippi Department of Education about "Mississippi Succeeds - Maintaining Momentum through COVID-19", an MDE presentation for the recommendation of waiving the passing requirements for statewide 3rd grade reading and high school end-of-course assessments for the 2020-21 school year. I also chat with Dr. Esther Wojcicki, a repeat TED Talks presenter and retired educator from Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto, CA, in addition to Dr. Joseph Atman, educator and Executive Director of Middle Tree Education Center in Claremont, CA, about what is COVID learning loss and ways to combat this specific loss of knowledge. For more information about Chalkboard Ch@t visit: https://www.education.mpbonline.org. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this episode of The Backwards Podcast, we sit down to discuss education, parenting, and what it even means to be "successful" with Esther Wojcicki.  One of the reasons people go to Esther Wojcicki for parenting advice is because her three daughters are off-the-charts successful: Susan is the CEO of YouTube, Janet is a professor at UC San Francisco, and Anne is the CEO of 23andMe. What’s more, Wojcicki has been a teacher for 36 years, helping build a world-famous media arts program at Palo Alto High School. Her latest book, How to Raise Successful People, builds upon her life story as an educator and parent, and follows the success of her first book, Moonshots in Education.

Esther Wojcicki joins I want Her Job for a third time to discuss her latest project, Tract.app, a new student directed online resource for peer to peer learning where teenagers create content for children 8+.  The Tract leaning pathways contain courses that your kids will actually want to learn. Courses such as The Science and Ethics of Junk Food Engineering, How Cheetahs Run as Fast as a Car, What does it take to become a comic book artist, What Makes a Great Soccer Player, Pokémon Plant & Animal Biology are created by teenagers and have a project based approach. This learning community supports Esther’s core belief in giving kids 20% of their time to independently pursue their interests. Esther Wojcicki has experienced tremendous success as a mother and a teacher. Each of her daughters have impressive career achievements. Daughter Susan Wojcicki, is the CEO of YouTube, Janet Wojcicki, is a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco; and Anne Wokcicki is the founder and CEO of genetic testing company 23andMe. Esther has been squarely at the center of Silicon Valley for her entire career as an influential, deeply loved and respected teacher. Thousands of students who went through the journalism program Esther created at Palo Alto High School (and later on to pivotal roles in the tech industry and others) often consider the experience life-changing both for the work they did, and for the respect, autonomy and the bar set by Esther. Given her wisdom and experience as a mother and teacher, we spoke with Esther in May 2020, in episode 117, about her thoughts on opportunities for the K-12 education system to evolve throughout the COVID-19 crisis. As Esther shared in our conversation, the current education system is operating at a model that is 100 years old. Esther shared ideas for modernizing education through a hybrid model that encourages students to practice creativity, while also spending a portion of their time on projects they are interested in pursuing. Esther shared tips for parents on how to inspire younger, and older, students during homeschooling. The new Tract.app is a perfect extension of Esther’s goals to help students thrive.  Once you listen to episode #117, we recommend you go back and download episode #96, recorded in 2019. In that conversation Esther shared the guiding principles she has used to raise her wildly successful daughters, as well as empower students through her journalism program. We discussed Esther’s best-selling book, How To Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons For Radical Results, and the parenting philosophy Esther uses called TRICK: trust, respect, independence, collaboration and kindness.  If you want to be a part of the Tract.app pilot group, sign up with the code “WOJSPEFCIAL” and receive free access for a year. As a. Member of the pilot group, you will be asked to offer your feedback on the tract.app and courses. Follow us @iwhjpodcast

Naar aanleiding van het verschijnen van het album Palo Alto, opnames van een concert van Thelonious Monk op de Palo Alto High School uit 1968, zet Benjamin een aantal van zijn favoriete stukken van de Amerikaanse pianist op een rijtje.

Esther Wojcicki has had tremendous success as a mother and teacher. Each of Esther’s daughters have impressive career achievements: Susan Wojcicki, is the CEO of YouTube; Janet Wojcicki is a professor of pediatrics at University of California, San Francisco; and Anne Wojcicki, is the founder and CEO of genetic testing company 23andMe. At the center of Silicon Valley for her entire career as an influential, loved and respected teacher, Esther also is a dedicated community member. With Google famously beginning its empire in daughter Susan’s garage, Esther has truly been surrounded by the tech revolution. Thousands of students who went through the journalism program Esther created at Palo Alto High School often consider the experience life changing – both for the work they did, and for the respect, autonomy and the bar set by Esther.  Given Esther’s wisdom and experience as a mother and teacher, we were excited to speak with Esther about her thoughts on opportunities for the K-12 education system to evolve throughout the Covid-19 crisis. As Esther shares in this conversation, the current education system is operating at a model 100 years old. Esther shares ideas for modernizing education through a hybrid model that encourages students to practice creativity and spend a portion of their time on projects they are interested in pursuing. Esther suggests we see this time as an opportunity to set up systems that encourage students to focus on critical thinking skills vs. the standard memorization model. Esther also shares tips for parents on how to Inspire younger and older students during home schooling.  We hope you also download our episode #96 from 2019 where Esther shared the guiding principles she has used to raise her wildly successful daughters, as well as in her journalism program.  We discussed Esther’s book, How To Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons For Radical Results,and the parenting philosophy Esther uses called TRICK, which stands for trust, respect, independence, collaboration and kindness. You can sign up for Esther’s new newsletter, wojway for guidance on navigating the COVID-19 world of remote learning. To contact the show reach out to: podcast@iwantherjob.com  Sign up for our newsletter and find more interviews:  www.iwantherjob.com Follow us on @iwantherjob

Originally recorded on March 2, this podcast serves as a way to reflect on our Palo Alto High School community's feelings about COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, from over two months ago. Were we too dismissive of the virus or being too overly cautious? Following the news of a Paly student's possible exposure to the virus, producer Antonia Mou interviewed Paly students about their thoughts surrounding the global pandemic.

Esther Wojcicki is a celebrated educator, a pioneer in instructional technology, Founder of the renowned Media Arts Program at Palo Alto High School, and the author of the bestselling book, How to Raise Successful People. Esther was named Teacher of the Year in California in 2002 and received the Charles O’Malley Award for outstanding teaching in journalism in 2011. Esther is also the Founder of the Journalistic Learning Initiative at the University of Oregon, and is the Founder and CEO of GlobalMoonshots.org. Esther raised three daughters: Susan (CEO of YouTube), Anne (CEO of 23andMe), and Janet (professor, UC San Francisco).   Key Takeaways [3:25] Talk to your teenagers. Their creative minds are impressive. [5:35] Helicopter parents have the same problem as bad managers, they micromanage! [7:50] Helicopter parenting might be due to having access to more information than before and it’s making parents fearful for their children. [8:55] Esther believes we’d be happier people if we had access to less information, but that’s simply not possible with our world today. What we need to do is learn how to cope. [11:15] Esther believes teaching media literacy is a critical skill to have as we live in an information-overload environment. People need to know how to read between the lines and figure out if something is truthful or not. [13:10] 18-24-year-olds are completely different from the millennials. Millennials are even having trouble working with 20-year-olds! [15:00] Children today grew up with information overload. [16:15] Children of CEOs are afraid they’ll never live up to their parents’ expectations. [17:25] There are a lot of kids in the Midwest or the South where the American Dream doesn’t seem achievable or realistic for them. [21:55] Esther emphasizes the importance of teaching children how to learn because this is a skill for life. [22:15] Why memorize a test when students will forget 95% of it a year later? We have a re-skilling problem in the United States. [24:55] For people to take chances, they have to feel safe. [28:35] We all have deadlines. It’s important to make people feel comfortable to take risks, in spite of them. [31:55] With so much democracy, we have communication chaos. We don’t know which source to believe. [38:05] If children aren’t learning about trust and risk at home, how can they learn these skills? Esther believes it starts at school. [44:10] The power to change the schools lies with the parents.   Quotable Quotes For people to take chances, they have to feel safe. “We are all fearful. Everybody is afraid non-stop. I’m afraid for the world.” “Every generation is different because they’re growing up in a different world.” “Children today tend to be much more risk-averse because somebody was always there helping them.” “Here we have a lot of kids whose parents are CEOs and their number one fear is they’ll never live up to the standards set by their parents.” “What does it take these days for people to achieve the American dream?” “I’m teaching kids how to learn because this is a skill for life. I am not teaching them to memorize.” “Believe in the student and they believe in themselves. They rise to levels that are completely unexpected.” “When you’re really upset and worried, you tend to be less productive than when you feel good about yourself and  when you feel supported.” “You want kids to feel at home at school. You want them to feel a sense of community. Today, many schools don’t do that.”   Resources and Books Mentioned Raisesuccessfulpeople.com Globalmoonshots.org Esther on LinkedIn Follow Esther on Twitter @EstherWojcicki Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol Dweck Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell, by Alan Eagle, Eric Schmidt, and Jonathan Rosenberg   The Leadership Podcast is Sponsored by:     Cultivate Grit. Amplify Action. The Self-Reliant Leadership® Manifesto reveals the Three Pillars of a Self-Reliant Leader, which encompass the character attributes, interpersonal skills, and levers required to lead today’s workforce. Get your free copy HERE.     Free downloads of Quick Reference Guides on Delegation, Time Management, Sales, and more.    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ Strategic Partners   The Leadership Podcast is proud to announce a new initiative with thoughtLEADERS to provide very short podcasts called Chalk Talks. They’re bitesize hacks on common (but challenging) leadership issues. Interested in learning more?  You can only access the Chalk Talks by subscribing to our mailing list at The Leadership Podcast.   Beyond the Uniform offers over 300 free episodes to help military Veterans succeed in their civilian career. This includes overviews of potential career paths, deep dives on necessary skills to succeed, and reviews of other free services that support the military Veteran community. You can find more info at BeyondTheUniform.org.

This week, Ken Der goes (not too far) Beyond the Bubble with Antonia Mou, Miranda Li, and Yael Sarig! They are students at Palo Alto High School and are leaders of the Palo Alto chapter of Vote16, a nationwide effort to lower the voting age to 16. Their goal for Palo Alto is to develop student participation in PAUSD School Board elections and to encourage fellow young people to explore voting as a core element of democracy. Also in this episode is the latest "Daily Brew" podcast from the Stanford Daily--focusing on the Carta platform--as well as a reprise our March 2019 conversation with 2019-2020 Stanford Tree Caroline Kushel. Plus, Ishan Gandhi has the news of the week! For more information on Vote16 Palo Alto, visit their website at https://vote16pa.wixsite.com/website

Palo Alto High School seniors Alexa Alami and Katherine Buecheler talk about their new student-advocacy group and why more conversation and education on consent, healthy relationships and sexual violence are needed at their high school. Read our story about the issue at https://bit.ly/31ClCI0

Episode Notes In this episode, Menlo School adviser Tripp Robbins asks student journalists what they would do during a rumor-filled crisis at school and then interviews students at Palo Alto High School in California who actually dealt with one. The students and their adviser, Paul Kandell, talk about the challenges of shooting photos of breaking news and lessons they learned.If you are a student or a student media adviser with a story about scholastic press freedom, we want to hear from you. You can reach us at sprc@jea.org with the subject line “Podcast” or tweet us at @jeapressrights. So you don’t miss out on future episodes, please subscribe to this podcast through any of the many podcast applications available for your computer or phone.Find out more at https://schoolhousegate.pinecast.co

In this episode of Profiling Palo Alto, Palo Alto High School students Ruthie Roach and Victoria Soulodre discuss their rise to TikTok fame, and the mystery behind Generation Z's new obsession with the social media platform.

Esther Wojcicki has been an educational pioneer and journalist for nearly 40 years. She is the founder of the famed Media Arts programs at Palo Alto High School. She is also the founder of Global Moonshots in Education, an organization with the goal of bringing to every classroom, Blended Learning – a new model of teaching that incorporates technology, enabling students to be so fully engaged and inspired in their learning, that they reach their fullest potential and readiness for thriving in the 21st century and beyond. She helped to form GoogleEdu - a teacher-student resource platform and consulted for many years with the U.S. Department of Education, the Hewlett Foundation and Time Magazine Education. She has worked across the globe with innovative educators, is Vice Chair of the Creative Commons Advisory Counsel and a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Newseum. It is no surprise that Esther has positively imprinted the lives of the thousands of students she has taught, many of whom have gone on to be powerful agents for change in our world. She has inspired scores of Silicon Valley luminaries, among them her own daughters – Janet, a renowned anthropologist and epidemiologist; Anne, the founder of 23andMe; and Susan, the CEO of YouTube. Undoubtedly Esther’s 9 grandchildren will do their part to shape the future. Esther’s latest book, “How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results” is an engaging synopsis of the values that guide her work as a teacher, journalist, advisor mother and grandmother and that will help all of us raise successful, empathetic children who will change the world.

Everywhere she goes, people ask Esther Wojcicki for parenting advice. That's because each one of her three daughters has a crazy awesome job: Susan is the CEO of YouTube, Janet is a professor at UC San Francisco, and Anne is the co founder and CEO of 23andMe.Ester has also been a journalism teacher for more than 35 years at Palo Alto High School. The students that swear by her method include actor and director, James Franco and Jeremy Lin, a Harvard graduate and point guard in the NBA.So what is it? What's her methodology? Esther has just released a book called How to Raise Successful People in which she outlines a five step process for raising successful people. I read the book and interviewed ester about 3 months ago, and since implementing the methodology it has radically transformed my relationship with my son. What's more, this isn't just a way to raise happy/successful kids. It's a method you can take to work to have happy and successful employees. You can use these 5 steps in any relationship you want to improve.Here are the five steps. They spell the word TRICK. T-R-I-C-KTrust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and KindnessI can't wait to for you to hear this really insightful conversation, and be sure to listen after the show to find out what happened when I interviewed my son on how Jason and I have been doing in each of these categories. Important Links for the Show:Amazing kids activity in a box: http://kiwico.com/dianaThe bank you've been waiting for: http://nbkc.com/dianaEsther's projects:http://www.moonshotsedu.comhttps://raisesuccessfulpeople.comProfessional AF Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/943925015810362/Diana online: www.DianaKander.com

What Happens When Rs and Ds Talk With Each Other, Rather than At or About?Guest: David Blankenhorn, President, and Co-founder of Better AngelsHow upset would you be if your child married an ardent Trump supporter? Or ardent Clinton supporter? Back in the 60s, hardly any parents said they'd be unhappy if their son or daughter married someone from the other party. Today half of Americans –both Republicans and Democrats –told YouGov's survey-takers they'd be uncomfortable or upset by a cross-party marriage in the family. A nonprofit group called “Better Angels” has spent the last two years bringing together ardent Democrats and Republicans in hopes of fostering civil dialogue Making Up Lost Sleep Won't Make You Any HealthierGuest: Christopher Depner, Assistant Research Professor of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado, BoulderGetting enough sleep is hard! It's tempting to skimp during the week and catch up with a good long sleep over the weekend. Fasting Slows AgingGuest: Paolo Sassone-Corsi, Director, Center for Epigenetics and Metabolism, University of California, IrvineMost religions the world over have fasting rituals. And you'll find fasting touted all over the health and beauty magazine rack right now, too. Catching Killers with Their Family's DNAGuest: Harley FeldmanDNA solves serious crimes on TV all the time. In real life, it's less common, but a couple of big serial killer cases have been solved using a technique that's gaining traction in police departments. It's called familial DNA –and it's where police track down a suspect not in the database by finding a close relative who is. Only about a dozen states currently allow police to do this kind of DNA search. Critics say it's a potential violation of privacy a new tool for racial profiling. But Harley Feldman is a major proponent of police using familial DNA because it's what allowed Arizona police to finally arrest a suspect in the murder of his daughter Allison. Tom Wolfe, American's First ConciergeGuest: Tom Wolfe, Chief Concierge, The FairmontThe concierge is a fixture in luxury hotels, discreetly recommending a great place to eat or snagging you a seat to the sold-out show. But it wasn't until 1974 that concierges even existed in America. That was the year Tom Wolfe opened a concierge desk at The Fairmont in San Francisco modeled on what he'd seen in Europe. How to Raise Successful PeopleGuest: Esther Wojcicki, Journalist, Educator, Author of “How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results”The CEO of YouTube and the CEO of 23andMe are sisters. Their other sister is a pediatrician and professor at UC-San Francisco. Can you just imagine the questions their mom gets at dinner parties? What's your secret? How did you raise such successful kids? Now the world can read her secrets. Her name is Esther Wojcicki. She's a journalist and long-time teacher at Palo Alto High School where she founded a media arts program based on learning through collaboration. Wojcicki's book is “How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results.”

Palo Alto High School graduate Rima Parekh, like many other high schoolers, saw college as the end goal. But what happens after you actually get in? Rima tell s her story of adjusting to college and the hardships she experienced from facing change. In this episode, we explore what's beyond the college apps- our mental health, our personal lives, and most importantly, our happiness.

All parents need to know one thing, says Esther Wojcicki: “There is no perfect parenting.” Wojcicki is the author of How to Raise Successful People, a legendary journalism teacher, and founder of the renowned Media Arts programs at Palo Alto High School. She’s also the mother of three famously successful women. And today, she’s sharing her formula for raising, mentoring, and developing people to reach their highest potential. It starts with her acronym TRICK: trust, respect, independence, collaboration, and kindness. If you’re a parent, it involves giving yourself a break and finding ways to empower your children to be independent thinkers. And for many more of us (parents or not), it means rethinking our assumptions of what it takes to be happy, to be impactful, to be successful in the world. (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.)

 Interview Notes, Resources, & LinksGet the book, How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results Visit Esther's WebsiteFollow Esther on Twitter @EstherWojcickiAbout Esther WojcickiEsther Wojcicki is a leading American educator, journalist, and mother. A leader in blended learning and the integration of technology into education, she is the founder of the Media Arts programs at Palo Alto High School and the vice chair of Creative Commons, and was also instrumental in the launch of Google Teacher Academy.

Guest: Niji Sabharwal - Co-Founder & CEO @AgentSync (Co-Founder & CEO @AgentSync; Formerly @Zenefits, @LinkedIn) Guest Background: Niji was the Global Sales Strategy & Operations Manager at LinkedIn (IPO in 2011, $27B Acquisition by Microsoft in 2016), where he led global, best-in-class sales ops teams focused on driving sales pipeline for all of LinkedIn's B2B businesses. Niji then worked with Zenefits ($4.5B Valuation, $584M Raised) as the Head of Sales Strategy & Sales Operations, where he built the Sales Ops & Strategy function consisting of the CRM, metrics & insights, sales compensation, sales productivity, territory design and deployment, and deal desk teams; enabling growth from 20 to 500+ sales employees.  Niji is now the Founder & CEO of AgentSync, an application built on Salesforce.com that automatically enforces state producer licensing & appointment regulatory requirements through an integration to the National Insurance Producer Registry (NIPR) - Minimize your compliance costs and prevent regulatory violations before they occur by letting technology do the heavy lifting. Guest Links: Website | LinkedIn Episode Summary: In this episode, we cover: - The Playbook: Build Your Sales Strategy & Operations Function - Sales Systems & Tools Function - 1st Hiring Profile, Landmines - Sales Capacity & Resource Planning & Analysis Frameworks - Sales Metrics and Reporting - Leading & Lagging Indicators - Tips for Managing Sales Strategy & Operations Stakeholders - Maximizing Your Inbound Lead & Sales Engine Full Interview Transcript: Naber:  Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest growing companies. Enjoy! Naber:  Hey everybody. Today we have Niji Sabharwal on the show. Niji the Global Sales Strategy and Operations Manager at LinkedIn (LinkedIn IPO'd in 2011, and then were acquired by Microsoft for $27 billion in 2016), there Niji led global best in class Sales Ops teams focused on driving Sales pipeline for all of LinkedIn's B2B businesses. Niji then worked with Zenefits (who have a $4.5 billion valuation on $584 million capital raised). He was there as the Head of Sales Strategy and Operations where he built the Sales Ops and Strategy function, consistency of the CRM, metrics and insights, Sales Compensation, Sales Productivity, territory design, deployment and deal desk teams. They enabled growth from 20 to 500+ Sales reps while Niji was at Zenefits. Niji is now the founder and CEO of AgentSync, an application built on Salesforce.com that automatically enforces state producer licensing and appointment regulatory requirements through an integration to the National Insurance Producer Registry (NIPR). It helps minimize your compliance costs and prevent regulatory violations before they occur by letting technology do the heavy lifting. Here we go. Naber:  Njii! Amazing to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us. Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, thanks for having me. Naber:  Yeah, no worries. We've known each other for a long time, almost nine years now, I think we've known each other. Niji Sabharwal:  A little too long. Naber:  Haha, that's right too long. That's right. We should, we should cut this off. We should actually, before it goes downhill too fast, we should probably cut it off. We really can only go down. So I'm pumped to have you on for so many reasons. We are close enough where I know you personally and professionally, and we've gotten to know each other on many different levels. One of the things I want to do is have people get to know you, a little bit more personally because I want their fascination to grow in you, as my admiration, and fascination, and inspiration from you has grown. So we'll talk a little bit what it was growing up as Niji, what you were like as a kid, all the way through to decisions you made around where you went to school, and some of the things you did, and interests, and some of the first jobs you had. And then we'll jump into the meat of it, which is talking about your roles at some of the amazing fast growing hypergrowth Unicorn businesses that you've been at. Because you've been at some of the fast growing in the world in some pretty senior, significant roles. So, why don't we start with first, Niji as a kiddo. So, I know you grew up in San Francisco, grew up in Palo Alto and your Mom and Dad are amazing. And you had so many different varied interests as a kid. You went to a bilingual school, high school in Palo Alto, you got went to uni at UCSB. Let's walk through some of that stuff. Give us maybe three, five minutes and it's going to be longer, because I'll ask questions, but what was it growing up as a kid in Niji's life? What was Niji life as as a kiddo? Niji Sabharwal:  Yikes. Naber:  Ha, that's a good start. Niji Sabharwal:  First off, my dad's from India, my mom's from France. I was conceived in Maryland, actually that's where they met. And they were both on foreign exchange programs, in Frostburg, Maryland. Quickly after news of conception was heard, they moved to San Francisco for better opportunities. My Dad actually went to Golden Gate State, basically a community college. I was born in San Francisco, basically first generation. And so I was raised speaking English and French, and I started school at Ecole Bilingue, which is a French-American bilingual school in Berkeley, California. Naber:  So tell us a little bit about that. You were learning in French, correct? Or were you learning in English? Niji Sabharwal:  Both, which is kind of crazy to think about now, until probably, when I actually went to high school, I can't remember if I if I thought in French or English. But even to this day, sometimes I'll think of a French word, but...I'll think of a word in French first, and the English word won't exist, for it. Naber:  Haha, that happens in French a lot actually. Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, totally. Yeah. The languages come from the same place, but there's a lot of French expressions that you just can't do in English. Naber:  Right, right. So, you and your brother both went to the school, correct? Speaker 5:        Yeah. So five years, five years younger. Naber:  Cool. And then what were you interested in as a kid? What were Niji's interests? What were your hobbies? What were you doing? Niji Sabharwal:  I was really into Green Day, Green Day was my favorite band. Got into rock, and then punk rock in the early days. Naber:  Best best green day album? Dookie? Niji Sabharwal:  Dookie, for sure. Hands down. Naber:  Just making sure. Just making sure. Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, and I was always into building things. Legos, and...and Sim City 2000. I don't know if you've ever played that chorus. Naber:  Of course, of course. It's a throwback. Niji Sabharwal:  There you go. Lemmings is my number one favorite game in the entire planet. Naber:  Awesome. So you're into building things, that makes a ton of sense for what you're doing professionally right now, and how your mind works. Tell us about going into high school, and how you were in high school, and some of the things that you're interested in as well. Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So going into high school, I had little bit of a tough time. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease when I was 13. So I was hospitalized, basically for a summer. It was an autoimmune disease that affected my nervous system. So I lost a ton of weight, had trouble with motor functions for awhile. So it took me a couple of years to get back into it as the beginning of high school. I've been fortunate, but luckily I got through it pretty much unscathed. I have trouble with balance still today. If I closed my eyes in the shower, I don't know which way is up. Yeah. Which it can be challenging sometimes, I still ride a motorcycle today, which, I'm just gonna make sure never to close my eyes. Naber:  And you've always been in a motorcycling, sorry, motorcycle riding. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, there's nothing like being on a motorcycle with wind at your face. It's almost meditative in a lot of ways. When you're on top of a motorcycle, there's nothing else you're thinking other than the moment that you're in, every second. There's something really, really special about that. I've tried to meditate in a lot of ways, and never been been able to fully do it, completely unconnect. Except for on a motorcycle. On a motorcycle, you're not thinking about anything else. It's kind impossible actually, it's actually very dangerous. Naber:  Right, right. I mean, and Niji likes to go fast, on on a bike. Tell us a little about how motorcycle riding has played a role in high school, and as you were growing up. Because you were really good at it, and you did it with a lot of people, it was a big part of your life. Tell us a little bit more. Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So, it's a very dangerous sport, first of all. So we would, basically ride in pretty big packs, full leathers. We would go up and down the coast, and all the way out to almost to Nevada and back, through these mountain roads. And yeah, a few guys from the group, broke tons of bones. Luckily we didn't have anyone die on the team, but, had a couple of guys actually helicoptered out of the canyons from crashing. And so it was a pretty intense sport, and intense group to ride with. But, looking back on it now, now that I'm middle-aged and have have a lot more to lose, I would never go back to those days. But in the moment, there was was something just so excited taking life to the edge as much as you can. Putting myself back into my 20 year-old body, there was nothing more exciting. There's nothing cooler that you can do. I'm glad I made it through that period, and didn't die, of course. Naber:  Jenn's glad too, Jenn's glad too. Again, I've known you for a long time, I know you really well, but I always think that those stories are fascinating. And it's such an interesting hobby that so many people don't have, and not a lot of people know that much about. And again, I just think your story is fascinating. So you're in high school. You went to Palo Alto High School, and you're going to go to UCSB. Why UCSB? And tell us a little bit about you there. Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So, when I was in high school, I was in California, it was a very competitive time. I graduated in to 2003. It was a very competitive time to be entering the college candidate pool. And I applied to most of the UC's which, in California, they're public schools. They're still ungodly expensive, but, I knew I wanted to do that versus going into private school. It's a difference between $9-10,000 and $40,000 a year. So I was really vying for a state school. Either UC or a state state sponsored school. And there was insane amount of competition, and I didn't have the best grades. I probably didn't apply myself more, as much as I should have in high school, and a graduate with a 3.3 GPA. And my SAT's were pretty average, 1330. But I had a really, what I thought was an amazing essay. And the essay that I wrote was about my second chance at life, going through the autoimmune disease I had. Facing death at a very young age, especially entering high school, and having to really face that head on, and getting through it, and having full capacity coming through it. It really a second chance. And English professor, English is probably my worst subject. I'm terrible at writing, I barely know the English language, and I actually scored way higher. on my French SAT's than I did on my English SAT's, which is pretty funny. Naber:  Wow. Niji Sabharwal:  So my English professor in high school was a UC Santa Barbara Alumni. And he spend some time with me crafting the essay, and giving me notes, and helping me make it, you know, a pretty compelling story. So I think that's what ultimately actually got me over the edge. Because, UC Santa Barbara had a 1% acceptance rate, something crazy that. So luckily, 3.3 GPA, it was decent, but at the time there was they could have easily only accepted 4.0 and still had twice as many applicants as they had spots. And I was pretty fortunate there, it was an amazing school to get into, especially because my focus has been economics and business, and UC Santa Barbara had an economics professor that actually got the Nobel Prize for economics, in Finland. Naber:  Wow, cool. And that's an awesome segue, and it's a really good story for how you got in, and the essay around your second chance at life, and your mindset at such a young age. It's incredible. So let's talk about you at UCSB a little bit. What kind of student were you? And what'd you study? And then we can get into some professional stuff. Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So pretty terrible student. Yeah, I hated going to lectures. I hated the whole system of having...because UCSB was on a quarterly system. It was kind of this terrible cycle of just studying your nuts off, the day before midterm or final. And if you can master that you can get through college, no problem. Which is kind of a terrible way to do it because...it's really terrible. I kind of gamed the system in a way, and figured out that, okay, if I just really apply myself the week before midterms, the week before finals, I can get through the whole thing. So to be brutally honest, I kind of squandered my education, and didn't take out of it what I probably should have, had I known what I know now. And we'll spend...I would l ove to go back to college right now. If someone could, like, float my life to learn for four years, there couldn't be anything better for me. Naber:  That's cool, it's an interesting thought process Niji Sabharwal:  Of course. But at the time, the only thing I was concerned about what's next, and partying, and socializing, and all that good stuff. So I spent probably a little too much time partying. We bought a bunch of jet skis and we would, we would basically launch jet skits directly from the beach in Santa Barbara, and just launch them off waves. Tons of fun. But honestly, yeah, I definitely squandered my education there. I didn't spend enough time studying, and spend too much time partying, but got through it nonetheless. Naber:  Nice. Got through it. It sounds the thrill seeker in you still has an unquenchable thirst at that point. And so you graduate from UCSB. What's your first role out of school? Do you go into HP at that point? Niji Sabharwal:  So out of school...I did an internship at HP. It was an emerging markets business unit that they've formed, selling a PC to small villages in South Africa, and Brazil, and some parts of Russia - where it was a shared PC unit to provide internet connection, and the ability to communicate and create an e-commerce marketplace for small businesses within those communities. I did that internship for about two years. So basically two summers It was actually really rewarding, a really rewarding project. HP ultimately ended up sunsetting that business unit, but it was a great launch into tech. And you're coming from...in college, Facebook was just starting to get traction at that point. So at this point people weren't quite...the internet was just becoming a real powerhouse as far as connecting people and creating a a marketplace online. Naber:  That sounds like a really rewarding project. I mean, the goal and the mission of the project must've been really rewarding, especially as you're going through school and had your first types of professional experiences. This must have been really rewarding. Alright, so you go through those projects, and then you end up at LinkedIn. Tell us how you got to LinkedIn, and then walk us through what you're up to at LinkedIn. And I'll stop, and ask a bunch of questions on some of the things that I know you're both good at, as well as some of those experiences you had. Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So after I graduated, I graduated in 2009. The worst year that you could possibly graduate with an economics degree, as this was right after the economic crash. I couldn't get a job at Pete's coffee. I applied to two Pete's coffee's with a degree in business economics from UC, and couldn't get a job to save my life. But went on an ggressive job hunt for months after I graduated, and ended up landing a job as, basically, a front desk cashier at rubber stamp company in Berkeley. Yeah, Berkeley Stamping & Engraving. They did rubber stamps and trophy engraving. Naber:  Trophy engraving and rubber stamps. So what were you doing for them? Niji Sabharwal:  So at first I was manning the front desk, taking orders, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and then the owners of the business trained me up on how to actually make the rubber stamps and operate this this old school engraving tool that they had that was run on an old, very old, DOS system that had different fonts for engraving different surfaces. And that was honestly probably the funnest job I've ever had. A whole workshop of rally cool shit to play with. They still made stamps the old fashioned way with a photo emulsion. So, we'd do typesetting digitally, and then we would take the typesetting and convert it to basically a film negative. And then film negative to imprint onto photo emulsion, so that you actually get the crazy amount of detail versus just doing it fully digital. And Berkeley Stamps & Graving was one of the...if you ever look at a bag of Pete's coffee, they don't use stamps anymore, but 10 years ago, if you looked at a bag of Pete's coffee that had a stamp on it that said, dark roast, the odds of me physically making that stamp are like 99%. Naber:  That's cool. Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. It's funny that I couldn't even get a job at Pete's coffee, but, they were keeping that business alive, more or less. They were based out of, Oakland, California, and they really invest in local businesses. So they would only use local businesses for things like stamps that they use for all the locations nationwide. And that was the account actually kept Berkeley Stamp & Engraving open for so as long as they were. Naber:  Would it be fair to say you couldn't get a job at Pete's coffee, but you really put a stamp on their business? Niji Sabharwal:  Oh Man. Naber:  I know, I know, I nailed it. Niji Sabharwal:  Typical Brandon. Naber:  Haha, typical. So let's move to LinkedIn. So you hopped to LinkedIn at that point, how would you make the move, and what were you doing while you were there? And just run us through very quickly the jumps you had while you were there. And then I'll ask you a few questions about them. Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So, I was working in Berkeley Stamp & Engraving, I was living Oakland with a crazy ex-girlfriend at the time. I was actually at, my parents throw this epic Halloween party every year - my parents are pretty multicultural, and have a pretty eclectic, group of friends - and I was talking to this guy at the party. It was one of my mom's friends, boyfriends at the time, and he just joined a company called LinkedIn. And he was telling me about what LinkedIn was, and at the time LinkedIn was 200 people or less maybe, a small company based out of Mountain View. And I was honestly pretty drunk at the time, and we had a pretty long conversation that I probably only remember half of. And a couple of weeks later, he reached out to me about a potential job for LinkedIn in their Sales department. Yeah, completely out of the blue, and I was obviously looking for a better job to really launch my career, and given where the economy was at the time and the job opportunities that were available to me, it was a really great lead. So, after months of interviews, finally landed a job as a Sales Development Representative selling LinkedIn's Recruiting Solution. Naber:  Love it. And in your Sales Development days, one of my favorite parts about your story is you're relatively self-taught for your jump into Sales Operations and Strategy, learning some of the tools and systems. Talk a little bit that self learning, and then we'll get into your Sales Strategy and Ops role. Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So, started off at LinkedIn and in Sales, and we were...and it as the wild, wild West back then. I was a junior Sales rep. At that point Sales Development was kind of a new idea that was really pioneered by a couple of folks at LinkedIn, Brian Frank being being one of them. And the idea was to have a junior Sales function that would do a lot of the lead generation, and tee-ing up qualified leads for Account Executives to run the Sales cycle through. The idea was to, almost like factory line the Sales process, which seems totally obvious today, but at the time it was pretty revolutionary to have this function tee up Sales leads for Account Executives to close. And I think honestly at that point, the issue was that people didn't want to invest in junior Sales folks knowing that the average return on investment for an Account Executive would...industry standard was about eight to one. Meaning, if your business is run really solidly, you can expect to return $8 on every $1 that that you spend on your Account Executives. So you hired junior a Salesperson, you're not gonna get that return out of them. But, the revolutionary idea that turn in Sales Development was that if you can basically make that Account Executive that much more productive, by offloading all the prospecting and lead generation that is, I wouldn't say administrative, but less strategic than runninga full Sales cycle. you can improve those efficiency ratios. And that's really what landed with me, and making Sales Development what it is today. So, at that point, I was doing Sales and realizing that the processes we had in place were pretty inefficient. At the time I was hired, I was I think the fifth Sales Development rep at LinkedIn, and the Sales processes we had in place were all over the map. It was kind of like, whoever could provide the most leads wins, and that was kind of it. You were given a loose lead list, and we were given the opportunity obviously to sell into LinkedIn's subscribers, their members. So that was the raw tools we had available at the time, but there was no real process to how you go get those leads. So at the time I partnered up with our Salesforce Admin, this woman who probably taught me everything I know about Salesforce. And she howed me the ropes of how we can leverage Sales tools to make myself and the team more efficient. And at the end of the day, I wouldn't consider myself to be a type A personality, and as I don't really enjoy selling, I don't see myself doing that everyday, all day long. So I pitched the idea to my boss at the time, that I thought my skills would be best used in Sales Operations, leveraging Sales systems and Sales tools that we had to make the Sales reps that we have more effective. And that whole process was maybe two days to pitch the idea. And he was like, I totally buy into that, let's do it. And two days later I was now in Sales Operations, or the Sales Ops person. Naber:  And how long were you doing that role at LinkedIn? Niji Sabharwal:  Which role? Naber:  Well, you were in Sales Ops, and then you're leading teams after that. How long were you in Sales Ops at LinkedIn? Naber:  Yeah. So, I was doing Sales Dev for a couple months, then converted myself into the Sales Ops function. Grew that function out. We built the Sales Ops team and the Sales Development team out significantly over the next few years. We were providing structure, strategic planning, building Sales territories, Sales process, prospecting process, prospecting tools, and ended up expanding from just a small office in Mountain View to, nine global offices. And from when I took on the Sales Ops role to that point was probably about two years. And then, once we expanded into Asia, Australia, EMEA - the office in Ireland, I pitched to my boss at the time, a new boss, that I wanted to expand my skills, and take an opportunity in Europe to build out the Sales Operations team there. So I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to move to Ireland to build out Sales Operations function, and my pitch was to bring the North American rigor to to EMEA. Naber:  Nice. Awesome. And how long were you doing that? And then, tell us about the next jump as well. Because you were there for a little bit, and then you moved back to San Francisco after that. So tell us about when you were in Ireland, how long you were there, and then tell us about the move back to San Francisco as well. Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So, when I moved to Ireland, that's where I met your pretty face. Built out the Sales Operations team there, and learned a ton about how this type of business was done in Europe. And specifically the challenges of operating with multi-languages, multiculture...you know, learning the hard fact that if you have a thick Spanish accent, and you're trying to sell into the UK, that you're not gonna have a lot of luck. Americans are easy, they'll buy from anybody. But learning how to navigate the European cultural differences, was actually the biggest learning for me at that time. Naber:  Niji, let's pause there for a minute. If someone's going to go into, either running global portions of Sales Operations, or put global portions of Sales, what's some advice you would have around the mindset they need to have expanding into Europe and starting to own some of those markets that you learned, and maybe some piece of advice you would give? Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, I mean that is a great question. So every market is completely different. I mean, my experience has taught me that if you know how to sell SaaS in the US, that doesn't mean you know how to SaaS anywhere else. Understanding the markets, the cultural differences, the differences in languages and how things translate, and thinking you can scale something from a US market to other markets just because the idea makes sense is not all that that's involved. You need boots on the ground to really understand what's going on. I mean, think of India as an example. Everyone thinks that because of the population and the amount of money that is potentially made in India...it doesn't translate that easily. There's an insane amount of language, cultural, behavioral differences from market to market. Naber:  Nice one. That's great. All right, keep going. This is good. So, you're in Dublin and then you're working on some of these projects. These are some of the things you learned. You're about to make the move back to SF. What are you doing there? Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, so I was considering...I was planning on doing a stint of...It was open-ended, I was planning on doing about a year in Europe, or a year in Ireland specifically. I was thinking about my next plan after I'd built the team out there, and I was looking at a role in London for one of LinkedIn's newer business units. But, kind of a tricky situation, before I moved to Ireland, actually right after I made a decision, I started dating this this woman knowing that I was moving to Ireland, it was an eight month timeframe. Because I had to basically build a transition plan, hire a replacement to lead the North America team. So I had an eight month ramp time before I was gonna move. And so, I met this woman who completely blew me away, and we started dating. And knowing that I was gonna move away, it was a tricky...a tough concept to deal with. We ended up breaking up right before I moved over to Ireland. And knowing that the long distance thing is challenging and best - I was 28 at the time? We figured that it was just not worth trying to keep going. But while I was there we stayed in touched, and I ended up having to make this tough decision where, I was going to potentially move to London for this role with the new business unit with LinkedIn, or I could move back to San Francisco and actually make a go at it with this woman. I ended up moving back to San Francisco and moving in with my now wife. It definitely worked out in the end. So came back to San Francisco with LinkedIn, moved in with the wife. At the time, we dated for three or four years before we actually got married. But, I was back in San Francisco for about six months, and I was presented with an opportunity to work in a new startup in the HR technology space, a start up called Zenefits. Naber:  Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. So, let's walk through Zenefits quickly - some of the roles that you had...actually let's pause there for a minute. So while you were at LinkedIn, and while you're at Zenefits, one of the things you were known for is building Sales Operations functions, and having an understanding for all the different pieces involved in that. If someone's going to be building out their Sales Ops and Sales Strategy function, what's a framework that they should be using as they're thinking about the different pieces involved, as well as where to start and the phases that they'll go through in order to build that out? Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, that's a good one. So, first and foremost, as you start thinking about Sales Strategy and Operations, the first question you've got to answer is what is what is the financial plan, or what is the go to market plan? So I think where a lot of folks get it wrong, is they have a product market fit that makes sense. They have a market that they know has demand, but the amount of demand is completely up to what the CEO's telling you exists. So, one of the key functions that Sales Strategy and Operations play is the ability to quantify that demand, and really put a plan together where you can really make the rubber meet the road. In taking...at an early stage you're not going to have a ton of metrics that you can really pressure test. But, good Sales Ops folks will take the data that you do have, identify the lead volume that you've been getting across the different channels, and put a strategic plan together, a go-to-market plan that quantifies that demand. And we'll extrapolate by channel what your conversion rates are going to look like, should look like. What are good industry benchmarks for those conversion rates? And then taking your Sales capacity, the AE's and Sales Development reps that you're going to hire, based on the amount of revenue that that they're gonna bring in - which is a function of the amount of leads, times the conversion rate, times your average selling price to get to a month over month extrapolation of what your business can actually do, versus just putting your finger to the wind on yeah, I think we could turn this into a hundred million dollar business overnight. Naber:  Okay. So that's the first step. And what are you doing after that? Niji Sabharwal:  So, I would say the core pillars to a Sales Operations team are going to be...Sales systems and the core Sales tools that the Sales team is going need, a function for that...and these functions can be carried by one or one or more people. I think over time you're gonna start to specialize these functions, but right off the bat you're probably going to have one to three people wearing a lot of hats. So Sales Tools & Sales Systems is going to be a pretty core functionality that you're going to wanna to knock out right up front. Second is going to be the strategic planning and analysis function, where you're going to want to want somebody that can think strategically about where the business is going, a solid partner with the Sales lead to understand what's possible and the demand that's out there. And then reporting and analytics. That's a really core function that you're gonna want to keep in place. So somebody that can set the metrics, based on that go to market plan, set the metrics, and provide the visibility to leadership team, and on an operational basis to the Sales team, so that they have a true north. I can't tell you the amount of businesses that I've seen that can't even tell you how much revenue they're generating every month. That's an enormous problem. And there are so many level setting activities I've seen where, I went through this Zenefits a few times, where we didn't set the right measurement capabilities in our system to be able to accurately represent how much revenue is coming in. Because as Zenefits was mostly funded by insurance commissions, and insurance commissions are...you don't fully realize them until month two or month three after you sold the deal. So when you have a situation where the company's in crazy hyper growth, if you can't fully realize those revenues until month three, you could be in a ton of trouble. So having measurements in place and having that true North is absolutely critical, and putting as much emphasis on that as you can. Naber:  Nice. Love it. And so let's go through each one of those things for a second. So you said systems and tools. If I'm going through systems and tools, and building out a SaaS Sales function, what should I be thinking about for the best practices for one, the person that should be doing that, and two, the types of systems and tools that I should putting in place? And your evolution for how that's gonna evolve over time, what you need to be good at in order to get that right? Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So that's not an easy question to answer. I think depending on the business, it, I'll have completely different answers. But as a general rule, experience is key. So trying to try to put somebody that has used Salesforce in the past...If you're an early stage company, generally the CEO or Head of Sales doesn't quite appreciate the importance of systems and tools up front. And they will put in place the person who they think has the most exposure to systems. So, putting somebody in place that has used Salesforce in the past, and they're not quite sure what to, what to do with them in that role, is probably the worst idea you can have. So if you're planning on building a business for scale, you're gonna want to put somebody who has war scars and has seen what good looks like, seen what bad looks like. You're gonna want to put that person in the role. And I've realized that by saying this I wouldn't be sitting where I am today because I wouldn't have gotten that opportunity. But, had I been in a decision making role, I never would have put myself into the role that LinkedIn put me into. Naber:  Okay. That makes sense. And what are some of the things that both LinkedIn and Zenefits are really good at from a systems and tools perspective? And maybe you can give a couple of examples. Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So I mean, LinkedIn was a pretty special case. They were a picture perfect example of what good looks like. Naber:  Yeah, describe that. Naber:  They had a very seasoned leadership team. As far as tech companies go, most tech companies do not start with a seasoned leadership team. If you look at the folks that were in charge of making decisions at the time at at LinkedIn, at the very beginning of it's hyper growth, all those guys knew exactly what the fuck they were doing before. They've done this before. They had a very clear vision. They didn't come up to off with with a cool idea, and then got the people that were closest to them to tell them with that. They were very thoughtful about how they put that leadership team together, and scaled the company, and really came up with that. They were true disruptors. Where, I think a lot of companies, like Zenefits which just grew way too quickly without thinking through all the systems and support that was needed to scale a company at the rate that both LinkedIn and Zenefits scaled at, I think that was probably the biggest difference between those two. Naber:  What are some of the mistakes, whether it's specifically or just generally, that most of those types of teams that either grow too fast, and don't take the appropriate amount of account for systems and tools, or they just get it wrong - what are some of the landmines you can step on? Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, I'd say the biggest thing is doing fewer things better. And that was something that LinkedIn has imprinted on me, is don't get distracted by all the shiny stuff along the way, and focus on the things that are really going to be core. And if you can't nail on those things, don't do anything else. At Zenefits I was just as much a blame as anyone else for this, it was really easy to get distracted by all the shiny stuff along the way, and we tried to do everything for everyone. And that's not a recipe for success. Naber:  Fewer things done better. Focus. Love it. All right, let's hop into...you had mentioned resource planning and analysis. So let's talk about that. What's output, and what's the goal of resource planning analysis? Walk us through that process where you can give us a vision into how you think about going about the process of resource planning, and what the purpose of it is, and what the best case scenario is with your output? Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah. So I mean, I'm assuming the question is specifically for the Sales function, and building out the go to market plan from a Sales capacity perspective. So resource planning is always a pretty tough one, especially when you don't have a lot of data to go off of. So if you're talking about building a financial plan for the next year, when you've had three years under your belt, it's a lot easier to straight line. Naber:  Let's, maybe we should do some examples at LinkedIn. What would that process look like? And then at Zenefits ,differently, what would that process look like? Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, so at at LinkedIn I was fortunate enough to be learning from a ton of really experienced folks and getting to take what they built and build on that. At Zenefits, we were doing everything from scratch, and the straight line was insane. It wasn't a straight line. It was an exponential curve where...when I joined Zenefits, the year prior we did just under 2 million revenue. And the year I joined we did 10 million. And plan for the next year was 100 million. So it was just absolute bananas, bananas growth. So we were operating with very little data, and almost, with a gun to the head, how much can we do if we really squeeze as much juice out of the lemon as possible. So yeah, that that planning process was...the best way to describe it was we would take all the different Sales channels that would provide fruit throughout that year. So the key ones I would zero in on are inbound leads - so how much coming Marketing, from both word of mouth, our SEM spend, basically all the contact us leads that we get from our website, chat leads we get from from the website, all in the one bucket. Second would be events - so webinars, trade shows, in person events, those kind of things. That would be our events bucket. And then content. So, we would generate white papers, data sheets, we would try to circulate them through every avenue that we could. And that would make up our requested content bucket. One more I would call out is email. So cold Marketing emails would be the fourth bucket. And that was a really important one at Zenefits, especially as we had one of the most ingenious email marketers, probably on the planet, at the helm of the ship that point. So, we took those four different channels and figured out, okay, how much can we squeeze out of those channels, how many leads, given the size of the market? So we did a total addressable market sizing exercise, and understood that okay, there's 8 million small businesses in the US that fit our demographic. How many do we think we can actually go get, and how many are within the general confines of what makes sense for our targeted demographic. Meaning, we wouldn't consider businesses that don't have email addresses or basic things like that wouldn't make them a good candidate for a technology solution. And that was basically our addressable market. And we figured, okay, well let's say we can get there in the next 10 years. So we would take all the different Sales channels that we have, based on the conversion rates that we knew we can get from those channels, and looked at both the costs and the resources that were needed against each channel to generate those leads. And that would be covered in the cost section in the analysis. And on the capacity side, we would figure out, okay, how many, for example, Sales Development reps who we need to qualify a hundred leads. And based on the conversion rates that we knew across the channel, how many of those leads would turn into wins. And so we would, we would take that analysis of total leads by channel, and have...there's a lot of art and science to this stuff. So it's not always going to be an equation where the left side equals the right. So we would take a total amount of leads that we generate by channel, and figure out, okay, how many, Sales Development reps do we need to generate those leads or even qualify those leads. And then how many Account Executives do we need to be on the other side to, to handle those leads. And what we would do to calculate the amount of Account Executives, which I think was one of the biggest faults to original model, was assuming that, okay, how many hours does an encounter executive have in a day to qualify these leads? And we were thinking okay, well it's not just new leads are qualifying, but how much of their day are they going to spend on the second touch, third touch, fourth charge of their current pipeline. So we, generally in that equation a lot of companies will underestimate the time it takes to actually follow up with the Sales cycle. And just think that you should probably spend most of your time on new leads versus following-up on old pipeline, which is absolutely the wrong way to do it. So a good way to think about it is, okay, a third of your time should be spent on new leads, two-thirds should be spent on following up with the existing pipeline. That's obviously a very peanut butter spread metric. And based on whatever that time spend allocation ratio is, you could figure out, okay, how many new leads can an Account Executive actually handle, based on Sales cycles and everything else. So, taking, taking that equation, you can figure out, okay, this is how many leads can go through the system. This is how much capacity each AE can take, and this is how many Sales Development reps we're going to need to support them. And then you play with both the inputs, mostly the inputs, to figure out, okay, at what point do we hit a breaking point in the system, where either you get diminishing returns by generating more leads...it costs you more money to actually generate those leads than it does to put numbers on the scoreboard. And so that was a very long winded way to answer that but yeah, that makes sense? Naber:  Yeah, of course. That wasn't long winded. It's a lot of detail, which is exactly, what we're looking for. It's great. I was actually hoping you go into some detail because your mind is brilliant, and I I'm glad that we got to see a little bit more into it. Let's say you go through that process, you come over with that Strategy, you've got your numbers, you got your Head count plans, you put the budget against it, you're going to deploy the Strategy next. Then you talked about reporting, metrics, and measurement. So what types of reports, or reporting, or metrics are you building out for each different type of stakeholder in the organization? So Marketing, Sales, maybe C-level, and then subsequently water falling down into management or director level, and maybe even down to rep level, but probably not. What sort of reports, metrics, and measurement are you putting in place, and how do you think about doing that? Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, so, the way I usually think reports, and dashboards, and KPIs is leading and lagging indicators. So lagging indicators are pretty straight forward. I'm thinking okay, what was your conversion rate over this period of time? What was your win rate? What your ACV or average selling price? Those things can easily be calculated, based on the results that you see. I think what's a lot more interesting...Obviously those are going to be the key, really the KPIs that you want to put in place that you can measure business against. And those are the gonna be the KPIs that are built into your go to market model. So that if you're starting to miss on certain KPI's - conversion rate, win rate, ACV - you're gonna start to tend to see those results, on the scoreboard very quickly. But, by the time you start to see the revenue dip below where the plan is, you're way too late. So one of the keys is figuring out what those leading indicators are, so that you can suss out problems, and build almost like an early warning system, before it's way too late. What will tend to happen is...let's say your Marketing machine is starting to either hit its point of diminishing returns, or the messaging is just not landing anymore, or there's a new competitor on the market that your old demand, or the demand that used to get, is starting to go into this other competitor. By the time that you know that that lead, which would usually turn into a qualified lead that would be brought into a Sales cycle by an AE that would eventually close, by the time that that lagging indicator starts to go down, depending on what type of businesses it is this could be anywhere from 30 days to 180 days...By the time you figure out that that your revenue is going down, your 180 days too late to solving the problem. So, really understanding what those lagging indicators are and understand that you should be really fucking concerned if you're used to seeing, let's say, 3000 inbound leads, against that one channel of four channels for inbound leads. If you start to see that number go down by 10%, and the next month go down by another 10%, you should be really, really worried and you should address that right up front. And the only way you're going to do that is by having really good reporting and analytics against this. And the sophistication, or the support by leadership that, if you see that metric go down that you can call fire, and go address it right away. Or it's just having your leadership team say, hey, the numbers look good today. we're closing as much revenue, why should we be worried? Naber:  Yeah. All that makes tons of sense. Thanks so much for joining on the detail. And you just raised one of the super powers I believe that you have, is gaining the trust to be able to yell fire, and people listen, and act. How would you suggest, or maybe a framework you think about, or maybe it's a mindset you have, on how do you build that trust so that when you say fire people listen, take it seriously, as well as act on it? Niji Sabharwal:  To be honest, I would say that is probably one of my weak points. There's a politics to this that I've never been able to master. And I think that's actually one of the key things that people in my position need to figure out, is how to do better is articulate points in a way that will resonate with leadership team. When I see that kind of stuff, I see the numbers, I understand them probably...a lot of Sales Ops folks will understand them most better than most people will. And I will see a fire, and I'll yell fire, and I'll show them the numbers, but that's never enough, right. If you're gonna yell fire, there's going to be significant resources behind the firefighting effort, and potentially to scare to the rest of the company, it's not a very popular idea. So understanding how important the politics side of it is and the optic side of it is actually, something that shouldn't be undervalued. So building, upfront, way in advance from day one in the job, build the best relationship with leadership team, from the CEO to the VP of Sales, to the CMO, whomever, building those relationships up front there are absolutely critical. And that becomes really challenging, especially when if you have...In Zenefits case, leadership turning over over, every year, every two years...When you're at a company that has leadership changes more than one or two times, it's really easy to say okay, well there's gonna be somebody else. It's not worth the time to build those relationships. But it always is. Having that credibility, and the trust in leadership team's absolutely critical, regardless if you think there's going to be a new guy coming soon or new gal. Naber:  Yup. Yup. Got It. Awesome. And you hinted at it a little bit there. I've got just two more topics to talk about, and then we'll wrap. Thanks so much for your time. Actually maybe three, I think it's three. So the first one is, you hinted a little bit there, stakeholder management. When you think about stakeholder management, how do you manage stakeholders from Sales, differently than you do from Marketing, differently than you do from Eng and Product, etc? I mean, do you have a general thought process where, from a Sales Ops perspective this is what's important to Sales, from a Sales Ops perspective this is what's important to Marketing, and product and eng, etc? Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, that's a really good one. So, yeah, I think the best way to think about it is to meet them where they are. The type of character, the type of person you're gonna deal with from Head of the Technical team, to a Head of Sales, to Head of Marketing, to a Head of Customer Support. Those profiles are enormously different, right? People are enormously different, right? And so having as much empathy, and I would say empathy is the key key thing that you should be thinking about, is figuring out what's important to them and making whatever you're trying to accomplish, aligning your vision with theirs. Can't stress that more. Naber:  Yeah. Let's look at an example. So if I'm going to Sales, what's your head space when you're going to someone in Sales, and we'll go through each example. Niji Sabharwal:  The number. Convincing your Head of Sales, I mean obviously this is very hypotheticaland not all situation here align up to this, but convincing your Head of Sales that what you're trying to do is going to provide the business value that's going to get them to their number. If it's Support, just getting them to understand that what you're trying to do in that moment is going to improve user experience, customer experience, and ultimately provide a better end to end customer customer journey. Naber:  Nice one. And what about Product and Eng, you've done a bunch of projects between liaising between Sales, and Marketing, and Product and Eng. What are some of the things that you need to think about in Sales Ops, Sales Strategy, Sales Tools, Systems, as you're having those types of conversations? Niji Sabharwal:  That's a good one. So, I mean, I would say it'd be very similar to, trying to hit on the same points as what would be important to, a CRO or Head of Sales, as well as, speaking to customer experience, and ultimately,customer retention. Interfacing with with CTO's, and Head of Product, Heads of Product can always be pretty challenging because they can have a much different vision, and be motivated by different motivations than, just, just trying to optimize profits. That makes sense? Naber:  Yeah, absolutely. How have you, any, do you have one or two tips on how to navigate that? Niji Sabharwal:  So yeah, this might sound a little cheesy, but honestly, just building relationships with those folks that our real. Having a beer with them, having lunch with them, having more personal connections with those folks, goes a really, really long way. Not trying to sound you're trying to buy their affection, but, that honestly to me has been the best way to actually navigate those situations, building personal relationships with them so that they can, they can trust where you're coming from. I mean, I'm assuming you are trustworthy person. Naber:  Fair enough. That's great detail. Thank you. So you're at LinkedIn, one of the fastest growing companies ever. You're in Sales Ops and Strategy. Then you move to Zenefits, also one of the fastest growing companies of all time. Two more things that I see as a bridge or a commonality between those two things. One is, something you had to do often. And the second one is something that they did as one of their, I think core competencies did really well. The first one is, you've had to sell a vision to a group very often. And my understanding, it's one of your fortes, and one of your superpowers. So how do you think about going about doing that? Getting people to, the right place with the business case, getting people to act, doing the right thing for the business based on the vision that you have, and even if it's not necessarily one of the things that they want to do, or if it's not necessarily within the scope of the way that they see things in their vision? Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, I mean, that's a million dollar question. Naber:  More than that. Billion dollar question somewhat. Niji Sabharwal:  I'd say really thinking about your, wherever you're selling this vision to, making a shared vision. And that's really the key is understanding your audience, where they're coming from, and going back to the empathy issue, where you need to connect with them on a level where it means something to them. And it sounds super obvious, but tailoring that message to connect with them on a level that makes sense for their role and what they're trying to achieve. It's really hard to do obviously when you're, when you're pitching big business direction change for example, to the leadership team, where you have representatives from each side of the business. But thinking through how, not that you have to pretend that or change the mission or the initiative that you're pitching, but making it resonate with all the folks that are in the room, or all the folks that are going to be making this decision. And that's absolutely key. Naber:  Right. Awesome. And then do you have a process you go about doing that? To make sure that it's a vision. Do you have a checkbox list of things that you check off in your head, or maybe a couple of steps that you take in order to do that? Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, so it really depends on the environment, the company. I think an easy to go to would be, thinking about the company's mission statement, or the company's key values. LinkedIn was really great about this where, every employee can on command recite the company's mission and value statements, at any given point. Even as those evolved over time. So those are really easy to go to's, where you can get everyone rallied behind that initiative, if you're able to hit on those values. Otherwise, thinking through, just to folks that are going to be in that room are the folks that you really need to get to, thinking about what is what is relevant to them in that moment or what is relevant to them, for that specific initiative. Naber:  Yeah. Nice one. Okay. Last topic, Niji, and and then we'll round it out with two rapid fire questions. So last topic is building an Inbound Engine. You've had to do this at LinkedIn with a significant amount of sophistication. You have to do this to build massive scale into Zenefits growth model. The way to operationalize a lot of this growth, is to make sure that you have a very sophisticated Inbound Engine. What are the steps you go about in order to build that out and make sure it's sophisticated enough from a Sales Ops and Strategy perspective? Niji Sabharwal:  Yeah, so there are so many tools out there today that that make this stuff a lot easier, as far as systems go. But I'd say the most important piece of operationalizing it would be speed to lead. So figuring out speed to lead. So figuring out whatever you need to do to minimize the time between once somebody raises their hand or submits an inquiry, to getting back to them. So, at LinkedIn, the process was somebody would submit a Contact Us form. We would usually respond within 48 hours. So pretty typical to a lot of Sales functions. But what we we figured out very quickly is that the inbound lead channel is by far the highest converting channel. Somebody raised their hand saying, I want something, give it to them. Why wouldn't you? And so providing as many those touch points as possible. Chats a really great example. Chat was extremely valuable when we launched at LinkedIn. When we launched it at Zenefits, same deal, it was gangbusters. If you're able to connect with your buyers, in a place where they're coming to you, take advantage of that in every way that you can. So I would say that that would probably be the number one thing I would think in operationalising and the inbound channel. Speed to lead. One more thing I would add there actually is...Speed to lead and also just making it stupid easy for people to come to you. If you have a contact us form that has 10 fields to fill out, you're gonna have a lot less people coming to you. If you have somebody coming to you where you just ask the basic question, give me your phone number, I'll call you back. You're going optimize conversion rates with the ease to get to you. Naber:  Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening. If you appreciated and enjoyed the episode, go aHead and make a comment on the post for the episode on LinkedIn. If you love The Naberhood Podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give us a five star review on iTunes. Until next time - go get it.

Esther Wojcicki, founder of the Palo Alto High School journalism programme and mother of two successful tech CEOs and a doctor, explains how to raise successful people. See the full interview on Yahoo Finance UK https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/live/changeagents/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this week’s episode, Tom Vander Ark is speaking with Esther Wojcicki, an internationally-known educator, consultant, and speaker with a demonstrated history of working in the e-learning industry. She is the Chief Learning Officer at Planet3, the Founder of the Journalistic Learning Initiative in collaboration with the University of Oregon, an Advisory Board member at THNK, The Amsterdam School of Creative Leadership, a Plenary Speaker at UNESCO, and a teacher at Palo Alto High School since 1984 who shaped their journalism program from the ground up! On top of all this (and many more organizations and initiatives she is a part of), she is also the author of two successful books, Moonshots in Education: Launching Blended Learning in the Classroom and How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results.   Esther’s most recent book, How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results, published just this May, outlines the key values of successful homes (or schools, programs, or companies) through the principles of her acronym: T.R.I.C.K: Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and Kindness. And while honing her craft as an educator, Wojcicki was raising three daughters using these same principles.   In this podcast, Esther discusses how she helped shape writing and journalism at Palo Alto High School as a teacher; what she believes to have been the key ingredients to the current success of Palo Alto and its journalism program; the conditions at Palo Alto that allow a world-class journalism program to exist; and how to create a culture of tradition and excellence in both the home, in the classroom, and in your business. She also shares important key takeaways from her new book and the important life lessons she has shared with her children that have helped shape them into the successful individuals they are today!   Key Takeaways: [:12] About today’s episode and Getting Smart’s new team member, Mason Pashia! [:29] Mason speaks about the values of his family that have impacted his life and career today. [1:10] About today’s guest, Esther Wojcicki. [1:54] Tom welcomes Esther to the podcast! [2:36] Where and how did Esther’s passion for journalism first begin? [4:29] Does Esther recall having good writing instruction in high school? [5:59] Did Esther have good writing experiences at Berkeley? [6:38] Why did Esther decide to begin studying French? [7:41] What was the state of student writing and journalism when Esther began as a teacher at Palo Alto High School in 1984? [10:44] About the physical space Esther was teaching in back in 1984 at Palo Alto. [11:22] About the current incredible space that is Palo Alto! [12:12] What does Esther believe to have been the key ingredients to the current success of Palo Alto and its journalism program. [14:03] Esther describes how students can progress into leadership roles in the various publications. [17:11] Esther summarizes the conditions that allow a world-class program such as the journalism program at Palo Alto to exist. [19:55] Esther speaks about the culture at Palo Alto where students receive the majority of their feedback from their peers. [21:35] Tom and Esther discuss how Palo Alto’s academic programs create a culture and tradition of excellence. [23:17] Esther speaks about her first book, Moonshots in Education, and explains what the Moonshot Manifesto is all about! [24:52] Esther speaks about the Journalistic Learning Initiative she created in collaboration with the University of Oregon. [26:49] From her book, How to Raise Successful People, Esther explains her important acronym, T.R.I.C.K, that are the key values crucial to raising successful children, a successful classroom, and managing a successful company. [34:42] Should parents set high expectations for their children with regards to both behavior and achievement? [36:50] Have Esther and her family traveled a lot? If so, has it benefited them? [38:02] Have Esther or her daughters developed useful tech management tools around screen time? [39:44] How are the performing arts and visual arts important for children? [40:54] Esther gives her recommendations on when and how to expose children to the world of work. [42:45] When did Esther let her girls know that she was writing a book on how to raise successful people? [44:10] Tom thanks Esther for joining him this podcast!   Mentioned in This Episode: Mason Pashia — Getting Smart’s new Growth & Marketing Manager How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results, by Esther Wojcicki ASU GSV Summit Palo Alto High School Moonshots.org Moonshots in Education: Blended Learning in the Classroom, by Esther Wojcicki, Lance Izumi, and Alicia Chang Journalistic Learning Initiative   Get Involved: Check out the blog at GettingSmart.com. Find the Getting Smart Podcast on iTunes, leave a review and subscribe.   Is There Somebody You’ve Been Wanting to Learn From or a Topic You’d Like Covered? To get in contact: Email Editor@GettingSmart.com and include ‘Podcast’ in the subject line. The Getting Smart team will be sure to add them to their list!

What does it take to raise successful people? Esther Wojcicki, lovingly referred to as the Godmother of Silicon Valley, has a simple answer to this million-dollar question. It comes in the convenient form of an acronym: TRICK (Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration and Kindness). It also comes in the form of her new book, How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results. Her tried-and-true advice for parents, employers and mentors of all kinds is to trust individuals to follow their passions and to work hard, to be supportive of their achievements and, above all, to relax. Her wisdom applies to the corporate hiring process, to young parents raising children, to teachers trying to be the best advocates for their students they can be. Wojcicki is a revered high school teacher in the media arts program she founded at Palo Alto High School, a role model for Silicon Valley legends such as Steve Jobs (and his daughter Lisa), and the mother of three successful daughters: the CEO of YouTube, a professor of pediatrics at UCSF medical school and one of the co-founders of 23andMe. Come join us for a conversation about mentoring, trust and unlocking human potential with a teacher and parent who has it figured out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Esther “Woj” Wojcicki is famous for three things: teaching a high school class that has changed thousands of lives, inspiring Silicon Valley legends like Steve Jobs, and raising three daughters who have each become famously successful. Woj made her way to Town Hall to illuminate us on what these three accomplishments have in common—they’re the result of TRICK, Woj’s secret to raising successful people: Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and Kindness. Wojcicki offered advice from her book How to Raise Successful People with methods that promote relaxation, respect, and independence. In the face of rising parental anxiety, Woj encouraged the opposite of helicopter parenting. Talk to infants as if they are adults. Allow teenagers to pick projects that relate to the real world and their own passions, and let them figure out how to complete them. Above all, let your child lead. Join Wojcicki for a chance to learn essential lessons for raising, educating, and managing people to their highest potential. Esther Wojcicki is a professor, author, and a mentor whose work has fostered creativity and critical thinking in her daughters and students alike. Her journalism program at Palo Alto High School is regarded as the best in the United States and has more than 600 students. Many former students from her program have gone on to have an outsized impact on the world including Gady Epstein of the Economist, Noah Sneider of the New York Times, actor James Franco, and Tod Scacerdoti of Yahoo, and more. Recorded live at The Forum at Town Hall Seattle on June 7, 2019.

Our guest this week is Esther Wojcicki, author of the book How to Raise Successful People. In addition to being the founder of the world famous Media Arts Program at Palo Alto High School, she has raised three daughters. One is a college professor, one is the CEO of YouTube and one is the CEO of 23 and Me. She’s been called the God Mother of Silicon Valley.We talk to her about her proven TRICK method for raising strong, independent minded children. How Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration and Kindness help to foster the kind of growth in our children that turns them into high functioning adults. Follow up with Esther at her website.Plus, John tells the most LA story ever about his time at a Seth MacFarlane show last night.Own the journals that Gib uses: The EVO Planner and a blank Moleskin.Submit your pet to be the pet of the week go to: teshvideos.comCome see us live: teshmusic.comAnd you can sign up for our newsletters at tesh.com to get Intelligence For Your Life right to your inbox.As always, if you like our podcast, Rate, Comment and Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell your friends! If you don’t like our podcast, then keep it quiet, I guess.Our Hosts:John Tesh: Twitter: @JohnTesh Instagram: @johntesh_ifyl facebook.com/JohnTeshGib Gerard: Twitter: @GibGerard Instagram: @GibGerard facebook.com/GibGerard

The evidence is overwhelming that in our schools today, the successful curriculums are those that are directed toward deeper learning, project-based learning, and social and emotional learning. Learners that feel empowered and hands-on, that collaborate and learn empathy are the ones who excel academically. So why shouldn't the same be true of parenting? The recent cheating scandal certainly shows the other extreme. What happens amidst helicopter parenting run amuck, of parents not having faith in the innate abilities and independence of their kids. Maybe you don’t have to let your 11 or 12-year-old fly off to France and change planes by themselves as my guest did, but giving them responsibly at home from a young age is essential. Few people understand this better than Esther Wojcicki. Esther understands not in some abstract white paper kind of way, but by having raised three incredibly successful daughters;  Ann, the co-founder of 23 and me, Susan is the CEO of YouTube and Janet is a distinguished doctor and professor of pediatrics. Esther is in her own right an amazing success story. A formidable voice on behalf of journalism and media literacy, Esther Wojcicki is the founder of the Media Arts programs at Palo Alto High School and serves as vice chair of Creative Commons and was instrumental in the launch of the Google Teacher Academy.  Her new book is How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results. My conversation with Esther Wojcicki:

Esther Wojcicki is asked about parenting advice – sometimes over 10 times a day! In How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results, Esther shares the guiding principles she has used to raise her wildly successful daughters, as well as in her teaching of journalism to students at Palo Alto High School who affectionately call her Woj. Her parenting philosophy can be distilled into a combination of values and practices within an acronym called TRICK, which stands for trust, respect, independence, collaboration and kindness. In her book, Esther drills into each area, explaining why she believes each component to TRICK is critical. She also offers ideas for utilizing her TRICK philosophy with your children, and shares dozens of memorable stories. There is no doubt the book will be a best seller since Esther has had such tremendous success as a mother and teacher. Each of Esther’s daughters have phenomenal career achievements. Daughter, Susan Wojcicki is the CEO of YouTube; Janet Wojcicki is a professor of pediatrics at University of California, San Francisco; and Anne Wojcicki, is the founder and CEO of genetic testing company 23andMe. At the center of Silicon Valley for her entire career as an influential teacher, Esther also is a dedicated community member. With Google famously beginning its empire in daughter Susan’s garage, Esther has truly been surrounded by the tech revolution. Hundreds of Esther’s students still keep in touch with her, and as her daughters say in the book’s foreword, they often meet former students who say, “You know, your mom really changed my life. She believed in me.” Esther has been nominated for national awards for her teaching and thousands of students who went through her program often consider the experience life changing – both for the work they did, and for the respect, autonomy and the bar set by Esther. In addition to sharing her philosophy for raising independent, kind and community-oriented children, Esther’s book feels like a handbook for global citizenship. She firmly believes that kindness, finding ways to help others and the quality of our relationships are at the forefront of a happy life.  In our conversation, Esther shares how tragedy and other intense difficulties  during her childhood influenced her parenting philosophy. We discuss why using TRICK with children and in schools leads to radical results and learn hands-on tactics for using TRICK in your family. Esther is a brilliant example of the impact one teacher can have, and the joy of living a life of purpose.

#113 — How to Raise Successful Children: Trust and Respect in Parenting, School, and Business Why is so much parenting advice seemingly in direct conflict with others? How do we determine who is correct? How do we make these emotional decisions for ourselves? Esther Wojcicki is considered the most influential educator in contemporary times and her pedagogical and epistemological philosophy is being adapted by local Silicon Valley schools as well as national and global educational programs. She is the pioneer of Moonshot Thinking, a program that she uses in schools, and her influence in technology-enabled schools has been central to the tenants and design of new modern education systems. She is also known as the mother in Silicon Valley who raised three of the most successful women in the United States. You may recognize her as the mother of Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube; of Janet Wojcicki, who has a PhD in medical anthropology and teaches at the University of California San Francisco’s medical center; and Anna Wojcicki, the founder of the biotech and genetics testing company 23andMe. Today on this episode we get to talk to Esther about her core principles in her pedagogical style and her parenting style. How she promotes independence, critical thinking and encourages kids to dive into topics that truly excite them. Her focus and work is on how to help children become young adults by developing the self-sufficiency to take control of their futures. IN THIS EPISODE WE TALK ABOUT How pregnancy and birth recommendations have changed over the last 40 years. How giving even the youngest children jobs or tasks can increase their feelings of accomplishment and self-worth. The value behind speaking to babies and toddlers like they are a partner and understanding presence.   Her acronym for success, TRICK, which stands for: trust, respect, independence, collaboration and kindness. That giving young children the space to be independent teaches them that: they are capable and that you trust them. How the single piece of advice Dr. Woj wants to pass on to new mothers is quite simple: trust yourself. No one knows your baby better than you. What Dr. Woj considers to be the main value of sleep training (hint: it’s not sleep). How successful businesses embody the same relationship with their employees that Dr. Woj used to raise her children and currently uses with her students. FULL SHOW NOTES Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/113. LEARN MORE ABOUT ESTHER WOJCICKI    Wojcicki is a leading American educator, journalist and mother. Leader in Blending Learning and the integration of technology into education, she is the founder of the Media Arts program at Palo Alto High School, where she built a journalism program from a small group of 20 students in 1984 to one of the largest in the nation including 600 students, five additional journalism teachers, and nine award-winning journ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/startuppregnant/message

Over our lifetimes, we compile and collect thousands of memories and stories. However, these memories fade; they’re pushed aside for more recent or relevant ones. As part of the final installment of the History Of series, and our final podcast as high schoolers, we are bringing together several of these memories, before they fade, to cement our vision of Palo Alto High School. This is the History of Paly, told through the stories of those who really know what this school is.

EP128 - TopHatter CEO Ashvin Kumar We caught up with Ashvin Kumar at the ShopTalk 2018. Ashvin is the co-founder and CEO at Tophatter an innovative live action site for mobile shoppers.  With the engagement and psychology of a game and the economics of a marketplace, Tophatter generated over $300 million of GMV in 2017 (100% up on 2016) and sells 100,000+ items every single day.  We talked with Ashvin about his background, including his previous start-up Blippy.  The pros and cons of various auction format and how Tophatter appeals to it's entertainment seeking value oriented shoppers. Episode 128 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, March 20, 2018. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. New beta feature, Google Transcription: Transcript Jason: [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this episode is being recorded on Tuesday March 20th 2018 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scott Wingo. Scot: [0:37] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners we are live live live from shoptalk and Las Vegas excited to have on the show. Ashvin is the top Hatter co-founder and CEO and tophatter is the world's most entertaining Marketplace they've raised over 35 million in venture capital and we're really excited to hear your story hear about tophatter and talk about, marketplaces machine learning in a variety of other topics welcome to the show action. Ashvin: [1:06] Thank you and thanks for having me Jason Scott have to be here. Jason: [1:10] We are thrilled to have you so one of the ways we almost always start out the show is get a little bit of the background of our. So can you tell us sort of how you started your career and found your way to this. Ashvin: [1:23] Sure so I'll let I'll start at the at the very very top so I was born and raised in in Silicon Valley. Local kid that that that never left the Bay Area basically there's there's not too many of us a lot of lot of folks descending on the Bay Area these days so I got to grow up in Palo Alto. Went to Palo Alto High School I was in I was in the valley and that the.com. Bubble and I remember I'm there is just remember there was a big there just weren't enough programmers and like the in hanging like the 99 2000 time and I remember getting your coffee. When your programmers you know how to write Java and I was like. Yes and I had no idea when got a book studied about the week before got in there and started learning job at up the I make great money that sell rather this is awesome and so that's where the bug started for me. Jason: [2:23] Will assume job I was like a required freshman class at Palo Alto High School now. Ashvin: [2:27] You know what's interesting at we we did do a little a little programming it at pellets high school so we had a little bit of that there but not a ton it wasn't quite as in Vogue as it is now. I know I think computer science is like Stanford's largest major by far and certainly the flavor of play for the decade. Yeah so after Polly Went to went to Stanford computer science Stanford actually while I was there I was interned at Amazon. That's where that's where my co-founder and I first spent a lot of time together he was an internet. At Microsoft and I was an intern at Amazon and so we decided to split the difference in. And find a place to live in between the two so we lived in the University District in Seattle. And every every night we come back and talk about the differences between Microsoft and Amazon which is awesome and I had a fantastic 2003. Does neutering there for a few months and it was it was already felt like a fairly big company with a lot of but still plenty of opportunity ahead of them and I remember. I want one thing I'm a Jeff Bezos would talk to the entire episode that has been. Like one of the treats was he come and talk to all the entrance and we talked about some some the company values and that there's two that I'm a really well as a frugality and Trust. And an enzyme I'm ever just wanted to hit like a soda need to go pay for stuff. Jason: [3:55] Obviously like I'm imagining you comparing notes with your roommate and like the cafeteria on the Microsoft campus was a little fancier than the free bananas at Apple at Amazon. Ashvin: [4:04] Do it what about that but what I found fascinating was that they were proud of that fact and so it just it just. You got me so it got me excited. Three different perspective than one person's proud of their reality and Microsoft obviously was touting there free food and free soda just two companies with very very different mindsets obviously. So after I graduated from Stanford where I worked at a small startup Enterprise social networking startup for for 3 years I would some of the so my friends from Stanford is the 3rd engineer. When I join we had about 7 people. I reread the series day we spend three years building the company in about. 3 years 23 years and my co-founder and my current co-founder and I decide to leave our job he went to. You went to a different start up use also 3rd engineer there so between us we had seen a couple we felt like we were the ground for a couple companies. Scot: [5:07] Is this the same guy that was also a Microsoft intern. Ashvin: [5:09] Single room the other after after college to and so after. Scot: [5:13] This is like Millennials like this. Ashvin: [5:16] Under that bastard us. Scot: [5:17] Best friends for life come on get with the lingo your conversation. Ashvin: [5:25] Do we have till we die. After after work it out of respect of guys to come back and jam on ideas together and eventually about two and a half years and we decided that we we want to. Tried on a run so we are we just started working hacking on various different projects and all all we knew is that we wanted to work together and that we wanted to build something fun. I interesting that people are going to like those sort of but that was a starting point but we didn't really know what that look like. And so we just are working on stuff we build stuff and we just put it in front of anybody that would it would see for feedback. We that weed weed send users to it and all sorts of ways that we can find a post on Facebook and post on Twitter viral things to try and get user to user experience. In the process of that was like right around $2,000 this is like the financial crisis. Scot: [6:18] Great time to start compass. Ashvin: [6:19] Yeah. Scot: [6:21] Just leave her jobs and start a company in early 2000s. Jason: [6:24] Frugality. Ashvin: [6:27] Actually move back in with my with my parents my co-founder you move back here. You also trying to save money on on rent so he moved in with his girlfriend at the time. Way too early to move in with a girlfriend and they're married now so everything worked out but. Be trying to be frugal a hack on stuff share with anybody that would see it in the process we met if you see it at CRV and they weren't like they were doing a lot of deals at the time of the crisis. So things are a little slow there and they had a spare office in at the their office is on Sandhill and so is he invited us to come work out of their office. Scot: [7:16] Sweet and nice. Ashvin: [7:18] CBS on basic being in Resident entrepreneur I don't like to say I don't like say unfriend resident because that's like a fancy title where you actually get paid we were at in Resident on foreigners. Jason: [7:27] That's like the difference between a country club and a club in the. Ashvin: [7:29] Exactly. I got a big chunk of our day was figuring out which coffee shops wife I wasn't going to cut out so having like condition Wi-Fi and free lunch actually was really helpful. Scot: [7:46] I spent a lot of time at the Starbucks in Palo Alto on I'm picturing you guys when I go in there it's like funny it's like all these startup books just kind of like you know you can see the founders and they're just like you know. Hey they have big red circles on it. Jason: [8:07] And now everyone has to be in the official Patagonia down vest. Ashvin: [8:11] But siding I stack that standard BC attire. Scot: [8:14] Yeah that's a b c. Ashvin: [8:15] Tina Turner wearing the Patagonia vest. Scot: [8:17] Depth of funny humorous t-shirts yes I write Piper. Ashvin: [8:22] So much of products in 2000 and in 2008. And when the benefits was being a b c Verma said we could we just walked down the hallway and showed us these. The folks there in got their feedback and eventually we found we we built something that they got really excited about that's why if we actually ended up raising money for it so it's probably called blippi, and it was a it was a social network for the type for the things that people are buying so the idea there was that we would. We would Connect into your your Amazon account your iTunes account and we basically passed we published your friends the stuff that you were buying so if you download something about the man so I'm kind of out your friends way of discovering what your friends are by. As I was going by first foray into Discovery shopping and we got really excited about that and and CRV got really excited about that and they wrote us a check to see if from the company and that's how we got started so they put. Scot: [9:25] Serbia's Charles River Ventures for those of you that aren't in that VCU Palo Alto. Ashvin: [9:30] So what we raise money for that and and actually we got a lot of traction initial traction a lot of hype around that product. And 6 months later we raise another round for that sweet we actually ended up raising $12 additional for that. Unfortunately six months after that after spending so this one year into the journey with blippi like we realize it but the product wasn't really going to work. So the retention numbers weren't there the engagement just wasn't there when we tried a bunch of things so by the end of that year we had a we had a lot of money in the bank but filled product. And so we have to figure out what we're going to do next and Mike O'Connor and I we just kind of went back to what we were doing before it was hacking on all sorts of different projects. Scot: [10:16] It's a blippi was a consumer, thing did you try pivoting till like retailers integrating with their platform to do a staring contest. Ashvin: [10:23] Yeah could question so there were a few different ways we could have hit it I think that at that time we we still felt really strongly that we wanted to be if your consumer experience and we didn't want to have a component where we were doing an Enterprise Integrations or working closely with. With folks without us having restaurant user base. Scot: [10:42] Did was of oxidation like to an affiliate program. I think so Jason shares of cool GadgetEase bought I buy it you guys have been coded in the affiliate link. Ashvin: [10:51] That would be one possible promise at scale and then we it was such a treasure Trove of information. Jason: [10:56] I can say there's probably a data play where you're quick. Ashvin: [10:59] It was it was. Is really fun products only only first build it and then other things that we buy every single day at the amount of like apps I download on the Play Store things that I just go on Amazon buy. Based on a recommendation from a friend or you know somebody recognizes me a book I'll just go buy it on the Kindle right now and have so I can have it there with one when I'm on the plane to like you're buying things all the time and are. Product would pull all that information in Niagara that information published in a structured way to other people could benefit from it. Scot: [11:34] Remember Facebook Beacon where they tried this and then a people to buy gifts for their wives or wife's. Ashvin: [11:42] Storage associate with it too but but all in all it was really fun product with a lot of information associate with it and there were a lot of different directions we could take it, the reason why we like there's a guy that had the fun engaging element that also had fantastic quantization potential. If you want use a product then so I can work and then that's where but we found we found it we can get people to initially engaged to the product but we couldn't get them to retain overtime. And so at the end of the year we've had some decisions to make when we decided to have basically Sunset the product and work on other things but we were really excited about probably really excited about the space of Discovery Commerce. I'm just at this the area that we stayed in and we started working on other ideas in an e-commerce so the next idea we tried we tried a bunch of things in between the next thing that we got a little bit of traction was we we we took the idea of Groupon and. Combined it with base e tried to build a Groupon like experience for Etsy sellers because he's at the sellers have fantastic. Merchandise they can make me a sandwich. But I have no distribution so we that will look spell the distribution list. For people that want to be introduced to new types of Pepsi products and so that actually was awesome we lost that in 2011. And I had really great traction for a few months but then a few months in we realize that this is actually hitting a ceiling that we just we can't. We can't attract enough Sellers and we can't get enough people on the distribution list to make this a scale at at a meeting for 8. [13:12] I've been so 6 months after that we realize I can't wait this business or the tapped out even though it had some initial traction and we work and we went back to the drawing board works on a bunch of other consumer. Consumer products all in all in Discovery shopping and then 2012 is when we launched tophatter. And I'm we launched tophatter I had to lift head like a consumer heads consumer attraction in a list that we had not seen before. And then we'd work to my way to work then we work on so many different projects up to this point that when we when we initially launch shop in and saw the numbers were like wow there is something special here, I wouldn't know exactly what about it is Piggly special but there's something really special here that we want to that we want to make sure that we capture in Foster. Scot: [13:53] And so as a as a function or in the consumer space What are the numbers you're looking at so you've talked about you. Retention stuff are you looking at KLTV are you looking at cohort analysis helplessness can't understand how someone building. Ashvin: [14:08] So these days as a as a business scales at those are all really important numbers for us or we look at court we look at when we say chords for provokes international. We look at when a person signs up in month 1 how do they perform in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 so we look at how that how, how to progress over time. We also look at tactile TVs we look at all that stuff but it's mainly like numbers as rescaled up initially When You're Building Products it's it's a little bit more like trying to find love. Scot: [14:42] Just some Mau movement. Ashvin: [14:43] Yeah you look at you looking for you looking for something special in the product trying to capture trying to capture Magic In A Bottle. And I think if you don't have that initial magic in the model of then all that other stuff doesn't really all that other stuff doesn't really make sense. It's hard to optimize for that other stuff. And so I think the thing that was special. Tophatters at it did have magic in the bottle really early on and and then as we scaled up we use all of you know we look at CAC LTV we look. All that fancy Jazz figure out if we're doing work on the right things. Jason: [15:19] Tell her what's my little bit about tophatter and sore what the value prop is and what what makes you guys doing. Ashvin: [15:24] Yeah so tophatter is a I just got to shopping app I always encourage people to to take to go download the app to get the full experience because it's a it's a it's a very differentiate experience we sell things in an in an option where I'm at. So we're on live auctions 24/7 I think the average eBay auction takes 2 weeks to complete our average auction takes 90 seconds and get us some other price so it's real time is fast. How are average price points 10 to 15 bucks so it's in like an Impulse impulse purchase. I don't feel they can make a decision within 90 second see if they want something. And we sell across the a variety of categories from jewelry to electronics to accessories. Scot: [16:07] It seems like it's raining towards of value kind of consumer, like that wish kind of a Marketplace and you'll see some of that wants to have something cool for like under 20 bucks or something. Ashvin: [16:16] So are consumers also shop at Walmart and Kohl's and and QVC and HSN and yeah it's it's at the dollar store TJ Maxx when these are all these are all of her consumers so they say it's about you wanting to customer. Scot: [16:30] Never while they're there is he's really weird auction sites where you would like by kind of a currency to go to bed and you know I think they gave options are really bad name kind of there. Ashvin: [16:38] And we're constantly kind of fighting yeah so we're like we we had to fight that kind of band brand misperception. Lots of people see that we're not inside that's the first place that's what one of the first question that we get his ass a penny auction sites with a pay for my beds and doing a lot of them are can we make make really clear. Beds are free. Only pay if you win so it's just an old-fashioned auction but it's not it's not an option for. For the reasons of price discovery on most items that we sell their free commodity items it's an option because it's engaging and we find that again we think about how we build an engaging experience that's what we started. It's just fun everything starts at a dollar and so you pick the price they want to pay you know so you like something at a dollar there's no reason why you won't like it at 2 and then if you like it at 3 instead. Scot: [17:26] Is it a 1 winner wins got a thing or is it more of a Dutch auction so if Jason did six and I bid 7 we both kind of win or. Ashvin: [17:32] Right now it's one winner of the challenge too is that is that if there has to be losers in the auction for you to feel free to feel good when you actually win something. Scot: [17:44] That that hurts the you know the pack because she got to go acquiring up cat x x yeah and then it could hurt LTV cuz if I'm a loser lose so many times year. Ashvin: [17:54] Better interest in their data shows that the folks that compete for items are the ones that are there are more likely to come back so if you if you try and win something you win something with no competition less likely to come back and if you competed for anyone, cuz there's a little bit of social validation in the fact that somebody else wanted to sing. Scot: [18:11] I saw an article that said you're you guys had over 300 million in DMV in 2017 it was an idea the sky. Ashvin: [18:18] Jessica sent a scale so we're going to do so last year we did over 300 million in Top by in this year right now like we're focused on doing a billion dollars in 2019 this year will do at least a half a billion dollars. It's a no it's not it's not like an Amazon CEO business but it's not like a small business either so. Scot: [18:39] And your business model is typical take rate kind of a random. Ashvin: [18:43] It's a it's a Marketplace business model we take roughly 25% depending on the category. Scot: [18:49] So then I can figure out your revenues by multiplying GMB by 25% just making sure I understand. Jason: [18:59] That would assume that Scott can do math. Scot: [19:01] Yes and then are you guys a mix of first party and third-party entirely third party. Ashvin: [19:11] It's an entirely third-party give me like our sellers do we sell things ourselves. Scot: [19:13] Yeah yeah. Ashvin: [19:15] So we don't take any inventory your Marketplace we just connect buyers and sellers so we asked her sellers to give us all their inventory so we tell sellers. Give us a spreadsheet everything you got and then destroy those into how we use data. Do we have it we have a big pool of them in Torrey millions and millions of items that we can potentially share with their buyers and then from that we Whittle it down to a small set of a relatively small so excuse that we show fires when they open. Jason: [19:45] So how are you soliciting sellers. Ashvin: [19:50] Are sellers are Swedish settlers faced in the you asked me if sellers we also have a team in China to work with our sellers in China today, about 70% of our sales come from sellers that are based in China and leave it to you in there that helps find and work with our sellers. They're actually found is just. Just looking at the broader internet. And selling like as a as a third-party sell on the Internet it's just very challenging to find places to sell on the internet there just aren't enough places to sell. There's some when we go and talk to our sellers in China they're always looking to diversify where they're selling and nobody wants to just be on Amazon. I prefer for obvious reasons but if you look but you look down unless there's actually not a lot of options Beyond Amazon you got the Amazon you got eBay. You got a Bye Baby I wish the list rise up pretty quickly and so when we come in there and say that we have no we're going to have to I know ours this year and we've got reasonable volume every two years. Because a that good volume and be that they wanted they don't want to be wholly dependent on on their Amazon sales. Jason: [20:58] So when is Big trans here at shop talk has been Ai and machine learning. And you guys are like getting a significant amount of data now so that I imagine within an able the possibility of you ever drink some of those techniques. Ashvin: [21:15] Death till we have it we have a fantastic day it is at and we have a dataset that's that's different and bigger than a lot of e-commerce. Players are size because we've got people spinning history to so not only do we have people buying things we have people expressing interest at various different price points along the way. We have a really expect all data said they're only be getting this to leverage as we get better and better at at machine learning. But for us via the business is only improved as its scale. And I attribute that to obviously improvements in logistics and operations that you get his knee Converse business scaling but just as much to to being able to leverage or data in more intelligent. Jason: [22:01] When are you likely using that for merchandising as well I cute like so you mentioned like there's a big inventory of potential stuff to offer to your buyers. Ashvin: [22:11] Yeah so like internal in our in our company we have nobody we have Noah merchandisers so I think this is one of the one of the Hallmarks as I see it if I can modern. The modern retail company is it is one that's going to use data my data is the new merchandiser us for one of our internal mottos so. And we can we learned this the hard way we actually it a few years ago we we did hire some folks with more traditional retail backgrounds and we had a hard time internally reconciling. The air intuition was laughing right we just had a hard time reconciling that with with the day that we were seeing. And so it's trying to get these Two Worlds 2 that's it come together as challenging but I think just are we got nowhere we're engineer's by training and that sort of our DNA. And out we we like to call the numbers and and and only talk about you comes and retail merchandising is like the core piece of that where we do spend a lot of time. Jason: [23:09] So have you guys developed any of your own models are you using any of the commercial or Open Source Tax like what's the jewels that you're using. Ashvin: [23:17] We use while he's a lot of Open Source. We do use a lot of open source code to take glue iron machine together but we're not using any off-the-shelf solutions for Ray I so we we build their own data model as we've got Folks at experience machine learning. I bet spend time tuning the models and then also thinking about how do we like what what types of data would make this model even better, and how do we go capture that data so a lot of what we talked about internally is Howard data structure and how can we structure it better to make it more effective writing everything. A lot of people ask me about about data and about a I and I always tell them that it just starts with structured data you got to have a data set and you got to have a schema that's easy to work with. Jason: [24:04] We have lots of the sort of more old-world clients in the the starting points for a machine learning isn't even doing any machine. Ashvin: [24:12] That can you get the data. Jason: [24:13] Just about getting a. [24:14] Attributes for your data and another thing we talked a lot about because it's a coming problem is it a government so I can just making sure you have the the right rights to leverage that date on all the way she. Scot: [24:26] She mentioned can I join in on this so you mentioned you get this did data, do you actually didn't go and and go to like the manufacturer and say hey your price is too low if you know you're at $12 and if we did 899 you are model tells us we could sell twice the volume is that is that a example to use case. Ashvin: [24:45] Yes so we have got me so that is like an example of division we haven't actually gotten it we haven't actually done that just yet but yeah if the core piece of our technology is that we can look at it and I didn't estimate the price that were going to get for it so. We like to have a good sense of what we're going to sell something for before we even put it up for auction before I buy or even sees it. And so we can look at our in our million just using save this these are the things that are going to perform well, I'm can we go get them for for better prices or can we how do we make this how we make these price-points works and they're there two ways that we can figure out how to how to make advertise ask you to sell it at a higher. Price that we think we can get a better price for or how do we lower the cost on the supply side. Scot: [25:28] I'm convinced this is what drives a lot of Amazon private label you know the, the brands would tell you that they're just stealing their data and stuff but I think what happens is you know I think Amazon looks at like khaki pants and they see there's this conversion gap down at you know X dollars and then they will go and recruit Chinese sellers to fill that Gap and then. And we're like lahren you know some private label at that price point in there and I think they're looking more of conversion day that you kept getting data with sexy little bit. Ashvin: [25:54] What's interesting about Amazon so like we we get compared to when we talk to investors obviously Amazon's the Shelf in the room and they want to talk about how we are different from Amazon Amazon everything is Sartorius on Amazon. Amazon has his wealth of kind of search oriented conversion day that somebody types in khaki pants and they can see what percentage of the khaki pants search volume has been fulfilled. We don't have that meeting we just have people open up the app and it's almost like a news feed of products and so we have to clean and we have to clean and make inferences in in in different Amazon. Scot: [26:32] So just to change topics little bit so a lot of people contact me cuz I'm known in the marketplace world marketplace. That's great it's going to be harder than you think it is because unlike you know what say you were going to build like a Dollar Shave Club or something like that what's nice about that business is you you you control one side of the equation right you control the supply Dave's go to bring demand. You chose the what I would say is at least twice as hard if not for ex's heart of building Marketplace you have to not only do have to go build the buyer side if you could build the seller side so it's kind of like simultaneously building to businesses and you. There's probably some. Scot rule of the square of the number of sides to marketplaces you know that the exponent of the equation has that been your experience that is kind of getting to the school you're at. Arrow on one side of the boat too hard and they end up going in a circle to acquire all these fires the bars I have a terrible experience cuz there's not enough Supply logo acquire Ali suppliers they won't sell anything till at RIT because I didn't. Selling a product you have some scar tissue to share with us. Ashvin: [27:37] I absolutely I mean this is like this is what working on all the time so try not trying to climb the ladder on demand and Supply at the same at a similar rate. On the challenging and visit this is why it's really hard to grow a Marketplace faster than it is very hard to grow, American pit playset and I can exponential rate it takes time to grow marketplaces until we've been fortunate enough to, the mostly double the business year of the year and even as we try and double the business of feels like the wheels are about to fall off either on the supply side or on the demand side. And interrupt you to see some of the conversations that go on internally it's always will be one channel screaming about not enough buyers in another slack Channel screaming about like not enough to use for a certain type of visors just like, constantly it is it feels like a battle everyday and then when you take a step back and look at the business we actually like. We actually got some stuff done and we grew even though that every single day feels like it feels like a dog fight. Scot: [28:39] Is that the hardest thing about building tophatter or have you been surprised by the back end scale it's taken or the customer Discovery what's been the hardest problem in hindsight that the kind of surprise you. Ashvin: [28:56] I made a promise to be changed your every year right now one of my biggest challenges around is trying to understand or Supply better and if so can I go to the data model we see that are 21 a big challenge is this your process. Dish Network Network routing with this this year is that we are our customers tell us that they want to see more things in the marketplace. When we first launched in 2012 and keep my everything we do is real time so when you open up that app everything that you're seeing is is available right now in this moment is going to sell the 90 seconds or anybody in the world named in the world that opens up the apps in the sea. Scot: [29:29] Just have a QVC as kind of a model. Ashvin: [29:32] It's like QVC. And in a when we first launched in 2012 because we had such a small demand days we can offer that much to fly so if you open up the app in Primetime you know if you open up the app there might be like 5 things for sale. Because that's all that our demand could so bored and that year, going to see more than these five things available and then in 2013 or demand a screw and we can put our supply base also and they said the same thing we want to see little bit more so every year it's it's kind of the same thing this year if you'll stick. because we we see the we see the option to break into all these different categories of issue with this deal that we do have and so, a lot of what we spoke Asana is trying to understand what categories do art buyers want to see, how do we get them how we brought in our category how do we go deeper into categories that we do have to sell better and better things so it's it's, trying to trying to build that Insight while then why like I'll mark while I system is is evolving is it super challenging and we have a pretty big. You're pretty big team of of analyst that. Are there looking at data all the time trying to trying to understand how the system is functioning and build more insight into what we should do tomorrow. Scot: [30:47] We have a lot of entrepreneurial type sellers that sell on eBay and other platforms give us like the Quick 90-second Pitch like how do you pitch a seller to be on your platform. Ashvin: [30:57] Yeah we say jeezy I use give us all your montuori and will we we we we connected with our bye week we look at what are bars in Taiwan. I'm willing to stop everything is going to do on you can tell us also if you've got a floor for the the things that you want to be like that price that you expect to sell it at and we won't listen unless our production models are telling us that it's and it's all about that rice. Scot: [31:19] Set a three hundred million kind of run rate at a lower aov do you have like 30 million to buyers and sellers how many buyers like I kind of wanted to 30 minutes. Ashvin: [31:32] Papyrus like last year we had I mean an exact numbers but last year we had over 2 million buyers on the. Scot: [31:40] Are the churches buying for a minister. Ashvin: [31:42] Did buy a lot of stuff. Scot: [31:43] That's awesome yeah that's cool yeah. Ashvin: [31:45] Dad and Elvia to get to the point like a 10 lb of 10 bucks I got 10 to 15 hours every transaction size to make this business work they better be buying a lot of things, and remember the classic thing about e-commerce businesses, 1015 years ago is the first question to ask you what's your HIV and if you're able V is like in the ten to $20 range like. Scot: [32:07] Does the seller I would ask one thing that scares me is you know I give you all my inventory and I see all the stuff going on there for a dollar can I have a reserve or or do you guarantee if I want 10 bucks you'll deliver 10 bucks. Ashvin: [32:19] Yeah so today on today I currently back a lot of the risk is taken by the sellers but we just Asher sellers that we're not going to run unless we think you're going to get a. We are prediction models think that you're going to get a price above the price that you want but I want to go rolling. Scot: [32:35] Give you a desired price point. Ashvin: [32:36] Writes about wanting a rolling out this year is for us to take the risk and so were you know we got all the data we're confident are predictions into at some point in time we feel really comfortable taking the rest and so from. From from a perspective a seller can treat our platform just like they treat any other. Marketplace so just like you work with eBay just like you were Vans I just give it everything at the best price that you have and what will sell it and will give you the price for it. We also have the option to take apps out on it too so. Scot: [33:05] So if I'm if I've got a like a great price on this widget and we we, do this I know when a lot of sellers are working with like the Amazon and eBay deals team there's a certain kind of death what what kind of depth would you ask a seller to provide do you want like 10 of a widget a hundred a thousand and one. Ashvin: [33:22] So today we don't work with our Salvage closely for volume commitments that's another opportunity we can have so we we anticipate that as we start to take as we start to give sellers commitment and we're trying to get better prices from seller anticipated volume of famous will go. Along with it today we do today we get more volume to the sellers that are willing to take more risks. And they don't have to take that rest me like we're happy to take that risk and so it's a little bit of a kind of value proposition mismatched right now they were excited to address this year. Scot: [33:51] The last one is one of the knocks on some of these folks like an AliExpress or a wish is you in this thing and you you're all excited and then like it takes 6 months for the. How to get to do something you've got that feedback on in and have you work with your sellers on how fast you expect them to ship these things and get them to a consumer. Ashvin: [34:10] So we expect the sellers to ship right away doesn't necessarily mean they're going to get it right away the customers that we have. Longer for value and so we haven't seen the shipping times be a huge problem and I really think there's a Class A customer that wants to get their item right away but those are nicer of those aren't really our customers broadly speed. Our customers though want value one thing that we we sound is that our Logistics are going to improve what scale. And so as we scale up we found that are sellers are willing to open up warehouses closer to the man. And we're willing to give them more volume if they open up their warehouse closer to man into labor faster different ways to get the products to the customers faster and are using a Marketplace model are sellers are willing to, I'm investing that are averaged it just be clear are average time delivery times are in a couple weeks if it's coming from from China and if it's coming from the US with a bunch of our inventory comes from the u.s. to is Justina today. Jason: [35:13] And does the buyers see that delivery time before they did. Ashvin: [35:17] And it's an important component so if we tell our sellers that if you can ship faster you're going to do something more to man on your products. Jason: [35:25] Cuz I feel like that's an incremental fly in the wish model is like you're off and pretty far in the purchase funnel before you find out. Ashvin: [35:33] Yeah you know I think they experimented both ways so I think that take a fairly similar mindset. Some terms of trying to figure out where it where to break this news to the customer quote on quote, and obviously it's it's pretty bad experience if you break it too late in the funnel but I'm sure they're trying to learn to an experiment with where's the right place though. Frostburg to share it right up front so people so we set expectations right away. Jason: [35:58] So you mention in the beginning I always encourage people to download the app so I'm assuming that's just the sort of preferred iteration of the experiences the mobile app. Ashvin: [36:11] Yeah so most of our business is done I mean the real time experience and so we saw things we sell things that are only available for 90 seconds. And so we do have experience but most are web expenses primarily for our seller so all of our seller tools are on the web and that's how sellers access it and our our website works just the same way that are at this. Vast majority of our business is done on our apps on on our Android app Android or iOS. Jason: [36:40] So almost everybody that has a strong mobile experience I get the metrics are. [36:45] They're on the mobile app experience the challenge usually is maintaining that that high active user base on the mobile app it sounds like. [36:57] In your case it kind of matches pretty well to the demographic because he's. [37:02] People that are that are going to want to be frequent purchase orders are you seeing like significant turn like what are you doing and try to maintain. Ashvin: [37:11] Yeah I mean we got a liver specialist Discovery shopping experience together. We focus on engagement I think this is a big difference between us and Amazon we like to ourselves as the anti Amazon. And anyways Amazon focus on making things Amazon focus on the buying experience we focus on the shopping experience. Games on focus on efficiency they want to get you in the app and out of the act like my could you and find something quickly get it boom you're out where the opposite where did we help custom we help our. Jason: [37:41] I want to go lighter. Ashvin: [37:42] Yep we want we. Amazon helps you save time tophatter helps you spend time we want to go for us like we want our customers to be in the eyeball time we want them to be discovering great things even if they're not buying and I were constantly iterating on on that experience. The primary feedback from our customers that they end up turning out is the fact that we don't have the breakfast apply that they're looking for. And every year that challenge every year like we're able to offer more and more Supply obviously we want to have it overnight love love to have it happen tomorrow but it's it's it's just a process of building outdoor supply this. Jason: [38:16] It's interesting the VC's are comparing you to Amazon they may be should be comparing you to like Clash Royale or some. Ashvin: [38:21] Maybe there's a there's a game like experience to us. Scot: [38:27] Chef fortnite wear like everyone's on an island at the Battle for the deal. Ashvin: [38:30] There's a will there's a. Scot: [38:32] Fortnite Meats products. Ashvin: [38:33] People love the competition. Jason: [38:34] Gamification for sure. Scot: [38:36] A quick disclaimer Jason Scott show takes 10% of any ideas that utilize from the show that are lawyers make the same things. Jason: [38:42] Do you disclose like roughly like what the active monthly users are on the mobile app is it like just I'm just trying idea border magnitude vs. Traditional shopping site. Ashvin: [38:54] Yeah I don't want to get there like that monthly numbers. Scot: [38:58] Denis Entre Nos RMA you there. You and you you probably know like time of day. Ashvin: [39:07] They're absolutely is in and where it where are part of our business is making clever matching the right amount of Supply with the right amount of man so we have two man models that tell us. How much how many buyers we expect to be showing up, at this very moment and then what Supply we should be showing in this 90 second time frame so we have these models that tell us how much we should be listening to get that information so we have to know. We had an all the stator in terms of sharing though we sell over a hundred thousand items today and I just give you a sense. Scot: [39:42] Are you limited by the time of anything since 90 seconds there's only so many things you like so many slow. Ashvin: [39:50] One the middle the night there's less people on the side there's like less people on the app. Scot: [39:53] Like let's say there's 10 people on at anyone given second do they they all see the same thing going for 9 year to you now start just going to say there's some point where it starts to make sense to show some audience maybe a ring and another people at electronic item. Ashvin: [40:07] Right so ever so there's there's a everybody has a different sort experience so you can sort down and see you could do that access to everything. But it was me different place in this world so it's personalized to the person the information we have they said about the person based on what's available at this very moment. Scot: [40:25] So you can go broader category and get more personalized and leverage those 90 seconds it seems like. I going deeper would be good too because you know a lot of sellers I've talked to you the kind of have these fees opportunities to. They don't see no volume come in there from you which is like where these deal platforms gets these really crazy great prices. Ashvin: [40:46] We can sell things in volume to it just won't part of the Beauty from my buyer respective is that if you don't win right now you don't know when that's going to come up again. And people in by arbovirus and set reminders on certain items so even if they don't win it right now will send the notification the next time it comes up and sometimes the next time it comes up is in the next hour sometimes it. Scot: [41:05] Never lose our kind of you know to notify them cuz I've expressed interest yeah for the show it the first thing. Ashvin: [41:10] Exactly exactly so so we do we are able to sell things in volume but it isn't this really happen like in the same 90 seconds. Scot: [41:17] What what categories do you want to add the most. Ashvin: [41:20] Your work cited going to break into apparel for us like we find that. We think that the experience that we have or what we're trying to cater to a broad mass-market audience but our audience today is limited by the supply that we do sell so a few years ago we were only selling jewelry, and our audience is 90% women. I'm now we're selling a lot of electronics in her audience is closer to 6040 male female because there is something for guys to buy and sell. I'm excited like break into apparel and a bunch of other categories shoes. Scot: [41:56] Pro tip hair extensions so hair. Ashvin: [42:00] 10% for you guys. Scot: [42:01] Go to hair extensions of the number one seller on AliExpress and it's like crazy volumes there's something about the price point in quality of imported from China hair extensions Jason's more of an expert than I am. Ashvin: [42:13] I got high. Scot: [42:16] It's all about the weave I think you should definitely look at this hair extensions. Ashvin: [42:24] We saw a lot of drunks video. Scot: [42:24] So drones are second only to two hair extensions. Ashvin: [42:30] And I also tried to break in international markets so today were were 85% based in the US we think in many ways the business and be a lot more interesting outside the US. Jason: [42:45] Very interesting is a trance personalized at all I can like do you use what you know about the user to decide what gets merchandise on that home page. Ashvin: [42:54] Yeah we so so there's there's a set of items is available to everybody that's that is on the app at this given moment but we stored it based on the information that we have about you. I didn't know if it's you bid on a lot of electronics items you're probably see Electronics items do kind of times that are available you probably see sword at the top so we do our best to personalize it in that way. We make decisions about the demand that we're seeing today in the supply that we have available we're also. At Ross magnesia know what from that pool we should be listening to sell at this given moment in time. Jason: [43:31] Well this is been super fascinating as men we really appreciate you coming on and talking to us, but it does happen again we've used up all that a lot of time so blisters want to continue the conversation we encourage you to jump over to our Facebook page and if you enjoy Today Show please jump on the iTunes give us that 5-star review and then you can download, tophatter from there. Scot: [43:53] Yeah and obviously people should go in and try the platform do you do you publish stuff online where can people find you online if they're interested in learning more. Ashvin: [44:01] Yeah you can that you can find us on our Facebook page fault on Twitter. Where are we have a were active on medium so we're publishing content everywhere we're also we're also watching it national TV campaign also so we're about to roll out a pretty big TV ad campaigns of silver, TV channel near you too. Scot: [44:21] Congrats I'll be fun I look forward to. Jason: [44:23] Going to star in the first. Ashvin: [44:25] Yes absolutely. Scot: [44:27] Just can you give listeners a little preview of a little little sneak peek. Ashvin: [44:33] Yeah I think the world were appealing to the folks that want to have a fun experience shopping and so. Scot: [44:41] Awesome watching NBA jerseys. Ashvin: [44:43] Not yet. Scot: [44:44] Okay well we really appreciate you joining us I know you've been really busy here at the show out recruiting sellers for the platform so we really appreciate take your time. Ashvin: [44:53] Thank you Jason thanks God. Jason: [44:55] Until next time happy Commercing.

“Fix my kid.” is a set up for failure. The kid is not broken, the system is broken and parents need support to rebuild the system. Join Kevin Petersen and Aaron Huey of Firemountain Residential Treatment Programs as they discuss what "fix my kid" actually is about. Kevin Petersen, MA, LMFT was born and raised in Palo Alto, CA. Kevin graduated from Palo Alto High School and enrolled at The University of Southern California in 1982. After living in the south of Spain and working on a farm as a tractor driver in 1983, he came back to USC and graduated in 1994 with a degree in Social Sciences and moved to Denver, CO in 1995. Kevin had a successful career in sales and marketing and then in 2008 he enrolled in the Masters of Marriage and Family Therapy program at Regis University and was part of the first class that graduated from that program in 2011. He then spent three and a half years working at Arapahoe Douglas Mental Health Network as an in home therapist, case manager, crisis evaluator and outpatient therapist for Child and Family Services, he also worked part time for The Bridge House, ADMHN’s Acute Treatment Unit, as a Mental Health Technician and Counselor. Kevin opened his private practice, Petersen Family Counseling, in 2014 and specializes in working with families and individuals struggling with addictions, codependency, and parenting.https://petersenfamilycounseling.com/

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/philosophy-young-corrupting-or-empowering. Socrates was executed for corrupting the youth. In America, youth below college age are usually not exposed to philosophy in the classroom. Is philosophy all that dangerous? Should it be taught to teenagers? Or would this lead to a generation of self-absorbed and skeptical young people, shirking their duties in order to worry about the meaning of life? Ken and John are joined by Jack Bowen, author of "The Dream Weaver" and "If You Can Read This: The Philosophy of Bumper Stickers," for a program recorded with a live audience of young philosophers at Palo Alto High School.

Being a teacher superstar isn’t easy, especially when you’re driven by a vision to help out kids, but are a loner in your school in regards to the way you feel. Esther Wojcicki, an American journalist, educator, and vice chair of the Creative Commons board of directors, is a firm example of one of those superstars. From her journalism classroom at Palo Alto High School in California, she has gained a reputation for being one of the foremost thinkers on education and technology. But even Esther knows that working alone and striving alone aren't as effective as joining together, and as such, she recently published a book entitled "Moonshots in Education". The book covers digital and online learning in the classroom and what it takes to make a "moonshot," or those superstar examples of teachers and schools. She interviews quite a number of moonshots--and so we decided to talk to Esther, the moonshot herself, to go more in-depth on what truly make a successful blended environment.

A live recording of our Keynote Panel from our Davis Superintendent Summit. Panelists: Richard Culatta, head of the Office of Educational Technology for the Department of Education; Michael Horn, co-founder of the Christensen Institute and author of the book "Blended;" and Esther Wojcicki, award-winning Journalism and English teacher at Palo Alto High School. This panel was moderated by EdSurge's CEO Betsy Corcoran

I this segment we explore the need to amplify teacher voice and teacher leadership in education policy decisions. Follow: @CohenD @phylis_hoffman @NancyFlanagan @bodymindchild @bamradionetwork #echat #teachers #edreform Phylis Hoffman is a NBCT 2nd grade teacher at Harry Bridges Span School in Wilmington, CA. She spent 10 years out of the classroom as a categorical program advisor and literacy coach. David B. Cohen is a NBCT at Palo Alto High School in California. A veteran of multiple teacher leadership projects, he is currently on leave from his teaching position, traveling around California to work on a writing project about public schools and teachers. Nancy Flanagan is a retired teacher, with 31 years as a K-12 Music specialist in the Hartland, Michigan schools. Flanagan is co-founder of the Network of Michigan Educators and her blog, Teacher in a Strange Land, is featured on Education Week's Teacher division.

I this segment we explore the need to amplify teacher voice and teacher leadership in education policy decisions. Follow: @CohenD @phylis_hoffman @NancyFlanagan @bodymindchild @bamradionetwork #echat #teachers #edreform Phylis Hoffman is a NBCT 2nd grade teacher at Harry Bridges Span School in Wilmington, CA. She spent 10 years out of the classroom as a categorical program advisor and literacy coach. David B. Cohen is a NBCT at Palo Alto High School in California. A veteran of multiple teacher leadership projects, he is currently on leave from his teaching position, traveling around California to work on a writing project about public schools and teachers. Nancy Flanagan is a retired teacher, with 31 years as a K-12 Music specialist in the Hartland, Michigan schools. Flanagan is co-founder of the Network of Michigan Educators and her blog, Teacher in a Strange Land, is featured on Education Week's Teacher division.

Join Lynda Weinman, co-founder of lynda.com, as she interviews Esther Wojcicki aka the “WOJ” and discusses the adaptive classroom and her innovative approaches to teaching journalism at Palo Alto High School in ways that have not only transformed students’ learning but her own teaching methods. Several of Esther’s students at Palo Alto High School will join us in this lively and highly interactive Connect session.