Blog


megan
  • December 1, 2015

Twitter and Megan Phelps-Roper

This is such an incredible story of how Megan Phelps-Roper, a former prized daughter of the loathsome Westboro Baptist Church, came to see the absurdity of her beliefs, lost her faith, left the church and her family, and completely changed the course of her life. The trigger behind this conversion? Twitter. As Phelps-Roper continued to tweet, she […]

happiness
  • February 14, 2015

Hacking Happiness

True happiness comes from within. I believe true happiness comes from living with a core set of values you’ve chosen for yourself and then ensuring each of your actions, all day, stems from these values. At the end of the day you can ask yourself if you lived in accordance with your values. If you did, […]

business
  • November 4, 2014

Life Lessons from a 90 Year Old

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good. 2. When in doubt, just take the next small step. 3. Life is too short – enjoy it.. 4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will. 5. Pay off your credit cards every month. 6. You don’t have […]

753c7f6e-00ae-431d-a93c-816f5017f097
  • July 30, 2014

The Technology – A Talk by Paul Buchheit

Great talk by Paul Buchheit, creator and lead developer of Gmail. We often sweat life’s big decisions, but it’s the little decisions that matter the most — the ones we make thousands of times a day, often without even realizing it. The big decisions are the inevitable result of those small decisions. They steered the […]

sydney
  • June 2, 2014

Hello there, Sydney

Arrived to a sunny winter in Sydney. Hi there, new life. I have also started a “A Photo A Day” project on Tumblr as a keepsake of our lives in Sydney. My goal is to keep this up and alive for at least 365 days. #determined http://yilinghwong.tumblr.com/  

indian
  • March 5, 2014

The Indian Sanitary Pad Revolution

This story is so inspiring! A school dropout from a poor family in southern India has revolutionised menstrual health for rural women in developing countries by inventing a simple machine they can use to make cheap sanitary pads. His wife left him, people in his village scorned him, and then his own mother left him. […]

moon
  • February 22, 2014

Reach for the Moon

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are […]

inequality
  • February 11, 2014

Philanthropy by the Wealthiest

Fact: The richest eighty-five people in the world have the same combined wealth as the poorest half of the population. (source: Oxfam report) With wealth distribution so perversely skewed, does philanthropy by the most affluent among us make up for the negative consequences of inequality? Peter Buffet, Warren Buffet’s son, wrote: As more lives and […]

interview
  • February 7, 2014

The Only Interview Question that Matters

“What single project or task would you consider your most significant accomplishment in your career to date?” And some follow-up questions: What were the 3-4 biggest challenges you faced and how did you deal with them? Where did you go the extra mile or take the initiative? Walk me through the plan, how you managed […]

startups
  • February 6, 2014

Writing a Startup Post-mortem

This topic seems to be all I read about these days. It could very well be that I am just noticing it more because of my current state of mind. But it does seem that entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly transparent about their journey to failure. ‘My startup tanked’: Why more entrepreneurs are being open about […]

The DWYL-inspired apartment of designer Jessica Walsh.
  • January 30, 2014

Do What You Love?

  Interesting piece in Slate.com: In the Name of Love DWYL is a secret handshake of the privileged and a worldview that disguises its elitism as noble self-betterment. […] DWYL is, in fact, the most perfect ideological tool of capitalism. If we acknowledged all of our work as work, we could set appropriate limits for […]

inequality
  • January 29, 2014

Exceptionalism

When second chances are only handed to the exceptional few, it exacerbates inequality and creates resentment. We are witnessing this more often than we care to admit: Ivy leagues, Wall Street and increasingly, Silicon Valley. William Deresiewicz, a former Yale faculty member, explains the difference in culture between elite private schools and more open public […]