Videostories⁷⁴⁹¹

Frans von der Dunk

“I’m working in a field of activities that is constantly developing. Every few months a new development happens and as a lawyer you need to think about that from different perspective.” As a Professor of Space Law Frans von der Dunk is teaching and educating classes. Often, when he’s got some time on his hands, he does some research on that field as well. “In term of soft skills you need to be open minded and be able to openly discuss philosophy and culture with professors from all over the world.”

Sue "Smix" Lee

“Pay closer attention to the people that matter. There are friends that you have right now and that you’re gonna have for the rest of your life.” This is, what Sue “Smix” Lee wants her 14-year-old self to consider when growing up. As an eSports Host and Twitch employee she travels a lot, which is one of the coolest parts of her job: “It’s cool to not only visit all these countries but to see the different kinds of fans.”

Victoria "Dinglederper"

“Don’t care about what other people say about you.” Victoria “Dinglederper” got bullied for playing and was afraid to tell anybody about her fascination of playing video games, when she was 14 years old. One limitation of her job as a Twitch Streamer is the amount of working time: “People think that it’s just easy, but there’s a lot of work behind the scenes.”

Lesley Rusca

“Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do something, because you can always do something, no matter what it is.” This is one piece of advice Lesley Rusca would tell her 14-year-old self. The coolest part of her job as a Wedding Coordinator at A Little White Wedding Chapel? “When people come back for their 50-year-anniversaries and bring their children, their grandchildren and their entire families.”

Bobak Ferdowsi

”My favorite technical aspect is honestly the fact that I always get to learn new things.” Bobak Ferdowsi, NASA's "Mohawk Guy", works as a System Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. What he likes on his job is that his ”workplace is also a community.” He enjoys the technical stuff but “what makes everyday exciting to be there is the fact that these people are such a pleasure to work with.”

Steli Efti

“Knowing that we make a difference in many amazing companies around the world is definitely the coolest thing in my job.” Efti Steli is CEO of The Close.io, his company helps their business partners to learn and profit from their software, blog and content. The important thing for him is to “care about the quality of what you do and the people you work with.”

Alessandro Cante

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

Michelle Li

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

Sean Patrick Butler

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

William Grundfest

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

Charlotte Han

“The really cool thing about my job is: I can work everywhere!”, Charlotte Han tells about the upsides, which include that she’s allowed to move to Europe without giving up her job as a Digital Marketing Analyst at SAP. “I collect data from a lot of differences sources”, she explains further and: “I gather all the data and I try to figure out the trend."

Steve Aitken

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

Erica Greve

“One of the things we say to the 27 million people trapped in slavery is ‘We are coming for you’.” tells Erica Greve, Founder and CEO of Unlikely Heroes, a nonprofit organization, that rescues kids out of sex slavery. Her powerful advice to her 14-year-old self: “Just live in the moment and allow yourself to be there because if you’re always pushing towards the next moment, you won’t enjoy the actual time you have.”

Renaud Visage

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

Kyle "Beef" Bautista

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

Casey McNeil

“Solving a mass of problems, that hardly anybody had heard about“, is for Casey McNeil, Co-Founder and CEO, REEcycle Inc., the coolest thing about his job, where he tries to find partners to recycle rare earth metals mainly from electronic devices. But within the company there are also some limitations: “You have to keep the team envolved, you have to keep everybody on track as you continue the scale.“

Marcello Schermer

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

Ame Elliott

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

Cindy Alvarez

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

Julie Lorch

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

David Charron

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

Sangbae Kim

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

Gina O'Reilly

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

Seth Goldstein

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

Dirk Ahlborn

“Bad experiences and good experiences are necessary.” Dirk Ahlborn is convinced, that he did everything right by the age of 14 to become the person who he is now – someone who has a vision and is pursuing it. The limitations of his job as a CEO of Hyperloop are the long hours of travelling and the little private life he has: “It’s not easy to be an Entrepreneur when you have family. It’s very hard to combine those two things.”

Gil Penchina

“I would probably tell myself not to worry that much about grades, because it turned out that they didn’t matter.” If Gil Penchina had a time machine, this would be one piece of advice he would tell his 14-year old self. What matters a lot more is to meet and talk to people which is now the coolest thing about his job as an Angel Investor at AngelList: “I get to meet really interesting people and I learn a ton from listening to their ideas.”

Brendan Paul

“My job is to dance around and to make people happy.” Brendan Paul is Elvis Imitator at Graceland Wedding Chapel. He has been working in the entertainment business for about twenty years now. In his job it is important “to be nice to people and to make them laugh and feel good.”

Easton LaChappelle

“We use technology in a positive way.” Easton LaChappelle is CEO of Unlimited Tomorrow. His job is about creating roboters, which have a great impact on people’s lifes. His dream started when he was about 14 years old: “At this age I had no kind of a concept about software, electronics or mechanics, so I started to teach myself from the internet.”

Joy Chen

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

Elisabeth Oberndorfer

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

Gretchen Tibbits

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

Brendan Eich

“What I like most is recruiting people onto the team and see them grow.” As a CEO and Software Technologist Brendan Eich’s daily business varies a lot from day to day. His position as CEO combines a lot of tasks such as fundraising, speaking, travelling and focusing on the main goals. He is also involved in the process of implementing improvements on the system. Is his background needed for his position? “We are trying to move mountains and for that you need experience. You need to understand the needs of the customers.”

Carla Rivera

“We will help clients to move from a current state to a future state. We will help with the transition having the people always in the middle”, tells Carla Rivera about her job as an Engagement Manager for Future State, a management consulting company. “What I love about my job is to be part of something that’s bigger than the job itself.”

Mario Herger

“Das Coolste an meinem Job ist, dass ich tolle Leute treffe, die wirklich die Welt verändern wollen. Das sind Leute die Ideen haben, die die coolen Dinge machen und die wirklich daran glauben, auch wenn es extrem schwer ist das zu machen, gegen alle Widerstände drüber zu kommen. Das ist etwas extrem inspirierendes für mich” erzählt Mario Herger, CEO und Autor. Seinem 14-jährigen Ich rät er: “Versuche möglichst rasch etwas zu finden und darüber nachzudenken, was du in der Welt verbessern möchtest. Also nicht immer nur überlegen wie macht man viel Geld, wie macht man viel Kohle, das macht letztendlich nicht glücklich."