Scott Forstall

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Scott Forstall
In 1992, Scott Forstall had just gotten his graduate degree, and lined up interviews with two big tech companies: Microsoft, where he had previously been an intern, and NeXT Computer, the computer startup that Steve Jobs had founded after his ouster from Apple. – A few minutes into Forstall’s job interview at NeXT, Jobs rushed in, pulled his first scheduled interviewer aside,…
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Melanie Perkins

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Melanie Perkins
Melanie Perkins, then 22 and a university drop-out had flown all the way from her home in Perth, Australia, to Palo Alto, California, for the meeting with well-known technology investor Bill Tai. Melanie had read that if you wanted to impress someone you should mimic their body language. So seeking backing for her graphic design website she decided to put the theory…
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Q May Chen

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Q May Chen
Taiwanese woman Q May Chen was given an devastating diagnosis: she had stage 4 breast cancer. This information was particularly heartbreaking for the 29-year-old, as she had triumphantly beat cancer just 2 years prior. Still, Chen was determined to remain in good spirits and not let a terminal illness stop her from living her dreams. So, to celebrate her 30th birthday, she …
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Sara Blakely

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Sara Blakely
Before she became the billionaire founder of shapewear company Spanx, Sara Blakely failed a lot. – She didn’t make it as a standup comedian. She couldn’t become a lawyer like her dad because she failed the LSAT — twice. She even auditioned to play Goofy at Disney World, but because she was shorter than the required 5’8″, they made her a…
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Sophia Amoruso

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Sophia Amoruso
A misfit who grew up hating school, Sophia Amoruso left home at 17, intent on a life of anarchy and getting by for free. She says she received a rude wake-up call one day when she was caught shoplifting (but let off), which she had been doing in order to support her lifestyle. – “I learned the hard way that taking shortcuts…
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Liz Murray

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Liz Murray
Elizabeth “Liz” Murray was born in the Bronx, New York to poor and drug-addicted parents, both of whom would later contract HIV. Some of her earliest memories are of her parents spending their welfare payments on cocaine and heroin when she and her sister were starving. When her father failed to pay the rent on their flat and moved to a homeless…
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Jack Welch

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Jack Welch
Jack Welch says “I blew up a (GE) factory the first year I was there.” I was in mid-twenties then. “I was running a little pilot plant. It all exploded, went to hell.” (Pilot plant refers to testing. He experimented with a new formula and KaBoom.) “I was called to New York because my boss didn’t know me anymore once I had…
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Greta Thunberg

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Greta Thunberg
On August 20, 2018, Thunberg posted a picture of herself sitting outside Sweden’s parliament building, the Riksdag. “We children don’t usually do what you grown-ups tell us to do. We do as you do. And since you don’t give a shit about my future. I don’t give a shit either,” she captioned an image of herself in leopard print trousers and a…
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Abigail Harrison

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Abigail Harrison
There are some kids who continue to breathe life into their childhood dreams until they become a reality. Abigail Harrison, better known as Astronaut Abby, is one of those kids. She said her father gave her a giant book titled, Universe, when she was very young and that it was responsible for initially sparking her imagination about outer space. Her dream is…
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Scott Ginsberg

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Scott Ginsberg
On a dare – or a bet – Scott Ginsberg wore an event nametag over a weekend while at college. It didn’t take long for him to realize how much more often people would approach him. Wearing the nametag made him more approachable and made people more open and friendly. He decided to keep wearing the nametag. Fast forward to a bus…
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