Growing up, my dad owned a restaurant in Washington, DC, and food was something I was passionate about. But when I finally got into it, I felt like it was so late in the game; that's why I worked seven days a week at Craft and Mercer Kitchen. I wanted to see how far I could take it.

Just because something's been good in the past doesn't mean it will continue to be good.

In New York, we're always confined with spaces. Our restaurants are difficult to navigate as cooks and to operate. We fight against the buildings we run in New York.

If you're going to be a vegetarian, limit yourself to food from a place you can go to in two hours and just eat that.

I guess I always had made some assumptions about what it would be like to work in a tech company, and some were right, and some were wrong. I had a lot of, looking back on it, now naive ideas about how companies build their brands, and a lot of those notions I ended up realizing were kind of wrong.

I was really lucky to have been raised in this really powerful matriarchy where my dad was around, but I was with my mom and my grandma most of the time. They were heavy influences on me. My mother has a career in technology; my grandma sold real estate.

When I started in the mid-'90s, the goal was really to shoot for a film career and stay there.

My mom had me when she was 25, and I'm 28 now, and just to even imagine myself three years ago starting to have children and be married and have my career, it's pretty trippy, and I'm so proud and kind of in awe of her.