I wrote 'Pumped Up Kicks' when I began to read about the growing trend in teenage mental illness. I wanted to understand the psychology behind it because it was foreign to me.

I was always extremely independent growing up.

There were times when I was terrified to go to school because it felt like a jail sentence.

Culturally, it's really funny to me that people respect the weird guy as an artist. There can be a curmudgeon in the corner with spiders building nests in his hair, and he hasn't bathed for three weeks, but for whatever reason, he's more creative than the guy sitting next to him that's showered and is talking to everybody.

I've long been interested in how technology mediates desire and the way that our phones, an extension of ourselves, foster intimate interactions that feel so personal and deep, despite being relayed through a machine.

Girls Who Code doesn't exist solely to discover the next great female technology icon, although that would be great! In addition to coding, the girls at our program learn to pitch ideas and products, present themselves professionally, and interact with colleagues at every level of a company.

The best value for money in cooking equipment, in my mind, is first a digital scale and digital thermometer. They're both about $20. They help you cook so much more accurately that they're both enormously valuable.

What would the infrastructure of the Internet look like if mass surveillance wasn't its business model?