If you invest the time earlier to create structure and process around communication, planning, and goal-setting, you can prevent missteps before they occur.

As a society, we're failing. In so many ways. Such high incarceration rates of underrepresented minorities ultimately means we're missing out on great potential from black and Latino communities. Yes, there's immense talent brewing even within the most impoverished neighborhoods. Talent is universal, but opportunity is not.

There are huge pain points experienced by parents. It's hard to find good child care options in one place. It's hard figure out things to do with your kids on the weekends or after school. It's hard to find iPad apps for your kids that you are confident are helping them learn vs. just being entertained.

Breaking down barriers is tough. Many companies make the mistake of dismissing diversity early on, only to realize later how foundational it is to their success or failure.

I came from a poor family, so working and going to school at the same time was natural. It taught me multi-tasking, although we didn't call it that back then. I learned I could never be idle, I need to be doing many things at once.

It's difficult to find a genuine weakness that makes you appear competent. For instance, telling your interviewer that your weakness is working so hard that you have trouble prioritizing your family life is a little too cliche and comes across as disingenuous.

I'm kind of a reluctant Anglophile. My mother's a children's librarian, and all of the children's literature I read was from her childhood - E. Nesbit and Dickens, which isn't children's literature at all, but I was sort of steeped in English literature. I thought I was of that world.

I didn't have a very religious family.