Story in a Bottle

The challenge of totally changing your career path after dedicating years to one industry is immense in and of itself. But to do it due to the emotional toll the first one took on you is at another level. Cheryl Wischhover started off her career as a pediatric oncology nurse for 15 years - seeing just how brutal the impact of cancer can be on a daily basis. Today, she is the Senior Beauty Reporter...

"Politics" should be John Knefel's middle name. Growing up in a Iowa, a swing state, he understood the political world at a very young age, an that has stuck with him to today. At age 35, he has used his passion for politics as a throughline through the different careers he's already had. Starting his career with stand-up comedy in New York right after college in the midwest, he parlayed that into...

Tennis has always been a passion for Caitlin Thompson, and now she is able to hone in on that passion with her own magazine, Racquet. From a young age, she knew being on the tennis court and telling stories were two things that just came natural to her. She continued those two natural feelings by playing tennis for the University of Missouri, which also happens to be one of the best journalism sch...

Growing up in the Albanian community of New York, Ilir Sela was poised to continue the age-old tradition of owning and operating a local pizza shop. But simply following suit was not enough, and, as he grew and advanced in his technical skills, Ilir became the go-to in the community for all things IT related, starting with websites and online ordering, but later realizing the shifting needs of the...

It goes without saying that the more connected we've become - the world, and the events reported around it, have changed; with information traveling the fastest it ever has, the role of storytellers has evolved and there's nothing that stands in the way of telling the goings on from every which end. And still, while the world continues to get "smaller," it's becoming continually challenging to kno...

It's safe to say that while the entertainment industry is so ingrained in our daily lives, it's inner workings and the lives of those in it are elusive to most. Over drinks at Fool's Gold, Michael Cerveris gave us a glimpse behind the scenes including all of the exciting, high parts of his career: headlining a banner Broadway show, winning Tonys, making breakthroughs in television. However he also...

Jennifer Wright began her career - with a passion and innate skill for writing - and during a time when content on the web was hitting critical mass, allowing personality and perspective to shine through unlike any time before. She boasts experience with publishing powerhouses like the New York Post, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour - as well as authored her own acclaimed books. We caught up with Jennife...

Ben Hill was a student not unlike many others; getting into school and choosing a path that seemed to make sense and not questioning why. It'd only make sense that when he graduated from Pitt with a degree in Communications he was left wondering what to do next. Over Teeling whisky at Fool's Gold, Ben talks about the roundabout path he took to get to where he is today - the voice of an important a...

When Kristen Hawley set out to create her newsletter, Chefs + Tech, she had years of publishing and tech experience under her belt (spending time at Hearst, Pop Sugar, and Twitter in her early days). As such, as a founder, she always dreamt C+T would be part of a bigger editorial platform and, as of a year ago, that dream was becoming a reality. Joining us for the second time in the Charming Robot...

Anthony Batt, Co-Founder & Executive Vice President of VR company Wevr, obviously spends much of his time thinking about future innovations. However, it's this curiosity that has been a driving force through much of his life and career - leading to the creation of products like Craigslist, Buzznet, and Thrash Lab, amongst others. Over La Croix Pure in his amazing office - former home to Dennis Hop...

Christina Heller is the Chief Development Officer of VR Playhouse, a creative production studio based in LA which is dedicated to creating great content for virtual reality experiences; a company she co-founded in 2014. It's an industry she's found by way of her love of storytelling, with a background in theater, political journalism radio, and documentary filmmaking. Over micheladas, Christina sh...

Ben Jackson has made a career in tech from figuring things out on his own. He got an early start with technology - tinkering around and teaching himself different coding languages - which lead to a series of IT jobs and the rest is history. Over beers at Fool's Gold in NYC we learned how those humble beginnings were just the start of a path in entrepreneurship, how he's evolved his role throughout...

As VC who invests in early stage companies - Adi Levanon of Symmetrical Ventures embraces the opportunity to help grow companies from the ground up. In fact, growing up in Silicon Valley with visionary-type parents, she was poised from an early age to enter the industry. However, she attributes a lot of her success to her time living in Israel, serving in the military, and later becoming a lawyer....

Alexander Reyna is the Creative Director, Games and VR at MLB Advanced Media - whose primary role is to help bring to life the most innovative ways to put baseball content into the hands of its passionate fans. It's a role that suits him well, as it intersects his entrepreneurial spirit and his design background, dreaming up big ideas and solutions as technology evolves. However, the road to get t...

Emily White is the co-founder of Dreamfuel and Whitesmith, two companies helping musicians and athletes achieve their goals. However, she began her professional career as a competitive swimmer. Born into a family of athletes, it only made sense that Emily attempt a stint in the pool but, when her interests deviated to the music world, she resourcefully used her competitive career as a springboard...

Phillip Bowden has spent over the last decade entrenched in the world of tech; arguably the most evolutionary period in the industry's history. What's more, he's experienced its growth from several key vantage points. From his earliest experience with computers - by way of tinkering around on a household PC he wasn't supposed to - he essentially dove into the field in early development roles at Go...

When Jess Brown got her start with computers she spent her time designing for fun and trolling chat rooms online - seemingly a world away from a career in the then fledgling user experience industry. In fact, it was her love of math and the practical application of it at Stanford University that set her in motion. Over an Aperol Spritz, Jess tells us about those early days in a nascent industry, h...

Khayyam Wakil boasts a career with an unbelieveable trajectory - all thanks his ability to identify and capitalize on trends. From Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, he rose to Twitter fame in the early 2000s, but what he didn't know at the time was that his lighthearted exercise in gaming the platform would actually lead to true social influence. Over Malopas (mezcal palomas), he explains just how...

Bianca Bosker is a journalist and nonfiction author whose body of work truly runs the gamut; from bowling to covering tech for HuffPo and spending a decade plus becoming an expert in Chinese "duplitecture" and beyond - it's a career that appears to have no rhyme or reason. However, over Sage Beers at Fool's Gold she helps explain the method to her madness - that, as a storyteller, she's found true...

In the startup community - from founders to investors to customers and employees - the first question that should be asked is "does this product solve a real problem?" Enter Preston Pesek, the founder of Spacious, a coworking company that aims to answer "yes" to solving not one, but two problems in major cities. Over Micheladas, Preston describes the painstaking process he took to identify and sol...

Often times in our increasingly divided and contentious society, for better or worse, comedy is the only and best way to actually be heard. It's something that Beth Newell and Sarah Pappalardo, co-founders of Reductress.com, know first hand. Dubbed the " the one and only fake women's news magazine" - through its satirical content -  Reductress aims to raise awareness of feminist issues. Over Bell'...

Sutian Dong, Partner at Female Founder's Fund has spent much of her career in the Venture space - getting her start in Business School at NYU Stern and early experience at First Mark Capital thereafter. However, it's a path that was not always so clearly defined for her. Over mezcal at Fool's Gold, she explains her unique process of elimination in pursuing this direction, how it ended up getting h...

Jacob Lewis spent much of his early career in publishing - at the helm of the New Yorker and Conde Nast - during one of the most transitional times in the industry's history. It was a vantage point that revealed a bird's eye view of evolving processes and the eccentricities of staff - and ultimately the folly in flailing and dying publishing behemoths. It's an experience that inspired him to do an...

With the major growth of the tech industry it's never been easier to become a specialist; from hardware to software, design and development, bootcamps and formal degrees there are no shortage of avenues to take to lead you into your career. This is much different than the opportunities Brad Lauster had when his passion for technology began - as he worked his way from the ground up copying printed...

Jo Piazza is an award-winning journalist and writer - known for her approach to covering the behind the scenes perspectives of the world's most taboo or inaccessible topics. From fiction to non- she's explored a lot of unchartered territory; the world of celebrity endorsements to the elusive lives of nuns and the leaders of a nascent tech industry, and most recently behind the closed doors of marr...