Every episode of Law & Order has the same structure. The first half follows the police who investigate a crime, and the second half depicts the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. This predictable formula has produced one of the most successful television shows of all time. Law & Order, …
Decision Making
The tyranny of convenience
The Director’s Chair is one of my favorite TV shows. In each episode, director Robert Rodriguez interviews filmmakers about their craft. Learning about the creative process of brilliant directors helps inform my own approach to writing and storytelling. In one episode, for example, Quentin Tarantino explains why he decided to …
Why I’m leaving academia
First, some great news: Think Like a Rocket Scientist was just selected as an Amazon Top 20 Book of 2020 in three categories: non-fiction, business and leadership, and science. Following the book’s launch, I’ve appeared on dozens of podcasts. There’s a question that I’m often asked during podcast interviews: “Is …
The email that changed my life
To send or not to send? That was the question swirling through my mind as I sat in front of my computer as a 17-year-old high school senior in Istanbul. The cursor was blinking at the end of an email I had just typed up to a professor at Cornell, …