Difficult conversations are common, whether in your personal life or your work life. Establishing boundaries kindly and respectfully can take practice, and delivering tough feedback needs to be personalized for every person. Similar to Mckinsey’s OILS framework, here’s how I approach them:

After interviewing for many levels at Dropbox, including ones above my level, across disciplines, and for nearly every aspect of Vsho, I’ve only heard a few really great answers to the most common, introductory interview question: “Tell me about yourself”.

I think one of the biggest myths in tech is the myth of the MVP. The MVP gives a team a goal to rally around, but it sets unrealistic expectations of what the product will continue to be. An MVP implies that the product will be successful, and won’t need a lot more work or maintenance. When teams rally around an MVP and the MVP is not the successful version of that product, those team members are left with feelings of failure, disappointment, and burn out.

It is so important to me to find a career and life path that are rewarding. I’m motivated by many things: helping people, money, collecting new experiences, being relevant and making important decisions, solving difficult problems, and so on. I have twice as many interests, including environmentalism, improving education, improving healthcare, psychology, athletics, social justice.

I chose to study math and computer science such that I didn’t have to pick too early which interest to follow, as I believe math and computer science prepares people well to solve complex problems. I also chose them because math and computer science were incredibly fun departments at Stanford, as they were collaborative, creative, and stretched my problem-solving abilities. However, I’m lucky that the departments that I found the most fun also complement what I want to do with my life.

After finishing what is really my second accounting course, I can say that I finally understand the framework behind accounting.