Tell anyone in Silicon Valley that you’re stuck for startup ideas and they’ll probably shrug and say: “Just scratch your own itch.” In other words, if your foot is tingling, you don’t need to wait for Apple or Google to sharpen their nails. You can innovate by solving that problem…

“Did you bake the cookies?” He asked her. Deena Shakir was one of the few female partners at Google’s venture capital arm, GV, at the time. She was hosting a high-profile meeting that brought together various C-suite officers from major Fortune 500 companies, GV partners, and portfolio executives. She was…

Hamdi Ulukaya came to the U.S. and wrinkled his nose. This stuff is disgusting, he thought. It’s like eating water. Ulukaya had grown up in Erzincan, a Turkish city enclosed by snowcapped mountains. He lived with his family on a dairy farm, where his mother would make yogurt fresh. …

Let’s start with the word “underdog.” In 43 AD, the Romans invaded Britain. Both sides brought gleaming swords, raging spirits, and fighting dogs to the battlefield. The war instilled a fascination for fighting dogs in the Romans. …

It was 1955. A boy was born in San Francisco to a single mother. She requested an adoption for him soon after, and he was placed with a husband and wife in the area, neither of whom had a college education. The mother protested but the couple promised to pay…

In 1916, a man named Joe Gould came to New York City. He slept in doorways, hung out in diners, and took a shower every now and then. He always wore the same garments. If someone gave him new clothes, he would throw the old ones out. …

This one is for all the procrastinators out there. If you’re anything like me, you always wait until the last minute to find gifts. But you still want the gifts to come on time, be affordable, and support small businesses and creators. My mom always says you can’t have everything…

If you’ve ever tried to reason with a screaming baby, you’ll know what most design thinkers know: some problems are plain wicked. In design jargon, “Wicked Problems” (a term coined by theorist Horst Rittel) refers to problems that are multi-dimensional, hard to solve, and require collaboration.