My dad played junior college basketball, and he always showed me clips of Michael Jordan.


My co-founder Dylan Smith and I left our junior year of college to move to the Bay Area. To the horror of our friends' parents, we actually had two other friends drop out of college to work on the product. The four of us were just working non-stop growing Box.

You will be courteous to your elders who have explored to the point from which you may advance; and helpful to your juniors who will progress farther by reason of your labors.

I was born in Evanston, Illinois. I spent my elementary and part of my junior high school years in a D.C. suburb. And then I spent my high school years in Minnesota. And then I spent my college years in Colorado. And then I spent some time living in China. And then I spent three years in Vermont before moving down to Nashville.

It's interesting how there are a few times in your life when you get to reinvent yourself. Like the beginning of junior high or high school, and certainly when you go off to college.

When I really discovered who God was and had a firm relationship with him my junior year of college, I journaled constantly. All day long. I had boxes of journals. They were really just love letters to God, just thanking him and praying out loud and telling him my desires.

By high school, I was telling everyone, 'Oh, I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up,' because my dad was always saying to me, 'Pick a career path where you're always going to be necessary.' But by junior year, I was president of choir, I was the lead in the school play, and I just loved being onstage performing.

I'm an architect. Before you start pouring the concrete, you build a foundation that is solid so that when you take the scaffolding down, it holds - forever. So that when junior high schools are doing 'Hunchback,' a 12-year-old as Frollo still works on some level.

I was painfully shy, and I had tremendous difficulty making friends. So, lacking friends, I watched other people. Watching is something all writers must do, and it was in junior high that I learned to do it.