Life at KA

This week’s KA spotlight is on….Elizabeth Slavitt!  

She was voted to Forbes' 30 under 30, is blazingly smart, and will tackle any challenge that comes her way...but talking to her, you'll notice a humble human being (and get distracted by her wonderfully curly hair and sarcastic wit). 

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Traveling somewhere I've never been with people I really love.

  What is your greatest fear?

Inertia, stagnation, an unexamined life.

  What is your greatest extravagance?

It's-its.

  What is your most marked characteristic?

I'm pretty earnest, though sometimes people can't tell if I'm being super earnest or super sarcastic. And I have really curly hair, which is useful for finding me in a crowd.

  What do you most value in your friends?

On Wednesdays we wear pink.

  What is your motto?

This week’s KA spotlight is on… James Irwin!

James joined us in 2011 and helped build the first version of our internal content management tools—these days, you'll find him taking care of our international sites (Spanish, Portuguese, French, and more) to help make sure that the 5+ billion people in the world who don't speak English can get a free education too.

Which historical figure do you most identify with? Richard Feynman. I read Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, and What Do You Care What Other People Think when I was a teenager and I was greatly impressed not just by his intelligence but his basic attitude toward life.

What is your greatest extravagance? All the travel I've done.

What is your favorite journey? This one is tough. Backpacking in Patagonia, epic bus trip from Arusha to Victoria Falls, many various parts of my 6 month honeymoon before starting at KA (Siem Reap, Kilimanjaro, backpacking between villages in Turkey), Outward Bounds I took as a teenager all come to mind, the trip I took when I was 20 where I ended up staying at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand (and smuggling in some beer for one of the monks), and then doing a week long hike in Nepal. For now I'll go with a solo trip that I took from the school I taught at in Tanzania to where my sister was staying on the shores of Lake Malawi. It involved a bus trip to the border, sitting on the back of a bike as a guy pedaled the three miles to the border, a minibus up the steep slopes of the mountains on the northern section of Lake Malawi, and sitting in the back of a pickup truck on top of a bunch of sack of rice through the heartland. I don't think I ever felt as free as then.

When and where were you happiest? My second wedding celebration with Lucie (we had 3!) We had rented out small eccentric mountain hotel in Austria where we resaid our vows under a chandelier outdoors hanging from a tree in front of a small group of our friends and family. We stayed the entire weekend there in the place decorated with such things as a lifesize paper-mache astronaut, a gigantic yellow ox, fake chicken feet on the ceiling, and a rickshaw, and a picture of the last supper where all the apostles were mostly naked gay men.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be? When I wanted them closer they would be. My in-laws are in Germany, my one sister and my two nieces are in Vienna, and my other sister, my mom, and my three nephews are in Budapest. This I normally consider to be a safe healthy distance, but at other times I wish they were closer and I could just pop on over to see them.

This week’s KA spotlight is on… Kitt Hirasaki!

This week's spotlight is on one of our designers, Kitt, who has worked on building out Khan Academy's community features and getting teachers the info they need about their students. Kitt is currently working on building free, world-class test prep for the new SAT. In the afternoons, you might find him hosting a chocolate and beer tasting or improv session for the office, but on game nights you'll often find him playing a mean game of Coup, poker, or Bang! (pictured).

Where are you using your growth mindset? I'm always working to help my daughters develop growth mindsets, encouraging them to practice and persist. It's come easily for one daughter and not the other, but I'm using a meta growth mindset about promoting her growth mindset. I'm also using a growth mindset to push myself to be the best father I can, pushing myself to find patience when I feel frustration, and setting aside what I want for my children so I can support them for what they need instead.

I'm also using a growth mindset to continuously improve my design skills. I used it last weekend to start to overcome my past failures with hula-hooping, and I'm using it to improve my first-person-shooter player-vs-player skills, where my kill:killed ratio is currently about 1:10.

What are your favorite names? When my wife was pregnant with our first child, we each made lists of names for the baby. "Adelaide" was the one that appeared on both my wife's and my lists. A bit of insight into what I wanted to project onto my child, but I also had the names Cordelia, Beatrix, and Maeve on my list. For a boy, we could only agree on one name, and it's pretty unusual: Tasman. Nickname "Taz." (My wife's an Australia-phile.) Feel free to use them for your children!

This week’s KA spotlight is on… Rishi Desai!

Rishi works connecting people to quality information about health and medicine. In addition to his work at Khan Academy on creating medical content, he is currently a pediatric infectious disease physician and previously spent two years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If you're ever interested in venturing more into the medical world, check out our health and medicine content to see some of Rishi's work for yourself.

What is your greatest fear? Raccoons! The fear started when I was living in SF about 10 years ago and I would occasionally come across a pack of them while taking out the trash. They're clever, roam in packs, aggressive, and carry diseases (look up Baylisascaris!). [Editor’s note: do not do this. Or at least don’t Google Image Search it like I did.] My Room 101 would be loaded with these freaky little bandits!

Which talent would you most like to have? If I could have any talent it would be to play a sport really well - either badminton or basketball. I love them both and it would be awesome to play at a really high level.

Where would you like to live? I would love to live in a treehouse, with friends/family living in nearby trees. We would all work from home and spend our free time exploring the forest together. There is a bit of monkey-envy woven into this dream.

Which living person do you most admire? I really admire Jon Stewart. I think that he's a brilliant interviewer/educator/comedian, with an incredible understanding of world issues/politics. It would be a dream to meet him some day.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I hope to become more mindful over time. I often catch myself thinking about the past or the future, and losing sight of "now". I think that's why I love being a pediatrician. Kids are really great at being present. =)

Dylan first started as an intern at Khan Academy in summer 2012, when we were just a couple dozen folks squishing into an older office space in downtown Mountain View. From his California upbringing and UCLA education, he brought a sunny, laidback demeanor with the ability to deliver. We were so happy when he decided to return fulltime, and he continues to bring that level of enthusiasm with him always. He always is excited to tackle the next project and join in the latest social event. From my biased international perspective, I am particularly excited that it was Dylan who first made Khan Academy international pages available, as the last part of his internship - to which we like to tease that he literally brought free education to the world. And this summer, continued this work on the infrastructure for our localized sites like Spanish, Portuguese, and French.  This is only the tip of the iceberg of what makes Dylan so great.  Check out his Khanversation below for more! 

Dylan gets his game on for the annual KIPP Bay Area charter school ping pong tournament

What is your favorite journey?

I have two, deal with it. One is taking 280 North (definitely not 101) from Mountain View up to Santa Rosa, where my family lives. Speeding Driving up 280 on a sunny Saturday morning with the windows down and music blasting always feels so good. My other favorite journey is driving down to LA—not because I love the smell of cow poop in the afternoon, but because it means that I'm about to relive the best parts of college with friends I haven't seen in a while. I get a lot of thinking done on that drive, too. The last time I made that trip, though, I had the brilliant idea to try driving back up to Mountain View without stopping at all. I don't recommend it; 6-ish hours later I pulled into the Chevron on Shoreline with a dangerously empty gas tank and stomach and a dangerously full bladder. But I was so proud of myself.

What is your greatest extravagance?

I love live music and try to catch it every chance I get. This spring and summer I made it to three festivals, a stadium tour, and a couple of other shows. I can't get hearing damage until I'm 26 and married*, right?

When and where were you happiest?

I wouldn't say this makes me the absolute happiest I could possibly ever be, but watching just one episode—literally any episode—of 30 Rock will turn around the foulest of moods for me. That sounds trite, but nothing else does the trick as reliably as 30 Rock (although Portlandia is a runner-up). It's like a magic happiness pill that takes effect in 25 minutes.

What do you most value in your friends?

My best friends don't take themselves too seriously. I'm not always great at this, but I've learned that if you can't laugh at yourself then you're making life a lot harder than it has to be.

What is your motto?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said, "Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent." That idea has been proven to me over and over again and is the only assumption I can safely make about the world. My love of people-watching is probably related to this.

A couple years ago, we named our conference rooms so that we could say "let's meet in _______" with amusing consequences. We found it entertaining, and over the years, it has continued for our visitors and growing team. 

Historical Facebook post commemorating the new conference room names:

When we moved offices and got a few more conference rooms, we added a few more names "Style", "Ventive", "Credible", "Love, "Diana Jones", "Trouble"...you get the point.  Usually, we matched the type of room with the name. For example, "Sync' was the kitchen (in the new office, it's "Digestion"), "Cognito" was a tiny windowless room that we used as a phone booth. "Trouble" is Sal's office, etc.  

Today, in this spirit, an unnamed individual added the latest to this line-up.

This week’s KA spotlight is on…Zach Gotsch!

Zach believes that when everyone is educated, a lot of the world's problems are much easier to fix, so that's one of the driving reasons he ended up as a code wizard with our motley crew at KA. In his free time, he can be found West Coast Swing dancing, climbing rocks and reading books.

Interviewed by Kate Mason

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

A quiet evening in my own library with a good book, a comfy chair, and a cup of tea.

What is your greatest fear?

That the world will take no notice of my existence. That and bees.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Bertrand Russell.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Arrogance/hubris.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Lack of self-awareness.

On what occasion do you lie?

Whenever I think it will improve the world or simplify something without too much negative impact.

What is your greatest regret? Not making more things in college.

  Which talent would you most like to have?

I wish I had a better ear for music.

What is your current state of mind? Restless. It's hard for me to do one thing for very long without something to break it up.

  If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I wish I wasn't so distractible. I have a lot of trouble finishing thi

Where would you like to live?

In an engineered society built around peer-learning and knowledge sharing.

  What is your favorite occupation? Teacher.

  What do you most value in your friends?

Inspiration. I try to surround myself by people who push me to be better.

What are your favorite names? Tristan, Emily, Amelia.

  What is your motto?

No matter what happens, make good art and keep moving forward.

The most empowering idea you can teach: You can learn anything. In 90 seconds: http://t.co/8KBNXbzmcq (incredibly proud of KA today)