A Quote by Wendy Kopp

When I started Teach For America, I wasn't trying to come up with an idea that would change the world. I was trying to solve a problem much closer to home: I was a senior in college, and I had no idea what I was going to do with my life!
I'm not trying to amass people in the streets. I just want them to be more aware. So many Americans, for one reason or another, they watch the news and it doesn't really give them the idea of the world. Or they don't read or travel. They have no idea that America is part of the world and not the world itself. And so anything from the travel stories I tell, that's what I'm trying to get across.
When I started Teach For America as a college senior, I sensed that there were thousands of talented, driven college students and recent grads who were searching for a way to make a real difference in the world.
I've always had an overwhelming desire to express a particular set of ideas. As a musician, I'm always working with different people who can teach me new things and, through that, reach closer to an idea of this perfect expression. I'm never setting out to change the face of electronic music; I'm just trying to define this vision.
When you're trying to come up with an idea for a movie it's actually the hardest part - the germ of the idea. Inevitably you think of something that would be great and then discover that it was on an episode of The Simpsons.
Even in technology, you have the freedom to solve a problem your way, you see. But it naturally sits in a certain framework whereas, in the physics, everybody had to come up with his own idea what he was going to do.
When I started analysing games in 2001, I had a DVD recorder. I'd be at home watching the games just on a normal TV, watching what I could and trying to figure out what we would be facing a few weeks later. The problem was, in the team meetings, I'd always have to keep going back and forwards with the footage, trying to get to the right part.
Every time you wanted to do something, you'd hope it would score. You'd keep trying and trying, and all of the sudden, something would come right out of left field, like 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.' No one had any idea about that one.
I don't have much time to read. I'm more of a problem solver. I'll have an idea or a problem, and I'll learn what's necessary in order to do the idea or solve the problem. If I need to read a book, then I will, but it usually comes down to researching on the Internet and reading blog posts.
When I was first thinking about what would become Venture for America, I was trying to figure out how to solve a problem - that our top young people were being driven to roles that did not, to me, address the needs of our time. That VFA would be a non-profit just seemed like the most efficient way to solve the problem.
I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.
i had no idea what i wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.
We had just gotten the Internet; it was so slow, but I would view the source code, copying and pasting the HTML, trying to figure out how it all worked. I had no idea, but I wanted to teach myself.
With the policymaking process, you have an idea, and you try to sell other stakeholders on the idea. That's not much different than in business, where you're trying to find capital to make your idea a reality.
When The Byrds started country-rock, we had no idea there would be such a thing. We were just trying to honor the music. We started listening to country radio. We went to Nudie's and got cowboy clothes.
Trying to solve the problem by creating more debt is analogous to trying to stop being an alcoholic by going on a bender down at the corner bar.
There are companies trying to build business within Saudi Arabia, and what they find is that if they try to bring on locals and teach them how to become senior executives, they just don't show up to work. They are not predictable as to when they'll come in and how much of their hearts are into that opportunity.
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