<ul class="summary-list"><li>In his new book, <keyword id="14314630" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="meetup" source="Orion">Meetup</keyword> CEO <keyword id="14314629" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="david-siegel" source="Orion">David Siegel</keyword> shares his best decision-making advice for leaders. </li><li>Siegel describes how he got <keyword id="12360987" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="adam-neumann" source="Orion">Adam Neumann</keyword> and <keyword id="12085544" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="wework" source="Orion">WeWork</keyword> to agree to his '3 conditions' before accepting the job offer.</li></ul>Meetup was acquired by WeWork in November 2017. David Siegel joined as CEO in October 2018, succeeding Meetup's founder Scott Heiferman. The following is a <keyword id="12047792" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="book-excerpt" source="Orion">book excerpt</keyword>.I have been asked often what it's like to interview with a maverick like Adam Neumann. And my answer is always the same: "It's exactly as you would have thought. Insane."Adam didn't ask about my past work experiences. Most of my interview was about family and spirituality. I was given a tour of his private ice bath and sauna (which he apparently would use at 5 or 6 a.m.) and was offered a full- course Israeli vegan spread. While we had a meaningful conversation about life, Adam wasn't convinced that I was the right person to lead Meetup.So, I decided that if given the opportunity for a second interview, I would up my game and channel my inner Adam Neumann. Leaders like to hire leaders like themselves, and if I were to get the job, it would be because Adam would find me similar to himself. Having Adam as an employer, you had to be prepared for anything. Be surprised only about being surprised.A few weeks later, as I walked into WeWork for my second interview with Adam, I spotted a young employee wearing a T-shirt that said "Meetup + WeWork." I was wearing a white dress shirt. Adam surely wouldn't be, so I decided I needed that shirt. I approached the employee and explained that I was interviewing for the Meetup CEO job and that I'd like his shirt.<h2>We went into a closet and I traded my Brooks Brothers button-down for a ragged tee</h2>When Adam saw me, he said, "Man, if you can convince someone to give you the shirt off their back, then you can sell anything." As I had learned earlier: Be bold.WeWork made the decision to hire me, but Adam communicated that he wanted Scott and Meetup's executive team to feel that I was their choice and not WeWork's choice. So, after fifteen interviews with WeWork leaders, I needed to start the process over and have another twelve conversations with Meetup executives.Three of those would be with Scott. The first went OK. The second, better. Still unconvinced, he wanted to meet a third time, this time for sixteen years at the helm, it seemed like he wasn't about to turn it over to someone he barely knew. So he took me to Meetup events around New York City to show me the mission of Meetup in action.We first visited an early-morning soccer game in Brooklyn, where I spoke with a new member of the group who had just moved from Germany. He missed the group of friends he'd played soccer with every week. Thanks to Meetup, he now had twenty new friends to play with and afterward join at the pub.Our next stop was a daily event hosted in a WeWork conference room, a chance to see their synergies in action. I listened in as nearly a dozen women who were all working on their PhDs strengthened and supported each other during what is often an incredibly painful and lonely task.We then headed to Central Park where I met the founder of City Dads, one of the most successful Meetup groups. Many stay-at-home dads had felt marginalized going to mommy-and-me classes and looked to meet other guys in a similar situation to their own. The bonding was awesome and inspirational. Even more amazing was that the group had expanded to more than thirty chapters across the United States and abroad, because when the dads moved they started City Dad Meetup groups in their new cities. <h2>I saw firsthand the growth potential of this very special company</h2>I also realized what a powerful force Scott could be going forward by taking new hires out on similar field trips. It was a wonderful experience.Then reality struck. Scott, apparently still unconvinced I was the one, asked me to have dinner with the entire Meetup leadership team, each of which I'd already met with, and I had to decide whether it was time to put my foot down and say, No. Put up or shut up.I had already spent more than three hundred hours preparing for, traveling to, participating in, and following up after each of my interviews. I felt I was being taken advantage of and at the whim of a founder who was unable (or unwilling) to step aside. On top of that, while they'd been struggling to decide whether I was a good fit for them, I'd been struggling to decide if they were a good fit for me.…At the risk of blowing everything up, I told WeWork that I wouldn't go on another meeting with anyone. I was done. If they wanted to hire me, they should make me an offer or let me know they were going in another direction.And they offered me the job, which I would accept — with three conditions.One of my core beliefs is that if there is an opportunity to negotiate, take it. Don't worry about looking too financially driven. It is that worry that has kept millions of leaders from negotiating aggressively.I've always believed that not only is it not a negative reflection to negotiate compensation, it's actually a negative reflection to not ask for it. Never be shy about negotiating your compensation. Be confident.When I accepted a general manager role at Everyday Health about ten years prior, I learned a great lesson from my boss and founder of the company, Ben Wolin. Ben would often do the direct salary negotiations with executives whom he hired. I was particularly aggressive in a number of my requests.<h2>After the contract negotiation, I asked Ben if he was put off by my aggressive negotiating</h2>Ben responded, "When I hire executives, I like to see how strong they are in advocating for themselves, how willing they are to debate and compromise, and their confidence in themselves. If an executive isn't going to push for a higher salary and benefits for themselves" — or push to stop an endless interview process, I should add — "then they won't push for a key company priority, which likely has less of an impact on them."My first ask of Artie Minson, WeWork's president and chief financial officer, was that I wanted to confirm that I wouldn't be reporting to Adam Neumann. Adam had told me during the interview process that he'd plan to spend one day a month with me at Meetup.That was too much. Even one visit seemed too much. I had nothing against Adam, I was truly awed by him in fact, but it became clear that he had very strong opinions about how Meetup should be run, and I needed a buffer between Adam and me to provide support toward where I wanted to take the company. Artie agreed. What actually happened: Adam never visited even once while I was CEO. I was beckoned often to his office, and that suited me just fine.My second ask was that I didn't want to run a company whose entire purpose was to serve the needs of WeWork. I had concerns about the hyper growth of WeWork and didn't want Meetup's future to be completely based on supporting WeWork's growth. I needed to choose what was right for Meetup instead of what WeWork preferred. Do what is right for the business.In hindsight, this was definitely a smart decision! The company needed to be viable as a stand-alone business. I was uninterested in a mission focused primarily in selling more WeWork seats by creat- ing Meetup events in WeWork offices. Artie quickly agreed to both of these asks.My third ask, the walk-away ask, was related to Meetup's founder. I really liked Scott but fundamentally believed that it wasn't possible to succeed with Scott reporting to me. I loved the idea of Scott being the chairman who would assist on key strategic projects, but Adam insisted to me that he take on an operating role. I made it clear that this wasn't going to work, and we found a compromise that Scott would take a three-month sabbatical (which he deserved more than anyone), then we would reevaluate his role, and I'd be able to make the final call on what it would be. Adam called my decision "Solomonic," and I learned that any time you received a biblical reference from Adam, it was usually good.While these requests might sound aggressive, the best time to negotiate for anything is actually before you accept a job. If a leader does not set up the decision-making processes, reporting relationships, incentive structures, investment needs, and other key priorities prior to starting, then the leader will possibly fail before they even start. Many do.Let me underline that: Many leaders fail before they walk in their door. They are so fearful of asking for specific needs to set themselves up to succeed, perhaps because they fear the job offer will be rescinded if they seem too aggressive, that they often naively believe "it will all work out." It won't. Or they think that their compensation is the most important thing to negotiate. It's not. You need to establish what is important before day one, and how the job will be right for you. Be pragmatic.Now it was time to negotiate my final compensation package. I knew I would take the job at what was offered, so instead of pretending that I wouldn't take it, I said: "Artie, I'm going to accept the job. But I can feel great about accepting the job or I can feel good about it. I don't want to pretend that I won't be accepting it. I want to feel great and I know you want me to feel great. This job is going to be hell for the next three months [Note: I was wrong. It was much longer.] and while I am going through that hell, I want to look back on it and remember that you went to bat for me with Adam Neumann and have no regrets."<h2>Even in negotiations, always be honest</h2>Artie walked out of the room. He called Adam. And Adam gave me what I asked for.I signed the contract immediately and felt elated. I was excited to be reporting to Artie Minson whom I deeply trusted. I had drunk the Kool-Aid and believed WeWork was going to be the next Tesla and couldn't wait to get started. While I had obvious concerns, the moment I signed, they vanished. I was now focused on putting a plan in place. All I needed was a strategic plan and all would work out just as it had always worked out before. I was, of course, dead wrong.A few takeaways from making my Decision 0: Put in the work to make the right choice:<ul><li>Interviewing is dating. Don't marry your first date, and if there are red flags during the dating process, those red flags will only become stronger during marriage.</li><li>Be retrospective after leaving a job. If you left for specific reasons, make sure you don't go back to the same problematic situation.</li><li>The expectations you set during the interview process will come back to haunt you. Be privately aggressive in setting goals, but better to underpromise and overdeliver.</li><li>As a candidate, you have more agency than you may realize. If you feel like you are being taken advantage of, then point it out and say something.</li><li>Don't miss out on pursuing a company whose mission you are aligned with. Try; if you can't succeed, fine, but always try.</li><li>You are always negotiating and everything is negotiable.</li></ul>

I was overly aggressive when I interviewed with WeWork's Adam Newmann for the Meetup CEO role — and it paid off. Here's why I recommend all leaders negotiate every detail.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>In "Two and Twenty," a former partner at Apollo Global gives an insider's analysis of <keyword id="12061432" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="private-equity" source="Orion">private equity</keyword>.</li><li>The author aims to defend the highly-criticized industry, but fails to support his argument with data. </li></ul>The title of a new book by a private equity insider left me anticipating a juicy tell-all about the inner workings of the industry."<a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FTwo-Twenty-Masters-Private-Equity-ebook%2Fdp%2FB09DK12LDF">Two and Twenty: How the Masters of Private Equity Always Win</a>" is the work of <keyword id="14236044" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="sachin-khajuria" source="Orion">Sachin Khajuria</keyword>, a former partner at Apollo Global, one of the handful of largest private equity firms in the world.The title, however — like much else in Khajuria's perplexing tome — is profoundly misleading. The term "Two and Twenty" refers to the mechanism by which the partners of private equity firms make their money. It comprises a 2% ongoing management fee payable on the total capital invested in the funds and a 20% performance fee tied to the value appreciation in the companies purchased by the fund. Those entrusting their wealth to the private equity funds get what is left over: namely, 80% of the gains from the fund investments after the management fees.Anyone with a passing familiarity with these economics knows the answer to the almost rhetorical question of<div type="image" title="Two and Twenty cover" height="1496" width="990" msid="92320876" hostid="261"></div> how "the masters of private equity" are able to always win: for the larger firms, the "Two" of the "Two and Twenty" ensures truly extraordinary wealth for the partners even if the investment performance is poor. Any firm with $50 billion in assets under management (AUM) will generate $1 billion in management fees each year to share among the general partners once expenses are covered regardless of whether there are any performance fees at all. The largest private equity firm, <keyword id="11993451" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="blackstone" source="Orion">Blackstone</keyword>, expects to reach a trillion dollars of AUM this year.<h2>It turns out, however, that Khajuria has a very different answer in mind</h2>Instead, the author wants to convince readers that the reason the masters of private equity always win is that they are awesome.Two and Twenty argues that the winning mindset of the best and brightest drawn to private equity allows them to "always beat the market." In addition, as the largest firms amass more and more assets, it makes them even more effective. This, Khajuria claims, is good for society because the massive resulting returns accrue "to a substantial extent … to the retirees of tomorrow." With the explosion in the size of the sector over the past decade — managing almost $10 trillion in assets as of last year and growing — private equity has increasingly drawn the ire of legislators, regulators, and crusading journalists. The time is right for a book to provide a thoughtful counternarrative defending the industry that puts private equity in proper context.<h2>Unfortunately, 'Two and Twenty' is not that book</h2>Khajuria's approach is to make a number of assertions regarding the private equity industry and demonstrate their validity through case studies drawn from his personal experiences. But many of the book's key claims lend themselves to a more direct methodology: looking at the data.One of the core strengths of the biggest private equity firms ,according to Khajuria, is their access to huge caches of proprietary data. Yet he fails to make reference to any of the voluminous data on private equity publicly available. That data does not support his many sweeping claims — on consistently superior performance, on the advantages of fund size, and more.At times, Khajuria focuses only on the subset of private equity firms that are able to consistently generate investment returns above the market rather than the entire industry. But the data still does not support this narrower approach, as research shows that the fact that a firm's last fund is a winner does not tell you anything about whether the next fund will be. The failure to ground the book in actual data would not be the end of the world if Khajuria delivered a revealing insider account that supported his perspective.<h2>And here is where 'Two and Twenty' gets really strange</h2>In lieu of convincing anecdotes from his actual experience, we are treated to "fictitious sketches," and told that at least some, but not all, of these "are inspired by real-life deals and events." Where so inspired, "certain details" have been masked or changed.Some of these changes are just bizarre. The location of an unnamed private equity firm's 2021 annual meeting is identified as the Four Seasons Hotel on Fifth Avenue. The Four Seasons is on 57th Street and has been closed since March 2020. The hotel reappears later in the book at its correct address.More confounding is that the facts included in the fictional sketches, whether inspired or just made up, often contradict the broader portrait that Khajuria is trying to paint. On the one hand, he wants to correct misconceptions about this industry promoted by "some in the press," emphasizing, for instance, the "serious and visible progress" being made in areas like diversity, sustainability and disclosure.On the other hand, the sketches often reinforce many of the more negative preconceptions about private equity practices. A company founder facing a crisis is romanced by the firm, but once he takes their money "the old man will be left on the side of the road if he is not on board" with their plans. The game plan for another buyout is to "cut out the fat by negotiating hard with trade unions and suppliers" and quickly "flip it to an Asian conglomerate" at the first bullish window of opportunity. Khajuria seems to justify some of the more questionable practices by emphasizing that the spoils — after taking out the two and twenty along with a long list of other fees that he only mentions in passing — accrue to retirees through the investments of their pension funds.While repeatedly emphasizing the benefits to "the financial security of our loved ones," he fails to mention that the less sympathetic sovereign wealth funds dwarf the largest US pensions as private equity investors. Teachers and firefighters are mentioned repeatedly; China and the UAE, the two largest sovereign wealth investors in private equity who together account for more than all US pension funds combined, not at all.It's hard to disagree with Khajuria that given the already huge and growing influence of all forms of private capital, greater public understanding about private capital is "essential."Despite its ambitions, Two and Twenty makes a rather modest contribution towards achieving that laudable objective.Jonathan A. Knee is a professor of professional practice at Columbia Business School and a senior advisor at Evercore. His most recent book is "<a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fdp%2F0593189434%3Fasc_campaign%3Dcommerce-pra%26asc_refurl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.businessinsider.com%252Fbook-review-the-devil-never-sleeps-2022-4%26asc_source%3Dbrowser%26tag%3Dbiauto-53801-20">The Platform Delusion: Who Wins and </a><a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPlatform-Delusion-Wins-Loses-Titans%2Fdp%2F0593189434">Who Loses in the Age of Tech Titans.</a>"

I read an ex-Apollo partner's tell-all book about the inner workings of private equity and was perplexed &mdash; and ultimately disappointed

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Mark Kreynovich and Dillon Carroll left for the Ukrainian border to provide supplies for those in need.</li><li>Since then, they've supplied medical supplies, housing, and other necessities to <keyword id="6391453" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="refugees" source="Orion">refugees</keyword>.</li></ul>This an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Mark Kreynovich and Dillon Carroll. It has been edited for length and clarity. Mark Kreynovich and Dillon Carroll met at Cornell University as first-year roommates and quickly became best friends. Mark was born in <keyword id="11985141" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ukraine" source="Orion">Ukraine</keyword> and immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was six months old. He still has family and friends in Kharkiv, Ukraine and spent most summers there growing up. When the war started, the two decided to fly to the Ukrainian-Polish border and provide aid.When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the day before our shared 24th birthday, we knew we couldn't sit idly by as Ukrainians — some of whom were friends and family members — put their lives at stake to protect their country and defend their freedom. So, we decided to take two weeks away from our lives and jobs in New York and go help in any way that we could.We bought our tickets and got on a plane to Vienna a little over a week later, on March 3. By the time we took off, we'd been <a href="https://www.spotfund.com/story/ba50d4dc-e126-4a38-9535-d8e867a8ff97?SFID=missiontoukraine">fundraising through Spotfund</a> and in less than 24 hours we had already received nearly $10,000. We've also been sharing daily updates on our Instagram accounts and now, we've received over $100,000 in donations.<h2>On the flight overseas, we started to hash out our plan.</h2>Our main objective was to purchase and provide supplies to both refugees and people who stayed in Ukraine. We could be the literal boots on the ground to deploy money and get materials in the hands of those that needed them. With the direct contacts and network we had in Ukraine, we knew we could take that money and quickly get insulin, baby food, and other necessities into the hands of those who needed them.When we arrived in Vienna, we partnered with local pharmacies to place bulk orders directly from their distributors. The first thing we did was rent an SUV with unlimited miles — it's a good thing, too, because we ended up driving over 4,000 miles in 11 days. Our car became our mobile office.Two of our most crucial contacts were Andrei and Olexiy, both family friends. Andrei is leading and coordinating with a Ukrainian civilian group, directly providing us with their supply needs, which included communication equipment (like radios) for volunteers who transport medicine, food, and other critical items in cities under siege. Olexiy, who works directly with a trauma ward staffed by his wife's medical school classmates,was able to send us a very specific list of materials that they needed, whether it was 7.5 millimeter syringes or a certain number of antibiotics.<h2>By the time we arrived in Vienna, we had a list of direct objectives ready to go.</h2>Through a tangential relationship, we knew someone in the city who could translate for us. She came with us to several pharmacies and explained to pharmacists who we were and what we needed. By a stroke of luck, we found one pharmacy that was able to fulfill our first bulk order of medical supplies for about $13,000. We went back to them several times during the following two weeks with new orders.<div type="image" title="Mark Kreynovich and Dillon Carrol" height="960" width="1280" msid="90578314" hostid="261"></div>After we placed that first shipment, we had a few days before the supplies would be ready for pick up. We understood that about 80% of refugees were fleeing through the Polish-Ukrainian border, so we decided that if we wanted to meet and help refugees, we needed to go to Poland.We hopped in the car the next morning and drove north through the Czech Republic to Krakow, about a five-hour trip. When we got there, we met a couple that was struggling to withdraw money — they told us many of the city's ATMs were having issues because of the influx of refugees.We also noticed five huge charter buses decorated with Norwegian and Ukrainian flags. We learned that these buses were bringing people to Norway — but that the Norwegian government required any refugees coming in to stay for a full year. We spoke to a family who was eligible to go but chose not to.It's important to note that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians don't want to be far from their country. For them, this isn't an opportunity to move west; they want to be back as soon as possible.Shortly after, we were told about a woman who did want to leave but couldn't find the buses. We coordinated with a few contacts and drove around the city until we were able to find her and bring her to the Norwegian bus group, which was located at the train station.<h2>You hear about refugees on the <keyword id="11893589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="news" source="Orion">news</keyword>, but until you see thousands of people sleeping on the floor — women and children and elderly people with nowhere to go — you can't really grasp it.</h2>We walked through that train station and saw that almost every single person was a refugee. Children were playing soccer and people were eating soup on the ground. It started to put into perspective how huge this crisis really was.Before we left Krakow, we also helped a group of families, nine refugees in total, secure housing. We found an apartment with six bedrooms and were able to negotiate a price and pay for them a place to stay.<div type="image" title="Mark Kreynovich and Dillon Carroll" height="811" width="1082" msid="90578316" hostid="261"></div>When we returned to the pharmacy in Vienna, we started loading all of the medical supplies into a truck that we rented. Then, we brought those boxes to a team of warehouse couriers we connected with in Bratislava, Slovakia, which is about an hour drive east of Vienna. After we handed off the packages to them, we transported some of the more sensitive materials, namely insulin which must be carefully refrigerated, directly to the border. In the meantime, we waited for confirmation that the Bratislava shipment had actually arrived. Sure enough, we received photos and videos of the supplies that had arrived safely to the trauma ward in Cherkasy.<h2>To be honest, we never expected that our efforts would be so successful and supported in such a short amount of time.</h2>We've had to have a lot of hard conversations and discuss worst case scenarios. And even though we only planned to go for two weeks, we've decided to return at the end of March and, this time, stay indefinitely.<div type="image" title="Mark Kreynovich and Dylan Caroll" height="877" width="1170" msid="90578318" hostid="261"></div>We now have a clear understanding of our operation capabilities, and we've been holding our head above water successfully. And the more time we spend here, the more integrated we are in these supply networks — we have more and more people that rely on us.We've closed the first chapter of this project: We've explored, we understand the landscape, and now we can go back and immediately start executing in a very targeted way.We want to be there throughout this war to continue to buy supplies for refugees and civilians still trapped in Ukraine, to provide temporary housing, to provide translation services, and to give these people a voice and a platform to express how they're feeling.For as long as we're able and our donor base enables us to, we're both strongly committed to fighting the good fight, on the ground. For others looking to support Ukrainians, donating time and financial resources is always helpful. Our contacts have told us that a month into the war, donations are already starting to die down.It's also important to keep talking about what's happening in Ukraine. The crisis changes daily, and it will impact the Ukrainian people — and the rest of the world — for years to come. For more information, you can track our activity and message us directly on our Instagram, @missiontoukraine.

We left New York and went overseas to support Ukraine &mdash; here's how we mobilized on our own to help refugees and people needing aid

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="13392007" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ben-narasin" source="Orion">Ben Narasin</keyword> is the founder and general partner at Tenacity Venture Capital.</li><li>He says lots of highs and lows — and being kept in the dark — are part of the nature of <keyword id="13392008" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="early-stage-investing" source="Orion">early stage investing</keyword>.</li></ul>What's the real story behind those acquisitions where "deal terms were not disclosed?" Deals with no announced value are the Schrödinger's cat of the early stage investing world — you don't know whether you've made or lost money.When the terms aren't disclosed, and the founder didn't bother to notify you the deal was coming — which happens more than I'd like when you were a small check in a long ago seed round — investors are just as likely to discover they lost all their money as to find they made a profit.While there are legitimate reasons not to announce deal terms, the most common one is that they aren't interesting enough to disclose.Last year, within a four-week timeframe, I had four companies in my portfolio announce transactions, and in only one case was I given a heads up that it was coming — and even then, I wasn't told the terms.<h2>So, then one goes into financial purgatory, waiting to find out whether you've made or lost money.</h2>It's safest to assume you've lost money until you're proven otherwise and gain a happy surprise, but of course I reach out to founders to ask.Last October, one deal had a 10x outcome. In another, I got my money back. Another was a modest loss. And I'm still waiting to learn about the fourth. So overall, there were more positive outcomes than negative.In one case, I had to follow up twice just to find out anything. When the first request got no response, I started to worry it was a talent acquisition with nothing for investors. I sent a note saying that (because maybe it would force a response), only to have my founder tell me to chill out. I felt bad that I pressured my founder instead of celebrating his victory, but it's hard to be in the dark and wondering. I know founders have a lot going on when they're in liquidity mode, but I also know there are a fair number of VCs that can help and sometimes even optimize outcomes.<h2>I've seen quite a few deals and I know most of the tricks the buyers will deploy.</h2>That's the other part of the equation. The investor gets a DocuSign and, sometimes, the supporting documents (the last one I got was 255 pages). There are sometimes assumptions of future liabilities and other things VCs sometimes agree to, that I know from experience private equity guys won't agree to, and this makes it hard. And when the whole outcome is pennies on the dollar or even a refund on a small check, having to spend lawyer fees to figure it out isn't palatable.If the shareholder consent level (the percentage of shareholders that need to approve the deal for it to close) isn't too high, one can often just abstain and be dragged along, in theory gaining dissenters rights or some protection to protest later in an impact scenario. (I'm not a lawyer — ask one if you want to know if this is true. It's an opinion, not a fact.)So when you see a "deal terms were not announced" deal, know it can be anywhere on the spectrum. I have lost all my money in some, and in one case made 60x on an almost $1 billion outcome — though the latter eventually got disclosed, the former never did.

I'm a VC whose investments have made my firm almost $1 billion. Here's what I look for when evaluating a startup.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Barry Nalebuff's lively and elegant new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Split-Pie-Radical-New-Negotiate/dp/0063135485">"Split the Pie: A Radical New Way to Negotiate,"</a> feels particularly timely.</li><li>The fair approach it describes will help two parties to speak the same language and not talk past each other.</li></ul>This moment in history feels like it may represent a low ebb in the ability of all manner of negotiators — individuals, businesses, regulators, politicians and countries — to find common ground. This makes the publication of Barry Nalebuff's lively and elegant new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Split-Pie-Radical-New-Negotiate/dp/0063135485">"Split the Pie: A Radical New Way to Negotiate,"</a> particularly timely. Although the book is unlikely to resolve all the myriad impasses caused by our increasingly polarized world, it does provide some tools and frameworks that may just keep parties talking a little longer. In the current environment, that would represent meaningful progress.<h2>Nalebuff has plenty of street cred when it comes to negotiations. </h2>In addition to teaching negotiations at Yale and online for years, he has advised a variety of private parties, including the NBA, on negotiations, and even navigated the sale of his own startup, Honest Tea, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-honest-tea-kept-its-culture-after-coke-bought-it-out-2013-3">to Coca Cola</a>. <div type="image" title="Split the Pie book cover" height="688" width="456" msid="90188448" hostid="261"></div>His approach is deceptively simple: Calculate the incremental benefits created by an agreement — what he calls "the pie" — and share those equally. The actual computation of the size of the pie requires the parties to add together the value available to each of them without a deal (also known as the "Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement" or BATNA) and compare it to the total value available with a deal.Although this may seem intuitively obvious, "Share the Pie" does a great job of demonstrating both how infrequently this approach is actually used and what a bad job many of the more popular mechanisms for splitting the benefits of an agreement really do.For instance, sharing benefits on a pro rata basis is often used as a default, but this fails to recognize that each party — regardless of its relative size — contributes exactly the same amount of the incremental value created. Without either of the parties, no pie is created, but together the full pie materializes. It's hard to articulate a principled basis for not sharing the benefits equally.Despite the provocative subtitle, Nalebuff's approach is neither radical nor new. Boards of Directors have been analyzing how the synergies in proposed combinations — the pie available in M&amp;A transactions — are being split between parties for decades. But by organizing the entire negotiating process around maximizing the size of the pie and ensuring a fair distribution of benefits, "Split the Pie" increases the chances the negotiations will be constructive and result in an outcome that satisfies both of the parties.<h2>This is the real value of Nalebuff's approach.</h2>Its intuitive fairness and apparent symmetricity makes establishing it upfront as a framework for discussions relatively uncontroversial. Once agreed, it avoids debate over extraneous emotional factors that frequently derail agreements. There will remain any number of topics that will be the subject of heated dialogue — notably, the size of the pie and the respective parties' BATNAs — but this improves the odds that they will be speaking the same language and not talking past each other.Nalebuff argues throughout that parties should generally avoid taking more than half the pie, even when they can get away with it by withholding information, making ultimatums or similar schemes. He acknowledges that, in his experience, "some strange disorder takes over" even "smart, empathetic and principled" parties who somehow can't help turning into a "caricature of a tough guy negotiator." But beyond describing using such aggressive tactics as "a dangerous <keyword id="11893563" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="strategy" source="Orion">strategy</keyword>" and warning that "you might have trouble looking at yourself in the mirror," Nalebuff is not terribly convincing that trying to get more than half the pie won't be the norm.In Robert Axelrod's 1984 classic, "The Evolution of Cooperation," he identifies a variety of strategies to combat the structural and psychological tendencies to pursue short-term benefits at the expense of maximizing the overall size of the pie. The most important of these relate to ways of creating long-term effects from short-term decisions. "Split the Pie" makes a similar point when it highlights that "reputational concerns reinforce the incentive to split the pie." But in a culture that is increasingly transactional, it feels like relying on enduring relationships and reputational concerns is wishful thinking.Nalebuff identifies a larger theme of his book as the importance of being "on the lookout for default splits of the pie that come from tradition, regulations, proportionality or misguided equality." But without changes to our culture and institutions, I fear Nalebuff's exhortation to eschew "opportunities to get more than half the pie" will go unheeded. "Split the Pie" is a valuable practical addition to the extensive literature on applied game theory as well as being a useful guide to a wide range of one-off negotiations. More structural work remains to be done, however, before we can expect its more aspirational objectives to be achieved.Jonathan A. Knee is a professor of professional practice at Columbia Business School and a senior advisor at Evercore. His most recent book is "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Platform-Delusion-Wins-Loses-Titans/dp/0593189434">The Platform Delusion: Who Wins and Who Loses in the Age of Tech Titans</a>."

A Yale professor's new book sheds light on a seemingly obvious way to negotiate

<ul class="summary-list"><li>In a new book, former CNN senior correspondent <keyword id="13357942" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="laurie-segall" source="Orion">Laurie Segall</keyword> writes about the personal lives of <keyword id="11894135" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="silicon-valley" source="Orion">Silicon Valley</keyword>'s elite.</li><li>She details monthly <keyword id="12173218" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="sex-parties" source="Orion">sex parties</keyword> for "swingers," widespread polyamory, and the huge market for <keyword id="11910993" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="sex-work" source="Orion">sex work</keyword> in the <keyword id="6358815" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="tech" source="Orion">tech</keyword> community.</li></ul>Laurie Segall was eating oysters with a venture capitalist in San Francisco when she learned, to her shock, that polyamory and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/elon-musk-attended-notorious-silicon-valley-party-left-early-2018-1">sex parties</a> were ordinary among the Silicon Valley crowd."Everyone is experimenting," he told her.It was 2015, and tech was a hot topic. Segall had already been interviewing founders and entrepreneurs about their careers as a journalist at CNN, but she wanted to know more about "the personal lives of the people coding our future."Over the following years, she interviewed everyone from VCs to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sex-worker-industry-silicon-valley-2014-7">sex workers</a> and discovered there was much more than met the eye.Insider compiled six of the wildest details about Silicon Valley sex and party culture from Laurie Segall's new book, "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dot-Adventures-Weird-Complicated-Mostly-ebook/dp/B08MFJNVCG" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Special Characters: My Adventures with Tech's Titans and Misfits.</a>"<div type="image" title="Laurie Segall Special Characters book cover" height="2448" width="3264" msid="90143471" hostid="261"></div><h2>1. A former software tech entrepreneur held a monthly sex party for Silicon Valley "swingers," among them software engineers, startup employees, and VC's.</h2>Segall writes that the man who ran these parties, Ralph, told her there were over 4,000 tech employees on his mailing list. He invited her to one, at a "nondescript building" in San Fransisco.When she arrived, couples were checking in on an iPad; the party also had its own app. Ralph told her that one swinger, an iPhone developer, was working on its interface, and "The guy who created our check-in software basically built Oracle!"Segall said she made small-talk with a VC and his topless girlfriend, who worked at Google, and that later on in the night, Ralph led to a separate room upstairs."A bin of towels sat next to a door that led to a room carpeted in mattresses draped in red sheets and framed with blue pillows," Segall wrote. "The same VC I had spoken to earlier was on his knees, naked, a giant multi- colored tattoo on his lower back, thrusting back and forth."<h2>2. Segall talked to multiple sex workers who said they routinely met with Silicon Valley big shots.</h2>A dominatrix who worked out of Oakland met with Segall at her "secret dungeon." She said her clients were the ones who helped her create many of her high-tech accessories — which included gas masks with iPod earbuds attached, a crane that could lift up to 900 pounds, and a device that gave low-grade electric shocks."Where do you think all the Apple engineers get their creative inspiration?" she asked Segall. "I lock them up for the weekend."There was never a shortage of clients. One sex worker said she'd see employees from a given startup pretty regularly. The company might fail or shut down, but there would always be an influx of fresh clients from the next startup to take their place.A woman in the same field encouraged her coworkers to wear Game of Thrones-themed underwear to appeal to a nerdy — and wealthy — market, Segall wrote.<h2>3. Polyamory became popular among Silicon Valley couples — including a "major founder of a software company who'd sold his company for millions."</h2>"In technology, people have higher appetites for risk," the man said, in an anonymous interview with Segall. "Opening up your relationship is really risky in a similar way that starting a company is really risky."Techies were already dabbling in LSD and microdosing for productivity, Segall explained; now, they were experimenting with different types of relationships too.Chris Messina, an engineer at Twitter known for inventing the hashtag, told Segall that he was also polygamous. He offered a tech analogy: If a product — monogamy — is "failing 50 percent of the time, you might want to consider the design and think about ways of improving that."<h2>4. Segall attended the engagement party of a woman who married a robot she built.</h2>Segall landed an exclusive interview with a Parisian woman who said she fell in love with her own robot. Lily called her plastic fiancée "InMoovator," and explained that she was drawn to his logic and predictability — as opposed to humans' volatility."She bent his arms so they wrapped around her waist. At first, she was shy, but eventually," Segall wrote, "it was as if the cameras were gone. She stroked his plastic head and whispered, 'I love you, my angel.'"<h2>5. SXSW was 'spring break for nerds' where up-and-coming founders, VCs, and celebrities attended lavish parties.</h2>Tech had become a main focus of SXSW, a weeklong media conference in Austin, and Segall spent night after night sneaking into parties and interviewing founders, including Twitter's CEO at the time, Ev Williams.At an afterparty hosted by Foursquare, "Ashton Kutcher stood around nonchalantly while nerds pretended he was one of them," said Segall. "People later floated in for Kutcher's invite-only jam sessions, where entrepreneurs stayed up all night drinking whiskey and discussing the future."<h2>6. Defcon's afterparty in Las Vegas was "filled with hackers, tequila, and debauchery."</h2>Segall was a guest at Defcon, which is known as the world's largest hacker convention, and went to a party that night with her associate."As we walked in, fire dancers juggled bright flames against a backdrop of palm trees that stretched over slot machines," Segall wrote.When a man took his shirt off and did a cannonball in the decorative pool, another partygoer pointed out that he was a hacker who worked against Chinese and Russian spies. Read an excerpt from "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerburg-facebook-interview-cambridge-analytica-scandal-laurie-segall-2022-3">Special Characters: My Adventures with Tech's Titans and Misfits</a>" by Laurie Segall.

Swingers meetups, polyamory, and a robot wedding: A new memoir goes behind the scenes of Silicon Valley party and sex culture

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/amnotary/">Andrea Morgan</a> is a 22-year-old notary-signing agent who makes up to $200 for a single signing.</li><li>Morgan decided to try notary work during the pandemic as a side hustle to help pay for college.</li></ul>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Andrea Morgan, a 22-year-old student and notary-signing agent who works in California. It has been edited for length and clarity.I originally got into the notary business during the pandemic, after I came across a TikTok video of someone saying they made $150 an hour as a notary-signing agent. I'd never heard of anything like that before and had zero experience before I decided to look into it.I'm a full-time college student, so this has been a relatively low-lift side hustle that's helped me pay for tuition. I work about 16 hours a week, and all I have to do is watch a person sign documents and verify their identity.I usually make about $150 on average per signing, but the most I've ever made from a single signing is $200, which only took me about a half hour.<h2>Here's my best advice for becoming a notary-signing agent</h2>After doing some research, I found out that I had to become a notary public first.A notary-signing agent is quite different from a notary public. We specialize in real-property documents or loan documents, and because of that, we get to charge a lot more than regular notaries. Most notary publics can only charge what their state allows; we, on the other hand, can reasonably charge whatever we see fit.To get started, look on your Secretary of State's website or visit the <a href="https://www.nationalnotary.org/?gclid=CjwKCAjw-rOaBhA9EiwAUkLV4oUfEG3c7liI_YdS63p6kRum90h7msn5FnBxjwctE1spCQdIuFwwYRoCRvAQAvD_BwE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Notary Association's website</a>. Select your state and read all of the requirements and qualifications you need to become a notary public first, and then a notary-signing agent. In certain states, called "attorney states" or "no-escrow states," in-house notaries handle the document signings as opposed to notary-signing agents like myself. New York, for example, is an attorney state, while California is an escrow state.Becoming a notary public in California is a bit harder than in other states. In most states, you can just go down to your county clerk's office and say, "I want the application to be a notary" — and it's pretty much as simple as that. In California, you have to take a course, pass an exam, and clear a background check to become a notary public. <h2>It only took me $1,600 to start my business as a certified notary-signing agent</h2>After I became a notary public, I had to become a certified notary-signing agent.In California, professional training to become a notary-signing agent isn't mandatory, but I highly recommended it. Then, you have to complete a background check through the National Notary Association.I took a $497 course called the <a href="https://www.loansigningsystem.com/">Loan Signing System</a> from Mark Wills, who ended up being my mentor. It took about two weeks and it was incredibly helpful for a beginner, especially when it came to finding clients.After I took that course, I was off completing my first signing. You don't need a college degree — there are 18-year-olds fresh out of high school who become notary-signing agents.My startup costs to become a notary-signing agent, including the supplies and materials I needed to run my business, cost around $1,600 in total, and it was 100% worth every penny. I made my startup costs back within two weeks of signing. How much time a signing takes depends on the documents we're working with — it works differently if someone's buying a home, selling a home, doing a reverse-mortgage refinance, or other things. Most signings take about 30 minutes to an hour, but I've made $150 for a signing that's taken me five minutes. An overwhelming majority of the time, they take place at the signers' homes, and other times they'll be in a public place like a local Starbucks or a park.<h2>Notary-signing agents typically get business in two ways</h2>We find work through signing-service business and direct-client business.On average, I get more business through signing services — middlemen between notary-signing agents and escrow or title officers — than through direct-client business recently. You can literally Google "notary-signing services near me" to find them, but there are also popular platforms that notary-signing agents use, such as SigningOrder, Snapdocs, and Notary Rotary. When I get booked through a signing service, it typically goes like this: They contact me and ask if I'm available to conduct a signing. If I am, they either ask for my rate or give me a number and ask if I'm OK with it. That number usually falls anywhere between $75 and $200.My next step is to print out the necessary documents after the client sends them over. Depending on the signing, these documents range from 100 to 200 pages. They also provide me with instructions that specify what type of pen to use, what color ink to use, what identification I'll need to bring, and more.Next, I'll go through each page that they send me and make sure everything is correct. Refinancing or reverse mortgages usually take about 45 minutes to an hour, documents that involve buying or selling a home usually take 30 to 40 minutes, and deed signings can take less than 15 minutes. After a while, you become familiar with the documents and it becomes second nature.After that, I'll confirm the appointment time and location and go meet with the signer. For each and every single document, I have to point to the title of the document, give a brief description, and point where to sign and date — and that's it.<h2>I recommend taking it a step further and booking clients directly</h2>Starting out with signing services is great for the beginning stage, but I recommend trying to book direct clients once you feel comfortable marketing yourself — book with people like escrow officers, title officers, and real-estate agents. Not only do you get paid more, but you get to build relationships with clients, so they're more likely to book you again in the future.There are a few ways to find clients. Whenever you land a booking through a signing service, every loan package includes the contact information of the escrow or loan officer. I usually contact them myself and say something like:"Hey, I'm Andrea, the notary-signing agent that will be working with your client. I just wanted to introduce myself. If you or the signer have any questions or need any additional services down the line, please let me know." Another way is to walk right into an escrow or loan office and introduce yourself. Surprisingly, a lot of notaries don't realize they can do this. When I meet with people face-to-face, they're almost always pleasantly surprised, and I think it helps establish a connection.Now, people reach out directly to me fairly regularly because I've built relationships with clients and officers from previous signings. I actually got my first signing with a direct client: they found me on signingagent.com, which is a platform through the National Notary Association that automatically lists every certified notary signing agent in a given area. The client is able to check out my credentials, read my bio, and see that I have a professional headshot. I asked her why she chose me, and she said, "Well, it was because of your bio, which had everything I wanted to hear — you noted that you're a problem-solver and listed which documents you're familiar with. You also explained the common mistakes that notary-signing agents make and guaranteed that those mistakes won't happen." There are other ways notaries can make themselves stand out. Showing gratitude is a big one — convey that you're appreciative of the business that the escrow officer or signing-service owner is providing you. Showing a little appreciation, even bringing lunch or a cup of coffee to an escrow officer, can go a long way. They're very busy people and barely have time to get out of their chairs during the day. <h2>In the beginning, don't focus on the money</h2>My goal at first was to network to build authentic relationships and gain as much knowledge about the job as possible. I recommend taking as many signings as you can in the early stages before raising your rate significantly. My fee started out at about $45 an hour, and about three months in, I felt confident enough to start raising my fees. Signing-service owners and escrow officers noticed and had no issue with it.If you're just getting started, I recommend looking into notary-specific resources and platforms. To manage my finances, I use a platform called <a href="https://www.notarygadget.com/">Notary Gadget</a> that makes accounting and sending invoices much easier. To keep track of marketing, I use a spreadsheet to keep myself organized, and I use Google Calendar to plan out all of my signings.<h2>I was shocked at how much money I get paid for doing, in my opinion, an extremely easy task</h2>During this journey, I had to constantly remind myself to get out of the employee mindset. When it comes to running a business, you wear every hat, and businesses have their ups and downs — I don't beat myself up for not meeting my financial goal every single month. As long as you meet your state's requirements, anyone can do this. I see people turning it from a side hustle into a full-blown career all the time, and that's what I definitely plan on doing when I graduate this spring.If you've successfully created a secondary- or passive-income stream and want to share your story, email Dorothy Cucci at <a href="mailto:dcucci@insider.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">dcucci@insider.com</a>.

I make $200 an hour as a notary-signing agent. It's a surprisingly easy side hustle &mdash; here's how I got certified and made my startup costs back in 2 weeks.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Sierra Anderson is a 23-year-old shot girl at Northbeach bar in Dewey Beach, Delaware.</li><li>Anderson gets paid entirely in tips and can make thousands in one night, but customers can get angry and even physical.</li></ul>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sierra Anderson, a 23-year-old aftercare teacher and "shot girl" who works in Dewey Beach, Delaware. It has been edited for length and clarity.As a Delaware native, I grew up going to Dewey Beach. The small coastal town is famous for its nightlife and, once my friends were old enough to go to bars, it's where I saw "shot girls" in action for the first time. The women —mostly in their twenties — walked around holding trays of colorful shots all night long and made a killing in tips. I was looking for some extra income last May during my off months as an aftercare teacher, so I decided to give it a go. Now, I've worked at Northbeach, a tropical-themed beach bar on the water, for two summers in a row.The hours are long, customers can be creepy, and it's more mentally and physically draining than I ever expected — but it's been worth the stress.<h2>The hiring process was incredibly easy</h2>There was no application. I walked into the bar and asked if they needed a shot girl, and the manager replied, "Can you start on Friday?" I was hired on the spot.Usually, we work 15-20 hour shifts, sometimes with no real break. Saturdays are particularly long: we'll come in around 10 a.m., and stay until closing. By the time we finish counting our tips, it's usually 2 or 3 a.m. On holiday weekends, we come in earlier and leave later.The first thing to do when we get there is make the first few batches of shots — huge buckets filled with either Malibu and vodka along with various mixers like orange juice, pineapple juice, or grenadine — which we'll use to fill our shots throughout the day. We also make jello shots the night before, so they're good to go the next day.I fill up my tray with about 15 shots at a time and go back for more as needed, keeping track of how many trays I've sold. We're sort of like independent contractors: We don't get paid an hourly wage, so we keep all of our tips and pay back the manager for the alcohol at the end of the night. Everyone keeps their tips in a fanny pack while they work, and we all keep track of our sales differently; I write mine down in a little notepad, while one of my coworkers keeps a tally on her arm. Our regular uniform tops are black-and-white sports bras with our logo, but we can also wear black bikini tops with Northbeach pins on them. Our dress code is pretty lenient, but flashier outfits (swimsuits, short skirts, and shorts) tend to bring in more tips. And on holidays, we wear fun themed outfits.<div type="image" title="Sierra Anderson" height="2268" width="3023" msid="93885025" hostid="261" sizebytes="393520"></div>We also wear flashy makeup, usually with gems and sparkles — we kind of go for a "Euphoria" look. It's always a hit, especially with the younger crowd. <h2>This is a sales job, above all else</h2>To be a shot girl, you have to be confident and persuasive. I think the skills I've gained as a teacher have definitely helped me succeed in this job, patience being a huge one — dealing with drunk people and dealing with children are similar in a lot of ways. When I first started I was extremely nervous, but now I have my strategy nailed down. Drunk men are the easiest to sell to, and couples are the hardest.<div type="image" title="Sierra Anderson" height="2316" width="3088" msid="93885027" hostid="261" sizebytes="519378"></div>Bachelorette and bachelor parties are the best customers because they'll continuously buy entire trays, not just a few shots at a time. One time a bachelor party bought three of my trays and then Venmoed me $200 just to come back to their table.It's important to establish a good rapport with customers. When I approach a group of girls, I'll compliment them, start a conversation, and ask if they need anything to drink.Sometimes I give customers free shots, and they're allowed to buy us shots, too. (I'll often pretend I took a shot but really toss it behind my back so that I wouldn't have to drink on the job.) If you make people feel comfortable, they're more likely to keep buying from you.Time is money in this job. It's common for male customers to try to chat with you and keep you at their table without any intention of buying shots. They just want to talk to you, so you have to be stern. In these scenarios, I'll say something like, "I'm sorry, but I have to go sell these," and keep moving.It usually stays consistently busy throughout the day. On a slow night, I take home at least $200 after I pay the bar back, and on an average weekend night, between $300 and $700. The most I've ever made on a single day was probably about $2300 on the Fourth of July this year. This past Memorial Day weekend, I took home $5,000 over the course of four days.<h2>These are long weekends, mentally and physically</h2>It definitely requires a certain kind of mindset to be a shot girl, and it can be mentally taxing. You're dealing with a lot of drunk men. They'll say very rude things and don't get the hint that you don't want them near you. I've heard some of them comment on my coworkers' weight, which is obviously disturbing, and certain men become angry if you're not giving them the attention that they want. They'll ask for your number and call you a slut if you say no — they don't understand that you're there to do your job.There have been multiple instances where men have grabbed me as I'm walking around. It's horrible, but when that happens, all I have to do is point out the person to our security guards and they'll escort him out immediately. The guy usually makes a scene, but we have a zero tolerance policy.It's hard to constantly keep a friendly face. Sometimes, I have to go to the back and collect myself. Since I've been doing this for a while, I'm able to shake things off relatively easily, but that's not the case for some of my coworkers.Every other weekend, someone will be crying at the end of the night because they got too drunk accepting shots from customers, someone insulted them, or they were grabbed by a customer.<h2>I sometimes feel like a piece of meat, but there are upsides to the job</h2>The number one reason I put up with this job is definitely the money. But I also like that it's not a strict 9-5 job<div type="image" title="Sierra Anderson" height="2274" width="3024" msid="93885029" hostid="261" sizebytes="382178"></div> where I'm sitting at a desk all day.I do makeup as a hobby, and it's fun to be able to express myself at work through my outfits and makeup. I sometimes feel like a piece of meat because of how we have to dress to make tips — but I appreciate that most people can't wear gems or hot pink eyeliner to work.That said, this is going to be my last summer as a shot girl.I know girls who have done this job for seven years, and I have no idea how they do it. I'm not a big drinker, but Dewey beach is a drinking town, and it takes a lot out of you being in that environment day in and day out. I don't really fit into that scene anymore — I'm ready to start my adult life. My boyfriend and I are going to get a dog and move in together up north, so I'll probably end up bartending somewhere until I figure out what's next. Being a shot girl has definitely served me well over the past two summers, but as of now, I'm ready to move on.If you have an unusual job and want to share your story, email Dorothy Cucci at <a href="mailto:dcucci@insider.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">dcucci@insider.com</a>.

I've made thousands in tips as a 'shot girl' at a popular beach bar. Customers get creepy and even physical, but the job is worth the cash.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Michelle Tokunaga had no idea what an NBC page was before she applied for the job in New York City.</li><li>Tokunaga says the experience was invaluable and shares her best advice for getting into the program.</li></ul>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Michelle Tokunaga, a former NBC page who now works for Comcast in New York City. It has been edited for length and clarity.I had no idea what the NBC Page Program was or what a page even did when I applied to the prestigious 12-month fellowship. I had never watched the comedy TV series "30 Rock" and didn't know who Kenneth, the show's cheerful page, was. I only found out because my sister knew I was looking for jobs in TV production and sent me a link to the job listing.<div type="image" title="Jack McBrayer as Kenneth Purcell in &quot;30 Rock&quot; 138257026" height="3000" width="1993" msid="96116808" hostid="261" sizebytes="203462"></div>Even though I figured there was zero shot I'd get in (the program is well known for being highly competitive and has a lower acceptance rate than Ivy Leagues), I decided to apply anyway.Now, I couldn't imagine where I'd be today if I hadn't done the page program — it shaped my career and gave me the experience of a lifetime.<h2>Here's what the hiring process and program were like</h2>I started as a page in November 2019 and sent in my application three months prior in August. I submitted my resume and cover letter through the NBC careers website. To my surprise, I heard back about a month later that I'd gotten a first round interview.1. Video interviewThe first stage is a video interview, which to be honest, was terrible and stressful. Essentially, it's a recorded Q&amp;A through their own portal. Once you start the interview, you only have about 30 seconds to read the prompt and another 30 seconds to answer — and there are no redos.This part of the interview process is obviously tough, so my best advice is to just relax and try to pretend like you're being interviewed by a human being. After I was accepted into the program, our page managers told us that they know it can be awkward, so they take that into account when evaluating.2. Panel interviewA few weeks after the video interview, they reached out again letting me know I'd made it to the panel interview round, which took place in person at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. It was intense: There were nine other candidates in the room, and the entire process took around three hours. Basically, they started at one end of the table and asked each candidate two or three general career questions — and then we had to give a 2 minute presentation that we'd been told to prepare ahead of time.It was nerve-wracking waiting for your turn while simultaneously listening to the other candidates and thinking of how to craft your own response. The prompt was something along the lines of, "What's something that changed your life perspective or made you the person you are today?" I spoke about my experience growing up biracial — my mom is white and my dad is Japanese — and grappling with my identity.You had to have precise timing because they'd stop you even if you weren't finished answering – they wanted to see that you had solid public speaking skills (which is a necessary skill to lead studio tours) and could follow directions.3. Individual interview with managementThen, there's the individual interview with members of the management team. Candidates were asked to leave the main room and wait our turn to be called in one by one. This part of the process was pretty standard. The interview lasted around 10 minutes and consisted mostly of questions about my career goals and what I'd been up to previously. Most of us come right from college, but that's not always the case; someone in my cohort was 28 when we started and had formerly been in the marines, so it's open to anyone who wants to apply.4. Group projectsFinally, they grouped us together us up to work on projects. My group had to create a pitch about what strategies NBC should use to market the Olympics. They're not expecting you to nail this portion and know exactly what to say, they just want to see some creativity and how well you collaborate on a team.After a few more weeks of waiting, I got an email saying I'd gotten into the page program in October.<h2>My best advice for getting through the interviews is to show that you can solve any problem</h2>The hiring team really just wants someone who's adaptable and can problem solve in any scenario. They're trusting you to work SNL or The Tonight show — you have to be able to think on your feet under pressure.My best advice I could give anyone who's going through the interview process is to talk about how you demonstrated those qualities in previous jobs and life experiences. Driving home the point that you made a quick pivot and took charge of a situation is a must.<div type="image" title="Michelle Tokunaga" height="835" width="1114" msid="96116809" hostid="261" sizebytes="46470"></div>In total, the hiring process took a little over two months.I applied in August and didn't start until the end of November. Some people came from Ohio or Texas, and they had to relocate to New York in just a month. That was one of our bigger gripes as pages; they only gave us about a $600 stipend to move to New York, which isn't much.There were around 25 people in my cohort, and we had three weeks of training when we first started. It kind of felt like we were going to school — we took notes, took tests, and learned about the building and the history of NBC.After training, we started our three-month ambassadorships, followed by three rotations, which are each three months long, totaling 12 months.<h2>The first few months of the program were chaotic but incredibly fun</h2>Here's where we had to put all of our knowledge to the test. We gave three to five studio tours a day of The Tonight Show studio, SNL, and The Today Show, which was always extremely hectic because these shows were always either filming or preparing to film.You could be notified that your tour route had changed at any moment, even mid-tour: You'd be planning on taking a group to the SNL set, but now they had a rehearsal — you have to be able to think fast and pivot to something else without getting frazzled.NBC news anchors like Lester Holt and Hoda Kotb would often pass by and jump in on a tour, giving their own spiel to the tour group. Around Christmas, we had to come in around 4 a.m. for The Today Show, and Hoda left a thank you note for us along with desserts baked by her mother.While the news anchors were super friendly and went out of their way to say hi to us in the halls, SNL cast members were usually more standoffish. The SNL studio and the page office were on the same floor so we'd see them around often, but it was a 50-50 shot whether or not they'd acknowledge our existence. I didn't take it personally though — they're at work like everyone else.<div type="image" title="Michelle Tokunaga" height="460" width="460" msid="96116810" hostid="261" sizebytes="18946"></div>This phase of the program was hectic, but there were a lot of funny stories exchanged between pages. We were giving tours during the day and working a show at night. I was placed with The Tonight Show and occasionally Late Night with Seth Myers.That early on in the program, they never assign pages to SNL — the dress rehearsal and live show is all in the same night, so it's a crazy-long shift and pure chaos. The late night shows aren't easy either, but at least we'd get to go home before 2 a.m.Another main duty pages take on during this time is recruiting audience members for shows and managing the standby ticket lines. NBC gives out tickets to people well in advance of the show, but not every single person will show up.So throughout the day, when we weren't giving tours, we'd walk around outside 30 Rock and get people to sign up for a standby line; ideally, we'd sign up 80 to 100 people, or around 150 on days with bad weather when no-shows are more common.The standby line was always sort of a mess. We'd have to round up every single person, about 100 of them, in chronological order based on the number on their ticket. People would be upset and complain about their place in line, others didn't speak English, and some would argue with each other about who got there first. It takes major patience and crowd-control skills and almost feels like babysitting.<h2>At the end of the ambassadorship, you get to rank your top 5 assignments</h2>During the ambassadorship stage, we were working 60 to 80 hour weeks, so it was definitely tiring.We had a lot of mini-assignments during this time. We'd work the Today Show in the morning, which meant we had to be there from 4 a.m. to 9 a.m., then jump into three back-to-back tours, recruit for Jimmy Fallon, and at night work the Tonight Show.Right as our ambassadorship came to an end in February 2020, and we were about to get our first three-month assignment, COVID hit. I didn't step back into 30 rock until that October, but until then, everything was remote.This is also when we ranked our top 5 assignments. Before the pandemic, there was a business assignment, which would focus mostly on HR, a content assignment, where you would get assigned to work on SNL or The Tonight Show, and a consumer assignment, which was usually marketing. During the pandemic, they omitted content assignments since no shows were in production.I ended up with all three business assignments, which I was really sad about.<h2>I didn't like the politics within the program and that we were only being paid minimum wage</h2>The program isn't advertised as being as business-heavy as it actually is — at least to me. All of the assignment teams rank which pages they want, and I felt like we were pigeonholed based on our experience — if you'd had a marketing internship in the past, you'd get placed in a marketing assignment, for example.That was one thing I didn't like about the page program — the politics that influenced who got which assignments. I didn't really feel like I'd gotten the hands-on production experience that made me want to apply in the first place.My first assignment was at Campus Programs, which is the NBC internship program. They had never run a virtual internship before, so I was on the team that was helping lead the first ever virtual internship for NBC.Three months later, I was placed in another HR assignment at the entertainment and lifestyle group, on the diversity and inclusion team. I didn't have a lot to do, and it was virtual, so it was a lot of sitting around waiting for a task.Though my assignments weren't ideal, I didn't blame the people who ran the program. They had the difficult task of fitting a hundred pages into very specific roles, and they can't let everyone work on SNL.Since you don't have control over which assignments you get, you have to make the most out of what's handed to you. Feel free to wallow for a little bit (I definitely did), but then you should try to learn as much as you can while enjoying the people that you're working with. They'll support you and want to help you grow in that area.There were also extremely high expectations placed on pages, but we were only getting paid minimum wage in the beginning, which was $15.50 in New York.Many of us complained about how low the pay was, especially because we'd been used to working 70-hour weeks in the beginning of the program and getting paid overtime. Once our assignments started and we were working 40-hour weeks, it was a stark pay difference that wasn't very sustainable. They eventually raised it to about $18 during the pandemic.<h2>Set up as many "informationals" as you can</h2>As a page, you're able to set up what we call "informationals," which basically means you can meet with anyone at the company and talk to them about their position. I definitely recommend taking advantage of this; I made a point to seek out as many informationals as I could to figure out where I'd best fit at the company and what I would enjoy the most.My third and final rotation was at Peacock doing project management and working on advertising on the platform. During that rotation, I also got the chance to do supplemental SNL work on the side, which was really what I wanted to be doing in the first place. I would work my normal five days at Peacock and then head to 30 Rock on Saturdays once they started having in-person shows again in October 2020.It was intense because we were still in the thick of the pandemic, but NBC desperately wanted to come back. They only signed us up for the first few shows, as a sort of trial to see how it would go. After the first episode back, which Chris Rock hosted, all of the pages were huddled together after the show, and Keenan Thompson was walking down the hallway. He stopped when he saw us and said, "Thank you guys for everything you do. It wouldn't be possible without you." That was extremely gratifying.At the end of the 12-month program, NBC gave us an optional additional three months to work on various extra assignments. It's really just an opportunity to apply to other jobs at the company if you haven't been offered one already. After completing my Peacock assignment, they offered me a full-time role as an assistant coordinator, so I started that position right after my 12 months.<h2>If you want to be a page, prepare for it as you would any other job</h2>Do all of your homework and research the company and role as much as possible. I think the best place to start is reaching out to former pages, especially recent ones. You can message them on LinkedIn and ask to hop on an informational call just to get a sense of what the program is like. Usually, we're very open to talking about it — we've all been in your shoes, and I'm sure many of us reached out to former pages as well.I think part of the reason I ended up getting accepted was because I thought it would never happen for me, so I wasn't in my head during the lengthy and intense hiring process. Don't agonize over it. It's just a job, and you can apply four times a year. And honestly, sometimes the program isn't for you.A lot of people have been dreaming of getting into the page program for years, and it's completely normal to have nerves. That said, my advice is to try to not come across as too needy. They can also sense when someone is applying just for the clout or glamor, and that's definitely a turn off. They want people who will be able to keep their cool, for example, if they run ino Colin Jost in the elevator, which happened to me.<h2>I'm now at Comcast thanks to the page program, and I recommend the fellowship to anyone</h2>I'm still close with my cohort to this day — you leave the page program with an incredible sense of community and a long-lasting network that helps you both professionally and socially. We're all included on an email chain where all former pages can reach out letting us know about job openings at their companies, at NBC or elsewhere. I get about 5 of these a month, and people even use it to find roommates in different cities.I found my current project management job at Comcast, NBC's parent company, directly through one of my connections at Peacock. I also got the opportunity to interview for the head writer assistant position on a Peacock show called Girls5eva. I didn't end up getting it, but I definitely had a foot in the door because of my experience in the page program.Right now, I'm not sure if I want to go into production anymore. I'm also interested in going to graduate school for social work, so for now, I'm taking things a day at a time. The page program has its pros and cons, it ended up being a truly invaluable experience for me — and I know it gave me memories and connections I'll have for life.If you've landed a highly competitive or unusual job and want to share your story, email Dorothy Cucci at <a href="mailto:dcucci@insider.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dcucci@insider.com</a>.

You Searched For "dorothy cucci" and got 9 results

I was overly aggressive when I interviewed with WeWork's Adam Newmann for the Meetup CEO role — and it paid off. Here's why I recommend all leaders negotiate every detail.

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I read an ex-Apollo partner's tell-all book about the inner workings of private equity and was perplexed and ultimately disappointed

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We left New York and went overseas to support Ukraine here's how we mobilized on our own to help refugees and people needing aid

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I'm a VC whose investments have made my firm almost $1 billion. Here's what I look for when evaluating a startup.

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A Yale professor's new book sheds light on a seemingly obvious way to negotiate

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Swingers meetups, polyamory, and a robot wedding: A new memoir goes behind the scenes of Silicon Valley party and sex culture

Dorothy Cucci

I make $200 an hour as a notary-signing agent. It's a surprisingly easy side hustle here's how I got certified and made my startup costs back in 2 weeks.

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I've made thousands in tips as a 'shot girl' at a popular beach bar. Customers get creepy and even physical, but the job is worth the cash.

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Working at SNL as an NBC page was chaotic but super fun. Here's what the notoriously competitive interview process was like.

Dorothy Cucci