I got to carve through the streets of New York's financial district and discover the awesome feeling of being part of a system where, the harder you worked, the more of those scarce resources you earned! I never looked back.

Because my college was a local college, it had a historic role in educating minorities and the tuition increase was viewed as an obstacle in creating more opportunity for minorities. I threw myself info the protests with all my heart. Ultimately, a group of us barricaded ourselves in the school for about 3 weeks so we brought the running of the campus to a halt.

I grew up in a modern business environment and did not experience the kind of prejudice that my mother and grandfather experienced.

Thinking like others is ok for things that are not important to you.

That being said, everyone of us can move a big step farther towards determining the direction of our own lives. We can all break free from group think. Some more than others. Most don't. Finding out who is who is great fun.

However, there's nothing more inspiring than a company that does solve problems and those problems are captured as part of a larger story.

As members of a minority, one that was often persecuted, that entrepreneurial perspective was burnished with a sense of "outsider" status - so not only were we committed to finding our own way of achieving success, we also grew up to believe that we'd have to fight to get whatever we wanted.