Fast Company

There are three stories every manager and entrepreneur needs to be able to tell, says this Silicon Valley and Marine Corps veteran.

There are three stories every manager and entrepreneur needs to be able to tell, says this Silicon Valley and Marine Corps veteran.

At Facebook, Don Faul and his team faced one of the more goliath tasks anyone in tech has ever faced. It was his job, as VP of online operations, to ensure a good experience for the site’s hundreds of millions of users—including responding to reports of abuse, flagged content, and other bad experiences. This boiled down to supporting his intrepid team members—sometimes spending entire days dealing with the toughest of human issues—to do their best work and stay motivated against overwhelming odds. The skill that made the critical difference: Being able to tell good stories.

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Mentoring arrangements can become a waste of time for both parties if you don’t take a few key steps.

Mentoring arrangements can become a waste of time for both parties if you don’t take a few key steps.

You took the first step and asked someone to be your mentor. Congrats! Whether you chose this seasoned pro to help you hone specific skills or to give you long-term career advice, it’s up to you to drive the relationship—so you get the most out of the time you’re both putting in.

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That hiring manager or business partner may not be ready to act, but you’ll want them to remember you when they are.

That hiring manager or business partner may not be ready to act, but you’ll want them to remember you when they are.

Entrepreneurs and job seekers both live or die by the relationships they build—with new clients, contacts, recruits, investors, and partners. But as any successful relationship builder can tell you, timing isn’t always on your side: Your dream client may not have the budget for your services right now, or maybe a strong candidate for a senior position just had a baby and isn’t ready for a move to a new company yet.

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The company says machine learning and natural language processing can make financial research dramatically more efficient.

The company says machine learning and natural language processing can make financial research dramatically more efficient.

For the casual internet user, a quick Google search is often all it takes to find plenty of information on any particular topic.

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Data science interviews are notoriously complex, but most of what they throw at you will fall into one of these categories.

Data science interviews are notoriously complex, but most of what they throw at you will fall into one of these categories.

Data science interviews are daunting, complicated gauntlets for many. But despite the ways they’re evolving, the technical portion of the typical data science interview tends to be pretty predictable. The questions most candidates face usually cover behavior, mathematics, statistics, coding, and scenarios. However they differ in their particulars, those questions may be easier to answer if you can identify which bucket each one falls into. Here’s a breakdown, and what you can do to prepare.

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The country music legend talks about her new album, Pure & Simple, and why you should stick to your crazy ideas.

The country music legend talks about her new album, Pure & Simple, and why you should stick to your crazy ideas.

Dolly Parton has spent more than 50 years with the things she loves, whether it’s a career in country music that has spanned over 40 albums and numerous awards or her husband, with whom she recently celebrated 50 years of matrimony by renewing their vows. Parton is famous for her supreme ability to tell stories through her music, her movies, and her life—the ultimate rags-to-riches story about growing up in a small East Tennessee town (and modeling her style after “the town trollop”). She has since become a star as celebrated for her songwriting as for her business acumen (her nonprofit, Dolly’s Imagination Library, has donated more than 40 million books to children across the U.S.)

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With its Charge 2 band’s cardio and breathing offerings, Fitbit is putting its years-in-the-making PurePulse sensor to work in new ways.

With its Charge 2 band’s cardio and breathing offerings, Fitbit is putting its years-in-the-making PurePulse sensor to work in new ways.

Behind a wall of privacy dividers in a common space at Fitbit’s San Francisco headquarters, a young man in a surfing T-shirt and shorts—and an oxygen mask—is running on a treadmill. Its speed keeps increasing, compelling him to pick up his own pace.

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If Leonardo da Vinci were alive today, he’d be a Burner. And this is what it took to bring his Vitruvian Man concept to life at Burning Man.

If Leonardo da Vinci were alive today, he’d be a Burner. And this is what it took to bring his Vitruvian Man concept to life at Burning Man.

Deep inside a dark tractor trailer in the middle of North America’s most remote piece of desert earlier this month, a doomed Man lay strapped down, waiting to be taken outside, mounted and spun around for all to see, and eventually be burned in front of hordes of screaming, ecstatic people.

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This entrepreneur learned (the hard way) what it takes to tame an unruly board and build one that actually works.

This entrepreneur learned (the hard way) what it takes to tame an unruly board and build one that actually works.

There was the board member who tried to vote me out. There were the ones who insisted “this will never work.” There was even the one who joked (I think) about having me hit by a bus in order to get rid of me.

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If you don’t spend money on a garage, there’s lots of extra cash to add bike-friendly amenities to a new building.

If you don’t spend money on a garage, there’s lots of extra cash to add bike-friendly amenities to a new building.

A new apartment building in Sweden doesn’t have any parking spaces. Instead, the developers invested the money that would have gone to a parking garage into creating an ideal place to live for people who don’t want to own a car.

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