Chief Executive Officers

"I like what we provide should be done in conjunction with your traditional mental health care."

"I would probably say instead of dissecting whether or not you, as an individual, would be considered a survivor."

"You have to kind of separate yourself from it."

"You have to take into account every element that went into this traumatic situation and you have to break it down."

"A lot of the trauma we endure is conditioned to be treated as either a rite of passage."

"I was noticing how it didn't feel like a chore."

"I think one of the biggest challenges that survivors face is identifying as a survivor."

"I like to think that healing requires an innovative and holistic approach."

"They focus on survivor justice and also just through creative word of mouth advertising."

"It was when I really started understanding that in order for me to receive corrections while I'm in the studio."

"I have to develop a sense of comfort."

"Some of it is through strategic referral partnerships that we've built with charter schools, other victim service organizations."

"So that's why we wanted to make sure that when we were developing our programing, we had a variety for them to choose from."

"Putting power back into their hands and letting us know how they want to heal."

"I had about allowing people into my personal space, I had to let that go."

"We've created, a few different ways for us to, connect with community."

"I am the founder and CEO of Ballet After Dark."

"We are a nonprofit organization based in Baltimore City, that provides trauma informed program somatic interventions."

"Our other programs focus on engagement, exposure, and art enhancement and appreciation."

"Thank you so much for having me."

"I was paying attention to how I was feeling and how I was changing emotionally when I was in the studio."

"We do believe that allowing for survivors to be reintroduced to some type of routine really, really complements their healing journey."

"Nothing in my background was remotely close to entrepreneurship or business management."

"I was a resident dance teacher for various schools in Baltimore City."

"I had zero business experience and no college degree."

"The transition definitely wasn’t easy."

"I was searching for a community to heal with, and there was nowhere for me to go."

"I consider myself a late bloomer in many elements of entrepreneurship."

"I had experience pushing myself, and I understand now that the grit, ambition and determination necessary to show up to ballet auditions prepared me for this journey."

"I’m constantly learning something new."

"It’s something that I’ve had to relearn in my time at Waymo. I like using data to make decisions. And I think when you’re introducing a new technology, introducing a new business model, introducing consumers to an experience that’s never existed before, it’s really about getting comfortable knowing when you have enough data and also getting comfortable with your own gut. And so I say one of the things at Waymo that people get out of it is this reinforced sense of your own internal guide. That’s what I use a lot now because it’s pioneering. There isn’t a playbook. No one’s done it before. We’re figuring it out as we go along. It requires a lot of humility and a lot of openness around learning. And so I learn, I listen, I make a decision. If it’s not the right decision we pivot, and we keep going. And so really having the mindset that this is a learning journey."

"In a 50-square-mile territory, which is also the size of San Francisco, so I’m not going to concede that it’s tiny. Yes, it is a specific jurisdiction that we’re working in, but that’s the way to do it safely. Also, we have launched a trusted tester program in San Francisco. So now residents of San Francisco are having the chance to try out our service too."

"I think that’s one of the ways in which this is quite different. It’s not a one-and-done, and it’s also not, get the technology up to a certain point and now we’re ready to deploy it everywhere. Geographically, street lights are different, weather is different, there’s a lot about each domain that’s quite different. What you’ll see us do, and what you’ve seen us do now that we’re operating in two fairly different environments, that gives our tech stack the opportunity to learn. We’ve driven over 20 million miles on public roads, autonomously, across 25 cities. Over 20 billion miles in simulation, which is quite important. And so this is the way the Waymo Driver learns and all of that learning is shared across the fleet."

"What’s funny to me is when I think back to when I joined Waymo almost five years ago. And I remember thinking, “Oh, product market fit’s probably done. It’s ready to commercialize.” And I realize, no, you actually have to put the technology into the real world and that’s how you get it ready. That’s what we’ve been focused on doing, and learning, and receiving feedback from, now, riders in Phoenix."

"We facilitated a number of listening sessions and did customer discovery to find out what resources the community lacked and created programming and partnerships that filled in those gaps."

"We made our own coffee cups because no company knew how to make American-style coffee cups, no bakery knew how to make muffins"

"We’ve been at it for a while. I would say it’s the engineering challenge of our generation. That is what’s taking it so long. To do it, and do it well, I think means two things. One, that safety is at the core of everything we do. And safety takes time. And secondly, we actually have to learn along the way. It’s like a process of discovery."

"I founded this organization as a result of recognizing the lack of prevention and recovery resources centered around women that looked like me."

"I was hit by a wave of freshly made coffee in the morning…I remember going to the bar and being asked ‘Soy cappuccino, latte, espresso?’ I fell in love with it"

"I was just like ‘Hang on Bobby, you’ve got me completely wrong, why doesn’t someone ELSE open a coffee bar for me to go to it? I didn’t see why I had to provide a solution to my own problem"

"I simply got an all-day tube pass for the circle line, and got off at every stop to see what they offered. It was disgusting filter coffee in polystyrene cups, and people were drinking it"

"I couldn’t understand why no one was having fun at work… I refused to accept that, these were meant to be the best years of my life"

"It's never too early for this, and it's certainly never too late"

"One of my BIGGEST LEARNINGS across the years is that life isn’t just about MAKING MONEY – no one is a COIN MACHINE at their core"

"I nearly died OD-ing on 26 espressos during a coffee tasting course – no one told us we had to spit them out, so Bobby and I just drank them all"

"DISCOVERY is one of life’s GREAT JOYS and COMPARISON is a total WASTE OF TIME"

"Somehow, everything we didn't have clicked something on in my brain," Sahar said. "It made me problem solve the same way we problem solve outside—in a human way"

"A startup mindset is actually our only insurance policy in choppy waters"

"My motto in life is, 'leap and the net will appear"

"I started. I got the flow going"