It’s been known for a while that Google pays Apple a ton of money to be the default search provider in Safari on iOS. Court documents had revealed the search giant paid Apple $1 billion in 2014 for the privilege, but now that fee could be even higher, reports CNBC. U.S. research and brokerage firm Bernstein told the network that it’s likely Google may pay Apple as much as $3 billion throughout 2017 to retain its default search status on iOS devices. If so, the licensing fees are virtually all profit on Apple’s part, which means Google could be directly responsible for 5% of Apple’s operating profits.

The home-sharer will increase its in-country engineering team from 25 to 100 people in the next 12 months, reports Bloomberg. Like many tech companies, Airbnb is desperate to become a leader in the world’s second largest economy–and wants to capture the cash millennials there are willing to spend on experiences. Airbnb’s engineering team expansion is just another phase in the company’s previously announced Chinese expansion in which it is doubling investment in the country and crippling its local workforce.

Augmented reality—superimposing virtual objects on a smartphone screen or a headset’s view of the world—originated long before Pokémon Go and could take off in the very near future. Research firm IDC just released a report predicting that the AR/VR market will at least double every year through 2021. Qualcomm, the largest maker of processors for Android smartphones, is betting big on AR as well as VR. Today, it’s introducing new camera technology called active depth sensing to enable AR/VR and other features in smartphones and many other devices.

Qualcomm’s active depth sensing projects infrared light to map distance and 3D contours of an object or location, with precision to a fraction of a millimeter, the company claims. That allows an AR app to convincingly position images of imaginary objects in a view of the real world. “To truly fool your senses, it has to be perfect right on,” says Keith Kressin, Qualcomm’s senior VP of product management. The tech could be equally valuable for VR headsets, warning people in fake worlds when they are about to hit something real.

Another application: Letting you unlock your smartphone just by looking at the camera, eliminating the need for a fingerprint sensor. Such “face unlock” tech is already in some smartphones with garden-variety selfie cameras, but isn’t as secure as other methods. With precise depth mapping of a face’s contours and the ability to spot tiny, fleeting muscle movements, however, the camera won’t be fooled by a photo held up to the camera or (if anyone goes to the trouble) a mask or 3D print of a face, says Qualcomm. (There are some hints that Apple will bring similar tech to the expected iPhone 8.) Beyond consumer gadgets, the tech will also find its way into self-driving cars and other robots, Qualcomm hopes.

With dominance in Android smartphones, deals with big VR headset makers like HTC and Lenovo, and patents going back a decade—it once owned VR pioneer Vuforia, and retains some of its intellectual property—Qualcomm has a good shot at dominance in AR and VR. Ironically, though, the company might get a major boost in these markets from Apple, which powers its mobile devivces with its own A series processors rather than Qualcomm chips and which is currently engaged in a legal tussle with the company over patents and licensing. When the next iPhones debut, probably in September, they’ll run iOS 11, with advanced support for augmented reality apps. Long before that, at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Apple introduced ARKit, software for developers to start building AR apps in time for iOS 11.

“Tim Cook has said, and it’s true, when iOS 11 ships, it’ll instantly become the largest AR platform out there.” says Tom Mainelli, an analyst at IDC who covers mobile devices, AR, and VR. The predicted AR explosion in Apple products could create enthusiasm for Android buyers, too, says Mainelli.

Hyper-real 3D

While Apple may have the lead in publicity and software, Qualcomm might have an edge in hardware, especially with the new camera system it’s introducing. There are several ways to map a 3D space, starting with one or two basic cameras and algorithms to analyze clues in the appearance of objects—basically what we do with our eyes and brain. Qualcomm supports that method. But its new technology goes beyond what humans can do by projecting infrared light, allowing it to calculate contours in its field of view to within less than a millimeter of accuracy, according to the chipmaker. (Since infrared light is invisible, humans don’t see a thing, and the tech works in pitch-black settings.)

The resulting point cloud, as it’s called, isn’t a new invention. Standard cameras can produce them (I recently wrote about such a system for self-driving cars), as can infrared cameras like the ones used in the Xbox’s Kinect. The infrared tech in devices like the Kinect uses time of flight, calculating how long it takes an infrared beam sent from an emitter to bounce off an object and back to a camera next to the emitter. It’s essentially radar with light. (Sources tell Fast Company that Apple may have chosen time of flight tech for future iPhone depth sensors.)

Qualcomm’s bragging rights are in the level of accuracy. Instead of time of flight, it uses a method called structured light, also not a new invention, but one the chipmaker claims to have refined to high accuracy and low price and power consumption.

The infrared light passes through a filter, creating a detailed pattern projected in front of the camera. As it hits objects (or people) with different shapes and contours, at different distances, the pattern gets distorted. “The infrared camera is looking at the distortion and warping of these dots,” says Philip Jacobowitz, Qualcomm’s senior product marketing manager for camera and computer vision. “Let’s say an object is closer to you. These dots are going to show up slightly larger.” An infrared camera photographs the pattern, and, 30 times per second, Qualcomm’s processor analyzes the distortions to generate a three-dimensional cloud with over 10,000 points, accurate to within a tenth of a millimeter, claims the company.

Related:Here’s What Needs To Happen For VR To Go Mainstream

In samples from Qualcomm, the point clouds look as detailed as a grainy photo or video. They resemble point clouds from very high-end lidar systems, hefty laser scanners used in self-driving cars. Even the smallest lidars are about the size of a toaster, and they cost thousands of dollars. Qualcomm’s new Spectra system won’t be a cheap replacement for lidar, though, as the later can map objects 200 meters away or more. Qualcomm’s system is accurate within a range of roughly three meters (about 10 feet), which might still be helpful for backup sensors or to judge distances from future autonomous cars and trucks driving in tight formation. It could be even handier in consumer and industrial robots that move in closer quarters.

The Waiting Game

Don’t expect to see the new Spectra camera system tomorrow, or even this year. Qualcomm typically announces components before they go into mass production, and it takes even longer before they make their way into final products like smartphones or VR headsets. In this case, the delay will be even longer. The depth sensing tech requires not only Qualcomm’s camera system but the latest version of its image signal processing (ISP), called Spectra, in a new chip that probably won’t even be announced until the end of the year. “What’s happened that we can do this now?” asks Jacobowitz. “Much of it has to do with this new image signal processor…that can handle all this depth information.” And since a Qualcomm processor is required, there’s probably no chance you will see the IR projector-camera combo make its way into future iPhones.

Qualcomm’s top chip right now, the Snapdragon 835, powers high-end smartphones like Samsung’s Galaxy S8. It will also be in VR headsets from HTC and Lenovo using the Google Daydream platform as well as an upcoming standalone version of the HTC Vive that doesn’t need to tether to a PC. (Qualcomm will not comment on rumors that Facebook has selected it to power an untethered version of the Oculus Rift headset coming in 2018.)

Qualcomm’s new ISP won’t be available until it’s built into the next-generation Snapdragon, which is yet to be announced and may not make its way into phones until at best the first half of 2018. While the system works best with infrared-projecting active depth sensing, the new Spectra image processing will improve the accuracy of “passive” systems that use regular cameras, says Qualcomm.

No matter how good its camera tech, Qualcomm will have to compete with several heavyweights on various levels. If apps built using ARKit truly capture the public imagination, even on phones with less advanced imaging hardware, Apple’s platform could become the de facto standard for AR. In headsets, Qualcomm is also going up against Intel, although Qualcomm has a good head start, says Mainelli. The only thing that is certain about augmented reality is that it’s destined to get very big, very fast.

As a new parent, you find yourself pelted with product choices when you walk through a baby aisle. When it comes to buying a milk bottle or pacifier, there are dozens of options that include different types of materials, shapes, and theories about how the products interact with a child’s mouth. A new brand, Smilo, helps to cut through some of this noise. “[W]e decided to launch the kind of company we would have wanted,” says CEO Josh Wiesman. “A brand that simplified the process, but one that we could trust, as well.”

The Boston-based direct-to-consumer brand launches with a line of baby products designed around the pacifier. Since college Wiesman has been working in conjunction with a pediatric dentist, Dave Tesini, on a pacifier that supports the baby’s palette. Some pacifiers create cross bites or collapsed palates because the tip of the pacifier doesn’t expand to fill the child’s mouth. Smilo’s pacifier is sized for a baby’s age and expands slightly in the mouth for optimum support. This same technology is applied to a range of milk bottles, which are also designed to reduce air intake to prevent gassy tummies.

Smilo will also offer a range of other useful items for new parents, such as blankets, washcloths, and snack containers. It will sell directly to consumers entirely through its own website. The idea is for new parents to be able to buy a bundle of the core products they need to get started, then easily restock every few months when the baby grows and needs new products. Before launch, Smilo received $3.25 million in funding from VCs such as Brand Foundry, which has invested in Allbirds and Rockets of Awesome, and Norwest Venture Partners, which has invested in Casper and Spotify.

Simone Askew has become the first African-American woman to hold the highest student position at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, reports the New York Times. On Monday, the 20-year-old Northern Virginia resident achieved the honor and will now oversee 4,400 students at the academy. The position also means Askew will be a liaison between the West Point student body and its military administration. Speaking to the Times, Askew said:

“You’re selected for this role, that’s not the end of it. That’s just the starting line, and it’s more so, ‘Hey, what do you do with this role? What are you able to accomplish alongside your teammates?’ And I’m very, very fortunate to be around some awesome people.”

As long as women have been doing paid work, they have had to contend with sexism. It’s been inseparable from the experience of trying to earn a living and build a career. But 1991 was a turning point for the issue of sexual harassment entering public discourse. It was the year that Anita Hill testified to Congress that her former boss and Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had repeatedly sexually harassed her.

Now, 26 years later, revelations of rampant harassment and sexist work cultures are coming out of Silicon Valley regularly. Have we made any progress? We spoke to Anita Hill about how today’s environment compares to what she faced nearly 30 years ago, the solutions she thinks women have today, the challenges President Trump presents, the role she thinks race plays in sexism, and more.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. 

Fast Company: In your Op-Ed for the New York Times you said that you think the solution to gender inequity in the tech industry is for women to pursue class action suits. Can you explain why you think that will be effective and some of the limitations to the approach?

Anita Hill: Class actions are one of the best options to pursue systemic change. When you read the statistics, and when you punctuate the statistics with the anecdotal information that seems to be coming out regularly about women’s experiences in tech, what you can clearly identify is that the problem is systemic. It’s not just one company or another. It’s not just individual behavior. Is it a problem of culture. It is a problem of the system.

For example, over 50% of women are offered lower salaries than their male counterparts. That doesn’t seem to be just chance or just one or two people who are making offers, this seems to be a system problem. Systemic problems demand broad-based–approach solutions. And class action lawsuits really are broad-based. They can cover a number of women, even thousands of women depending on the size of the workforce. And they can cover a variety of issues, from culture and climate to equal pay to promotions failures or failure of opportunity.

FC: In a lot in these cases when women bring suit against the company, the burden of proof is on them, and they often have their characters scrutinized, as you obviously did during your testimony. What do you think about the fear that women have about being retaliated against or having their reputations damaged?

AH: I absolutely understand that women are fearful of getting involved in lawsuits. We saw some of that in Ellen Pao’s case in Silicon Valley. You see it happening when women speak out, whether it’s a lawsuit or just complaining about their experiences. Susan Fowler spoke up about her experiences and the backlash was real and swift. The industry is quite small in many ways, in terms of the ability of people to know exactly who you are and what you’re doing and whether you’re complaining. So I think that’s a very real fear.

I do think though that group action, while it doesn’t insulate you from that kind of behavior, it does give women a sense that the behavior is not personal. It’s not limited to them. The problems are really bigger. They shouldn’t really personalize even the attacks, because they are so typical now. We need to understand that this is part of the playbook of responding to the problem that people don’t want to confront.

I think that there is strength in numbers in two ways: One, to understand that other women are suffering the same problem gives you a sense of solidarity. I know from hearing from women this is comforting–knowing that there are others out there who are experiencing the same thing, and being able to talk about it with them.

Related:This Is How We Fix Silicon Valley’s Sexual Harassment Problem

The other strength in numbers is truly unfortunate as a reflection of our society, it’s that in order to be convincing very often we need numbers. One person can be much more easily dismissed than a group of people who talk about the same experience and the same problems. [A woman’s] credibility will be questioned no matter what. But it’s really hard to completely deny that there is an issue when multiple individuals come forward and talk about the same kinds of problems.

FC: I’m glad that you brought up Ellen Pao’s case. I spoke to her recently for her upcoming book, where she details her discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins [Editor’s note: look for that interview in the October issue of Fast Company], which she famously lost. She told me that before she sued she spoke to several women who had filed similar discrimination cases–women who had lost, won, and settled–and all of them told her not to do it. Similarly, Pao said she’d tell women in her position now not to sue, even though she doesn’t regret doing it. I know you said that you don’t regret bringing your sexual harassment charges forward even though you endured so much criticism. Would you advise a woman in a similar situation now to do the same thing that you did?

AH: I am much more cautious. I would never say to someone not to come forward. But right now what I’m working on is talking to women to find what would get [them] to come forward, because women are frustrated with the system. They’re frustrated not only for themselves but they’re frustrated that we’re going to be bringing a new generation of women and people of color into systems that are hostile to them in many ways.

Individual lawsuits are tough. I think what we ought to be doing is providing options. How can you come forward? What do you need? What kind of support would you need? What kind of system would you need? And it seems to me that unfortunately [in] many of the suits–win or lose–many of the individuals who brought them felt very isolated and marginalized. They did not have the support that they needed to weather a lot of the criticism that they were getting. I think that is something that we need to respond to.

Related: What’s Stopping Women In STEM? Only Our Unwillingness To Fix The Problem

What I heard from women is just knowing that they had support was helpful for them getting through, both women who’ve prevailed and women who have not prevailed. Not all of them thought that the effort was worth it. But even some of those who haven’t prevailed said that it is worth it for them to be heard.

FC: This year we’ve seen a blog post bring down the executive board at Uber. What do you think about women going to the court of public opinion to make change happen rather than going through the legal system?

AH: I think the court of public opinion is a wonderful forum in many ways. But it’s not without its detractors and trolls.

In my situation in 1991, much of what happened with my testimony happened after the hearing, in terms of public opinion. Immediately after the hearing 70% of the people polled believed that I had lied–that sexual harassment didn’t exist in the way that I described it. I think that people didn’t even really understand what sexual harassment was.

But after the smoke cleared what happened was that the press shifted from a Washington, D.C.–press corps to general press. There were two pieces that were really important to moving the public to better understanding of the problem: One came out of the San Diego newspaper, and the other came from People magazine. They ran a cover story of women from different walks of life who talked about sexual harassment, including one surgeon who talked about being groped by a male colleague during surgery that she has helping to perform. I think that started engaging the public in this conversation.

[The court of public opinion] is an important tool, but I don’t think it’s the only tool. We still need lawsuits and laws that address these problems in ways that have lasting impact. That actually compels companies to act.

The tech industry can be a model because they are so high profile they are filled with individuals who say they have a commitment to inclusion and diversity. [Those people] probably need to be pushed to implement those values and policies.

FC: Do you think that much has changed since 1991? Are you surprised that this is still such a big issue 26 years later?

AH: Harassment is an issue, pay equity is an issue, [who gets] promoted–and in the tech world in particular [there are issues] around who does the creative work and who gets credit for the work, who is in leadership positions, and issues of who is being served by the innovation.

I would never say that nothing [has] happened since 1991. I have the benefit of hearing from people who have told me that their workplaces have changed after the hearing, after the public discussion, after some work and then, frankly, some lawsuits. So things have changed, but clearly not enough.

I hope we would be farther and I think we should be. But we are talking about problems that have existed for centuries. And the idea that we can just change them, even in 26 years, is just folly. It just doesn’t happen. We can make progress and there has been progress, but we can’t just simply say, “Well I thought it would be over,” and just quit.

FC: Do you think that having a president who constantly objectifies women and openly admits to sexually assaulting women sends a message of acceptance? Do you feel like we’re moving backward?

AH: I think the message sent by the president currently is to validate erroneous information, and amplify it and give other people license to present it as fact instead, of a reflection of the values of the law and of the country. Specifically if you look at the policies and the direction that the administration seems to be going–[for example] the Justice Department has removed its support for transgender [and LGBQ] individuals, [and] the president has abandoned the previous administration’s approach to removing the roadblock of mandated arbitration in discrimination suits.

Those are things that are deeply concerning, even beyond the messaging. We shouldn’t just be listening to the messaging. We need to be very cognizant of the policy changes that are going on and how that will ultimately set us back. We are in a moment now where the policies are seemingly moving us backwards. We will be relying on the courts I think to interpret the law to continue the protections that we thought were safe.

Related: This Is How The Pay Gap Breaks Down By Race

FC: The issue of race often doesn’t come up enough in discussions of the pay gap, gender discrimination, and sexual harassment. How do you think that issues of sexism are different for women of color?

AH: There’s a study of women of color astronomers, [which] found women of color experience more sexual harassment [than white women,] and women of color experience more racial harassment than men of color. We have a lot to truly explore [regarding] what the combination of racial and gender bias does for opportunities of women.

As the population grows, the population that we have been calling the minority will become the majority population . . . We have looked at so many aspects of equality as either a binary or even [a] one-dimensional issue. What we need to come to terms with and try to figure out is a sort of a multidimensional 3D [approach]. It’s not simple; it involves a whole host of different factors including age, disability, sexuality, gender, and race of course is a component.

We’ve come a long way just to get to be able to make that statement and for people to understand it. But I think that also frightens people who think, “Oh, well, we can’t deal with all of those things.” But in fact we will have to if we want equality to be real in people’s lives–if we want it to be real in our society.

In 2014, Casper made a splash in the $14 billion mattress industry with its mail-order mattresses. From the beginning, the startup took a minimalistic approach to product design. In an industry where consumers are pelted with many complicated choices–memory foam? box spring? water bed?–Casper launched a single mattress that its designers believed would cater to the widest range of consumers.

Jeff Chapin, one of Casper’s founders and the brand’s chief design officer, has been central to this simple, curated approach to product. Having spent a decade at Ideo, Chapin wants to use design to streamline the decision-making process for customers. Still, he believes that there is room for another mattress option within the Casper stable.

Over the last year, Chapin been leading a team of researchers, designers, and engineers at Casper Labs, the brand’s 5,000-square-foot R&D facility in San Francisco, as they developed an entirely new mattress. The Wave mattress stands out from existing products in the marketplace because it uses different materials along the length of the mattress to better accommodate the human body’s physiology. It will be marketed as a premium product, with a price tag roughly double that of the original Casper mattress; a regular queen-size Casper mattress is $950, while the same size Wave costs $1850.

Related:Why Casper Is The $750 Million Startup That Just Can’t Rest

“Our shoulders and hips are the heaviest parts of our body,” says Chapin, describing how the materials in the bed change as you go from the head to the torso to the legs, something that few other mattress brands have attempted. “We had a breakthrough when we decided we could change the surface of the mattress to better cradle and support these parts of the body. This would have the effect of aligning the spine.”

When you lie on a flat surface, your spine curves, since your shoulders and your butt jut out compared to your legs, torso, and head. The Wave has a layer of softer memory foam around your shoulders and bottom area that allow these parts of the body to sink in, ensuring the spine remains straight. Underneath this accommodating top layer there is a firmer latex layer that ensures that your entire body remains supported.

I felt very rested each morning after I slept on the Wave. I attributed this to several things.

First, I seemed to be able to sleep longer, since I didn’t feel uncomfortable lying on my back or side for seven hours. (One night I slept over nine hours, partly because I didn’t feel too stiff or achey to stay in bed–a regular problem for me).

Second, one interesting side effect of my hip area sinking in lower than usual is that my legs were at an incline, which was particularly relaxing after long days of walking, since generally my legs get a bit swollen if I’ve been on my feet for too much time.

Finally, the top layer that engulfed my body seemed to absorb any movement my husband made on his side of the bed.

Chapin explains that his team dug through millions of data points to develop this bed largely through Casper Labs, which has benefited from the $170 million infusion of funding that Casper received in June. The round was led by Target, and brought Casper’s investment coffers to $240 million.

Casper Labs employs a range of approaches to create new products. First, it examines and tests the latest high tech materials like weightless flo foam, a velvety material that appears to melt away upon touch, like cotton candy. This creates a comforting sensation for the sleeper.

Second, Casper Labs prototypes mattresses, then observes how humans interact with and sleep on these test beds in a climate-controlled bedroom. This is how Casper discovered that individuals create unique sleep climates around themselves because they release different amounts of moisture. (Based on this insight, Casper has determined that the key factor to a comfortable sheets and comforters is not regulating temperature, which is industry practice, but regulating humidity.)

Finally, Casper has recruited 20,000 loyal fans who are keen to provide insights. They each get an at-home kit that includes devices that capture data about their body and ambient temperature, humidity, and movement, allowing them to track their own sleep.

“At first, we wanted to keep all the gory details about our testing processes out of the consumer’s sight, since we thought it might be too much unnecessary details,” Chapin says. “But we’re finding that people are interested in the science of sleep and are fascinated by their own sleeping habits. So we’re slowly lifting the veil and allowing people to see the work that we’re doing.” Casper’s blog now contains charts about everything from sleeping positions to nocturnal body temperatures to canine sleep habits, to satisfy even the nerdiest amateur sleep scientist.

When it come to the pricing, Chapin explains that the Wave was particularly expensive to make and manufacture. The company spared no expense, bringing in materials from Belgium, Germany, and Korea that contain the latest polymer technology that are more resilient, springing back faster upon touch and thereby providing better support. The Wave was also more costly to build since mattress factories aren’t equipped to churn out such a complex design, so Casper had to work with their suppliers on new production lines.

“With this mattress, we were definitely focused on designing the best product that we could, rather than the most cost-efficient,” Chapin explains, describing how this new product is different from the original Casper mattress. “If between five and 10 percent of our mattress sales are from the Wave, that will be a success.”

As Chapin and his team conducted consumer research as while working on the Wave, he discovered that there is a small sliver of people who will pay almost anything for a high-quality mattress. This group includes people who have incapacitating back or spinal issues and must spend money on chiropractors, massages, or doctors to tackle their issues. A bed that costs several thousands of dollars seems like a small expense in comparison. One woman he met was a firefighter who had a history of back issues that made it hard for her to do her job and had spent upwards of $5,000 on her previous mattresses.

“Mattresses companies can charge ludicrous prices for beds tailored to people with back problems,” Chapin says. “Our starting price is meant to be competitive with other high-end ergonomic mattresses, but as we continue working through our supply chain we are going to find ways to drive down the cost.”

One approach to driving down cost will be to buy materials for the Wave in bulk, as Casper continues to scale as a company. At some point, Casper may even own its own factories, allowing it to more efficiently produce mattresses.

“We want to serve people like this firefighter who really depend on having a good mattress to have a good quality of life,” he says.

Unease between entrepreneurs and investors is common enough, but lately those tensions have made headlines. Entrepreneurs often like to see themselves as artists and rule-breakers; if they’d wanted to color inside the lines, they’d have chosen a different career path. Investors, on the other hand, like predictability. They prefer to minimize risk by establishing a plan and following it.

These two approaches aren’t mutually exclusive, but reconciling them isn’t easy. Add to this challenge the fact that CEOs typically report to a board, which at many startups are comprised of investors, and you may have a recipe for dysfunction.

We know how ugly this can get firsthand; we’ve both started companies and raised money from investors. We’ve seen plenty of truly bad behavior and endured our share of unhealthy relationships. Sheryl is the former CEO of Clif Bar and now heads up the beverage company Rebbl, which Duane’s investment fund, BIGR, is helping to grow. These are a few of the ways we’ve learned together to build a more trusting and transparent partnership as a startup CEO and an investor.

Related:It’s Time To Regulate The VC-Founder Relationship To Curb Sexual Harassment

We Set The Right Tone

When we first met, more than a year and a half ago, we talked about how the typical tension between investors and managers makes no sense–it’s stressful, counterproductive, and spoils a potentially rich collaboration. So we thought very intentionally about what we could do to avoid it.

To set the right tone, we adopted a few basic habits. First, we decided to express gratitude for relatively mundane acts of consideration. We also committed to asked each other “stupid” questions and to really listen to what we said to one another. Third, we shared stories from our personal lives, including details from our upbringings that led us to think the way we do, rather than just talking business. Each of these little things was a cue that a bigger thing–a different kind of relationship–was in the offing.

Before long, the expressions of gratitude became a little more effusive, the “stupid” questions became admissions of insecurity, and the stories about our personal lives became personal stories from our lives as they’re unfolding around us. Our bond now is based on a richer relationship than that of the typical investor and CEO–it’s more what you might expect between close friends, siblings, or partners. We make understanding the other’s position and feelings a priority, and we fight fairly.

Both of us have been married to our respective spouses for over two decades, and find there are remarkable similarities in what it takes to keep the relationship healthy.

We Commit To Being Vulnerable

The good intention we bring into our relationship looks a lot like vulnerability. Last year I, Sheryl, published a book, Killing It, about my struggles as an entrepreneur–including my personal battle with anorexia. While Duane knew I was writing a book, he didn’t know much else. When I told him about some of its rawer content, I worried he might be concerned whether I could handle my high-pressure job. And more generally, would the revelations in the book hurt Rebbl? But Duane wasn’t concerned. He told me that this vulnerability would create a stronger company, allowing the rest of the team to share their truths, too.

Related:The Secret To Getting Other People To Trust You Quickly

During one of our weekly calls, I, Duane, told Sheryl I was worried about whether I was doing everything I could as a board member, as Rebbl’s investor, and as a fiduciary for the capital of my firm’s investors. She met my insecurity with empathy and reassurance. That didn’t remove it–some of those anxieties remain today. But because I took a chance and mentioned my worries about the job I was doing, Sheryl was able to be there for me.

We’ve learned that if one person in a partnership shows up only as competent, fearless, and boundlessly secure, the other person never has the opportunity to sooth, comfort, or protect. That’s not a balanced or honest relationship–it falsely makes one party “stronger” than the other. In fact, shared fears are a strong bonding mechanism. During these conversations, we invite one another to play coach to the other, taking turns helping each other become better.

We also make clear that we can have one another’s backs even while looking out for the interests of our stakeholders. There’s no rule that says we can’t care about each other and the company at the same time.

We Share Bad News Right Away

While all this relationship talk may sound precious and sugary, it actually creates a strategic advantage in the marketplace. When a relationship between management and investors works like ours, both parties are far better able to leverage one another’s assets.

In previous startups, I, Sheryl, would usually wait to inform my board of bad news until I’d exhaustively researched my response and could come with a plan I thought was “perfect.” Now I share bad news with Duane immediately and in unvarnished form because I know it will be received with empathy, and we’ll solve issues collaboratively. In one instance, I brought up a manufacturing problem that had arisen, and Duane and the rest of the board immediately responded, “We’ve been there. We’ll get through this.”

That let me to lead the rest of the team with a steady hand, knowing I had support. I was more effective as CEO and so was the company overall because instead of infighting, blaming, or covering things up, there was a collective push toward problem-solving.

Ultimately, experiences like these have shown us how our closeness and mutual empathy as an investor-founder duo sets the tone for everyone else. It shows our organization that this type of relationship isn’t just possible, but championed. The same opportunity exists for any entrepreneur and investor. Just set the intention, as we did, to trash the old model. Then start anew, with raw honesty.

Sheryl O’Loughlin is CEO of Rebbl, and Duane Primozich is cofounder and managing partner of Boulder Investment Group Reprise (BIGR).

What: A harsh appraisal of Donald Trump’s response to Charlottesville.

Who: Seth Meyers.

Why We Care: Not everyone in late night TV can criticize the president with credibility. Jimmy Fallon may sound off about standing up to racism in the face of Charlottesville, and his intentions are in the right place, but he still comes across like your goofy uncle momentarily lecturing about potato sack race safety at a barbecue. (And we’re years away from forgetting that fateful hair-tousle.) Seth Meyers, on the other hand, has aggressively and sharply criticized every move Donald Trump has made since storming the presidency. He has the moral authority, insofar as a late night TV host can be said to possess any, to strongly condemn the events of this past weekend, and make it meaningful, and he has done just that.

Before getting started with the show proper on Monday night, Seth put out a statement on Charlottesville, and it was a scorcher.

Meyers starts by counting off the many mistakes Trump made in responding to the situation, and what they suggest about his character. The president didn’t use the word “terrorist” or say the terrorist’s name, for instance, despite the fact that whenever a Muslim allegedly commits an act of terrorism anywhere in the world, Trump seemingly cannot condemn it fast enough. Furthermore Meyers puts Trump’s response in context with everything else we’ve seen from him on the topic of race, from the birther movement on. Then he finishes up by reminding his viewers of what a president is supposed to do during a crisis.

“The leader of our country is called a president because he’s supposed to preside over our society. His job is to lead, to cajole, to scold, to correct our path, to lift up what is good about us, and to absolutely and unequivocally and immediately condemn what is evil in us. And if he does not do that, if he does not preside over our society, then he is not a president. You can stand for a nation, or you can stand for a hateful movement. You can’t do both.”

Meyers delivers this statement somberly, without any of the comedic flourishes of Late Night; just the gravitas he’s earned through months of incisive political criticism. If anyone was hoping for a more comedic take on Trump’s response to Charlottesville, however, Meyers came through later in the episode with one of his beloved “A Closer Look” segments.

Free speech organizers are planning a rally in Boston this Saturday–a week after a torrent of violence and bloodshed erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia–raising fears that history is going to repeat itself. Civil rights groups including the Anti-Defamation League have asked local officials to postpone the rally, but as of right now, it appears to be still happening. Organizers posted on their Facebook page yesterday that reports of a cancellation were false.

The organizers have denied having any connection to the neo-Nazi and white nationalist organizations behind Saturday’s “Unite the Right” rally, MassLivereports. Still, officials and civil rights groups are concerned that tensions between protesters and counter-protesters could escalate quickly, just as they did last weekend.

According to a local CBS affiliate, Boston mayor Marty Walsh was unclear which groups, exactly, are attending the rally, saying no permits have been issued. (The group says it obtained a permit but is now being ignored by the city.) Walsh added that the racist groups that stormed Charlottesville last week were not welcome in Boston. “We don’t need this type of hate,” he said. “So my message is clear to this group. We don’t want you in Boston. We don’t want you on Boston Common. We don’t want you spewing the hate that we saw yesterday, and the loss of life.”

With more than 8,000 employees worldwide, small business and personal finance software giant Intuit faces fierce competition for the talent it hires. Traditionally, candidates went through a typical screening process with multiple rounds of interviews.

The problem was that hiring managers would prioritize speed over quality of hire. Intuit’s HR team heard frustration from candidates that they didn’t know the status of their applications and never heard back from the company about their interview. They knew this wasn’t good for their employer brand.

Intuit decided to overhaul the experience and focus on how it could land better talent faster. The company began incorporating a series of assessments, presentations, and virtual reality features into its hiring process that have significantly changed company hiring practices, candidate satisfaction, and results.

Assessing For Awesome

The first change was launching a program called Assessing for Awesome, or A4A. The process begins with the company’s “awesome assessors”—top-performing employees who work closely with the role that will be filled. They identify key skills and attributes that are necessary to be successful in the role. Then, instead of rounds and rounds of interviews, candidates are asked to do a rigorous demonstration of their craft, which allows Intuit to assess for the skills and values that are established for the job role. Candidates are asked to prepare to:

• Speak for five minutes about themselves
• Speak for 15 minutes about two to three projects of which they’re proud
• Prepare a 15-minute presentation on a case study or coding exercise
• Participate in a 25-minute question and answer period

“We’re happy to say, it removes the bias in interviewing because it really focuses on the craft demonstration of the work that a candidate would do. Second, it really allows us to assess what the skills are that are important for a role,” says Sherry Whiteley, Intuit’s chief people officer. Many times, the company is able to make same-day decisions about new hires, she says.

At the very least, candidates are promised a response within 24 hours—and get it. Nick Mailey, vice president of talent acquisition at Intuit, also gives candidates his contact information so they may call him and check on their status if they haven’t heard back. That’s a daunting move for a company that has used A4A in roughly 4,000 interviews and hired about one-quarter of those people since A4A was integrated around two years ago, Whitely says. She adds that Mailey only gets a “handful of calls each year.”

The program has improved candidate experience and results. Candidate experience averages 4.6 on a five-point scale, “and even that’s not good enough,” Whiteley says. Other measures of success include:

• Quality of hire: Intuit’s percentage of highest-rated hires increased by 14 points. Almost two-thirds of new hires now receive the highest quality rating, with some units showing 100 percent of new hires rated at the highest level
• Speed of hire: Average time to fill has decreased by 12 days, or almost 20 percent
• Candidate experience: New hire net promoter scores increased by 14 percent year over year

The program has been such a success that the company is planning to use it in university recruiting over the next year. This will be added to the virtual reality (VR) experience the company now has for candidates, where students can don VR goggles to allow prospective candidates to see the Intuit campus, and what it’s like to work there.

These innovative tools and assessments have proven their worth to the Intuit team. But, in addition to the metrics they’ve improved, they have also enhanced hiring manager engagement.

“In the past, our hiring managers might’ve delegated to recruiting a bit. And now, with A for A, they’re very invested in hiring top talent and involved in the process from the beginning to the end, including six months when we ask them about the quality of their hire,” Whiteley says.

Lightneer, the Finnish learning game studio founded by Rovio alums, has just announced $5 million in seed funding. The company which is leading the charge in fun learning (not an oxymoron!), pairs the fun and engagement level of video games with the work of some of the world’s top scientists from CERN, Helsinki, and Oxford Universities.

The company’s games are based on the idea that learning can be fun, and while that sounds like something your second grade teacher would say while pressing you into memorizing the state capitols, the folks at Lightneer have the chops. Founded by Rovio’s lead game designer, Lauri Konttori, its chief marketing officer, Peter Vesterbacka, and Lauri Järvilehto, who has a PhD in theoretical philosophy and worked as the “Fun Learning Expert” for Rovio Ltd., the company is planning on making kids like learning without even knowing they’re doing it. The secret lies in their invisible-learning platform: The game is so much fun that kids don’t even care if they happen to, say, absorb the basics of particle physics while playing.

Their debut game, Big Bang Legends, turns all of the 118 elements on the Periodic Table into collectible creatures and teaches kids key concepts from physics and chemistry, all under the guise of a super-fun game using a particle collider to blast antimatter monsters, collect quarks that are needed to form protons and neutrons, and build atoms of different elements. Fun but smart fun—so parents won’t feel guilty about letting their kids play for hours while mom and dad write their Game of Thrones fan fiction.

The seed funding round was led by Chicago- and San Francisco-based GSV Acceleration, and was also helped by Helsinki-based IPR VC, Brighteye VC from Paris, and Edtech investment firm Reach Capital from Silicon Valley. The funds will help the company bring Big Bang Legends to the world.

Aaron Sorkin created The West Wing, which was about politics, and The Newsroom, which was about media. One might guess that his feature film directorial debut in 2017 might meet somewhere in the middle of those two institutions, as they’ve dominated the discourse since the dawn of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Instead, however, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter has directed Molly’s Game, a reality-based thriller about the woman who ran the world’s most exclusive poker game, and her legal battles. Molly’s Game stars Jessica Chastain, Idris Alba, and Michael Cera, and you can watch the trailer below.

Your mixed berry yogurt may eventually include not only probiotics, but a type of sugar found usually found only in human breast milk.

In babies, sugars known as human milk oligosaccharides, or HMOs, play a key role in health. A California-based startup is one of a handful of companies trying to manufacture the sugars outside the human body–both to produce healthier infant formula for babies who can’t breastfeed, and to potentially improve health in adults as well.

Unlike typical sugar found in food, human milk sugars can’t be digested by people and don’t make food sweet; instead, they feed beneficial bacteria in the gut. “If we consume them, the population of the good gut bacteria increases, out-populating the bad bacteria that could also reside in your body,” says Chaeyoung Shin, one of the cofounders of Sugarlogix, a startup making a particular type of human milk sugar called 2′-fucosyllactose, or 2′-FL. “This leads to a healthier digestive system, healthier gut, which will then help in boosting your immune system as well.”

Human milk sugars, which can be cultured through yeast fermentation–in a similar process to making biofuel or brewing beer–seemed like a good fit. In breastfed infants, the human milk sugars help build up bifidobacterium in the gut, one of a few bacteria that can digest the complex sugars. The bacteria help make the gut more acidic, which “prevents E. coli and bugs like that from getting an early foothold,” says David Mills, a professor of food science and technology at the University of California-Davis who studies the oligosaccharides. “It’s telling the immune system what’s, in a sense, a good bug and a bad bug.”

In adults, low levels of bifidobacterium have been found in patients with diabetes and other diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome. When the gut microbiome–the ecosystem of trillions of bacteria living in the intestinal tract–is unbalanced, it has also been linked to cancer risk, Parkinson’s disease, and anxiety and depression, among other diseases.

Eating junk food quickly effects the gut microbiome; in one study, a group of rural Africans who temporarily shifted from a healthy diet to burgers and fries showed both a marked change in gut microbes and an increase in biomarkers of cancer risk after only two weeks. In addition to shifting to a healthier diet, the scientists says that probiotics–such as bifidobacterium, which is added to some foods like yogurt–might help. And though there’s little research to back it up so far, the theory is that a supplement of human milk sugars, part of a class of ingredients known as prebiotics, could help those probiotics work better.

A 2016 study (notably, funded by another company synthesizing human milk oligosaccharides) found that HMO supplements in adults led to an increase in beneficial bacteria in the gut and appeared to be safe and well tolerated.

Sugarlogix plans to initially offer supplements for adults, and then offer its product as an additive in foods that already target gut health, such as yogurt and kombucha. It also plans to produce the sugar as an ingredient for infant formula. “It’s known as the holy grail of ingredients for baby formula,” says Shin.

While infant formula is unlikely to become as healthy as breast milk–which delivers antibodies from the mother to the baby, along with antimicrobial proteins and fatty acids, along with as many as 130 different kinds of the milk sugars–adding one of the sugars could help. A 2016 study from researchers at Abbott, the company that makes the baby formula Similac, found that when babies were fed formula with 2′-FL, the same HMO that Sugarlogix produces, they had an immune response more similar to breastfed babies. Similac now offers a version of formula with the ingredient.

Some other producers create the sugar using modified E.coli bacteria, but Sugarlogix believes that its method, using yeast, is a better approach. E.coli produce endotoxins that have to be filtered from the resulting sugar, adding expense and potential risk.

“The advantage of producing with yeast is that it has been known to be a food-friendly organism for thousands of years, meaning it does not produce any toxins, which could increase the separation cost and potentially be a food-safety risk,” says Shin. “We start out with bakery yeast, make genetic changes so that it produces HMOs–this is the technology that separates us from our competitors. In other words, currently we are the only ones who know how to produce HMOs with yeast.”

The startup is part of the current class at IndieBio, a San Francisco-based accelerator for biotech companies, and is raising a seed round of investment.

What: A new car ad out of Brazil featuring the Hulk saving a city from imminent destruction, obviously.

Who: Renault

Why we care: While we anxiously await his star turn in the upcoming buddy flick Thor: Ragnarok, it’s nice to see the big green guy out and about, even if it is shilling for Renault in Brazil. The last time we saw Bruce Banner’s behemoth alter ego in brand mode was last year’s Super Bowl, when he was fighting over a Coke with Ant-Man. As superhero-charged advertising goes, you can’t get much more obvious than this. I could talk about how little it has to do with the brand or product itself, or question whether anyone will actually remember what car brand it’s for, but I wouldn’t want to make him angry.

The next time you need some blood work done at the lab, you may be able to simply use your smartphone. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Champagna-Urbana have developed the seemingly Star Trek-inspired TRI Analyzer, which is basically a mini-medical laboratory that plugs into your smartphone and uses the phone’s flash and camera to process blood, saliva, or urine samples.

“Our TRI Analyzer is like the Swiss Army knife of biosensing,” said Professor Brian Cunningham, whose team developed the clever device, in a statement. “It’s capable of performing the three most common types of tests in medical diagnostics, so in practice, thousands of already-developed tests could be adapted to it.”

The device costs around $550, which makes it much less expensive than most lab tests that insurance companies claim cost thousands of dollars. The idea of having low-cost, on-demand medical testing devices that could be sold at a mall kiosk next to the car chargers and selfie sticks is pretty incredible. The portable lab could make rapid medical testing possible in, say, the back of an ambulance, in rural locations without access to labs, and on battlefields. The idea isn’t a totally new one, though. Back in 2015, a team from Columbia University developed a $34 model that plugged into the phone’s headphone jack  and could rapidly diagnose various maladies with about a 96% accuracy rate.

For more details, check out a new paper on the tool, “Multimode smartphone biosensing: the transmission, reflection, and intensity spectral TRI Analyzer,” which is available online.

For years, Eddy Boxerman thought his company’s critically acclaimed iOS game Osmos would never need another update. He wasn’t even sure if a new version would be feasible, because the game’s unorthodox multiplayer code no longer worked with Apple’s newer development tools.

But Boxerman realized he had to try. With the launch of iOS 11 in the fall, Apple will require all apps to support 64-bit architecture, which debuted on the iPhone 5S, iPad Air, and iPad Mini 2 in late 2013. Apps that run on Apple’s older 32-bit architecture will cease to function in iOS 11, and won’t appear in App Store search results on devices running the new operating system. (It’s unclear if Apple will purge them from the store entirely.) By forcing the 64-bit upgrade, Apple can ensure better performance on existing iOS apps today, and may be able to free up hardware resources in the future by dropping 32-bit support from its processors.

Instead of letting Osmos vanish from the App Store, Boxerman spent over three months updating his code to support iOS 11, rewriting the game’s multiplayer system in the process. Although Osmos doesn’t sell at the same rate as when it won Apple’s iPad Game of the Year award in 2010, Boxerman figures his work will pay off with a few more years of slow and steady sales.

“In terms of a gamble, it seemed reasonable, and worth doing,” he says. “And I didn’t want to see the game just disappear off iOS.”

Not all iOS developers will reach the same conclusion. While several analytics firms say the vast majority of apps are ready for iOS 11, some developers will inevitably decide that their code isn’t worth updating, especially if outdated elements have built up over the years. As Apple prepares for the future of iOS, some beloved games and apps will fall through the cracks.

The Big Picture

App makers have been getting more serious about updating their software as the launch of iOS 11 gets closer, says Randy Nelson, the head of mobile insights at app analytics firm SensorTower. He estimates that over the past six months, 64-bit updates have increased by 228% compared to the prior six months, and notes that the rate of updates spiked in June, when Apple confirmed its plans to discontinue 32-bit app support.

But based on data from app analytics firm AppFigures, anywhere from 2% to 19% of the App Store catalog could still be incompatible with Apple’s next software update.

The stragglers include roughly 45,000 apps that haven’t been updated since May 2012, when Apple started supporting 64-bit iOS software. An additional 425,000 apps haven’t been updated since June 2015, when Apple started requiring all new apps and app updates to include 64-bit support. That adds up to 470,000 apps at risk; as for the quantity that won’t ever go 64-bit, “I’d make an educated guess and place the number at around 200,000 to 250,000 apps, based on upgrade patterns,” says Ariel Michaeli, AppFigures’ founder and CEO.

From the data alone, it’s hard to find notable examples of apps that are going away. Michaeli says that around 30% of the 470,000 apps he looked at are games, the most popular of which have either been replaced by newer versions or are mere copycats that piggybacked their way to brief App Store success. And in a list of 75 outdated apps with at least at least 100,000 user ratings, only one–Epic Games’ original Infinity Blade–caught my eye as a profound loss. (Epic did not respond to a request for comment.)

Lots Of Little Losses

Those aggregate stats may sound comforting, but they do paint over individual examples of software that might be worth saving. Just looking through my third-generation iPad, for instance, reveals quite a few noteworthy apps that are still incompatible with iOS 11.

These include neglected games from major studios, such as Id Software’s port of Doom and its iOS adaptation of Rage, and indie gems like Vectorpark’s Levers. The losses aren’t limited to games, either. Music-creation tools like iSequence HD and Tachyon (the latter developed by Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess) are also on the chopping block.

None of those developers responded to my requests for comment, but it’s easy to understand why some app makers might shy away from updating their code. For independent developers, the requisite weeks or months of work just isn’t feasible for an app that isn’t selling. And for larger companies, even a steady trickle of sales may not merit pulling resources away from other projects.

In those circumstances, some have called for Apple to do more than just set deadlines. Adam Ghahramani, an independent product and marketing producer, wrote on VentureBeat recently that Apple should create incentives (such as App Store advertising credits) for legacy app upgrades, or at least find a way to preserve outdated apps that have historical value.

“To do otherwise and let almost 200,000 digital artifacts disappear wouldn’t just be tragic for so many Apple customers and developers, it would create a cultural black hole for generations to come,” Ghahramani wrote.

Anatomy Of An Update

In theory, updating an iOS app for 64-bit devices shouldn’t be too burdensome. Mark Price, an iOS instructor at the online learning site Udemy, says that Apple’s Xcode developer software makes conversion easy in many cases. As an experiment, he attempted to convert several open-source apps from the code-hosting site GitHub and encountered no issues.

“There are some instances where certain libraries are using outdated technology, so … you might have to get rid of that because it would have compiler errors,” Price says. “But if it’s using base frameworks from iOS, it’ll just work nicely in most cases.”

That was the case, at least, for Adam Saltsman, creator of the hit iOS game Canabalt. In his initial email to me, Saltsman practically winced at the prospect of working through incompatibilities in his code, and dealing with potential App Store review uncertainties. But a week later, everything had gone smoother than expected. By creating an Apple TV version of Canabalt a couple of years ago, Saltsman inadvertently resolved most of the issues he might have run into adding iOS 11 support.

“Everything here was shipshape from the Apple TV port,” Saltsman said in an email. “The whole thing took about three hours somehow! A pleasant surprise.”

Things don’t always go smoothly. Boxerman says he didn’t expect to spend upwards of three months adding 64-bit support to Osmos, but then he kept running into new roadblocks that he hadn’t anticipated, particularly with overhauling his multiplayer code.

“It just kept cascading. You think you’re almost there, and you think you’re almost there,” he says. “I definitely had several moments at least during that time that I was like, ‘Maybe I should just axe multiplayer entirely.'”

Even after creating a new multiplayer system, Boxerman spent over a month modernizing the rest of his code for iOS 11. Because Apple had deprecated significant portions of its GameCenter network since the last Osmos update in 2013, Boxerman had to redesign some social aspects of his app. The 64-bit transition also required several weeks of squashing bugs related to memory alignment.

“How long it takes you to diagnose the problem really depends on your familiarity with these issues, and familiarity with your code as well,” Boxerman says.

For reasons beyond profit potential, Boxerman doesn’t regret how much time he put into the update. He’s enjoyed seeing “thank you” reviews from players, and because of a tweak that lets users play single-player games while searching for competitive matches, he believes the multiplayer component on his eight-year-old game has been to some extent resurrected.

Still, he’s unsure whether he would have upgraded if the game wasn’t still generating steady sales.

“If Osmos revenue was like, a couple of sales a day, like five bucks a day, 10 bucks a day, I probably would have been like, ‘This is really tough to justify,'” he says.

What: #NotAlone, a short film about the extreme dangers of reckless hashtagging.

Who: Director/producer duo Sotiris Petridis and Dimitris Tsakaleas.

Why we care: Usually, the scariest thing about posting a selfie is “not enough likes.” That is most certainly not the case in a new horror short from two film students. #NotAlone opens with a teenager lounging in her pristinely decorated bedroom, presumably feeling her look. When she tags a selfie with the hashtag #HomeAlone, though, things very quickly go south. Way south. Although what follows has a supernatural bent, it’s a stark reminder that it’s maybe not the best idea to describe your location and circumstances to strangers online. In that regard, #NotAlone recalls Alex J. Mann’s series of social media-focused horror shorts. This film pulses, however, with a heart all its own; one that you would want to tap on Instagram.

[via io9]

Three figures pretty much sum up Silicon Valley’s workplace diversity problem: 2% of the overall tech workforce is African American, 3% is Latino, and only 24% overall are women, according to a recent survey from Atlassian, an industry software firm.

But SVAcademy, a new kind of accelerated job training and apprenticeship program for tech sales and business development positions, which publicly launched this week, is trying to change that, and their early results look pretty promising. It’s not quite apples-to-apples, but in an initial pilot this summer involving 31 students, 40% were African- American, Latino, or LGBTQ. All of the graduates came from lower-income or immigrant families with many located in states far beyond the Valley.

More importantly, so far, 90% of the 41 have been hired by top Valley firms. (The few who haven’t continue to go on interviews.) That’s because instead of just offering a certification of proficiency for a set of tasks, SVA has partnered directly with companies like Salesforce, Box, Thanx, Entelo, Talend, Zuora, and LinkedIn to ensure job placements. SVA shares data about how potential candidates performed throughout the program; these companies can use that to decide who makes the best hire.

SVA is currently accepting applications for the next round of classes in September. While the company won’t disclose financials, it raised capital from Bloomberg LP and Precursor Ventures, with the goal of placing 1 million graduates in jobs over the next 10 years. “No one has really focused on this. It is a huge opportunity, not just in tech but in all new economy industries,” adds Fazal.

SVA is tuition free–partner companies agree to cover the educational cost of the employees it hires–and open to anyone with or without a college degree. The application process is competitive: So far, fewer than 5% of the 1,000 people who have applied have been admitted. At the same time, though, SVA’s selection process works far differently than other places.

“The most important signal that is overlooked by recruiting systems that we feel is a really good predictor of success–not just in sales, but in business leadership–is resilience and grit,” he says. “Some of the things that we look for that you will not find on a LinkedIn profile. For example, did the applicant have to take a full course load in school while also having to work a part-time or full-time job to support themselves and their families?”

Special consideration is awarded for those who have slogged through jobs rife with high traffic and potential conflict, like the food, retail, or hospitality industry.

That three-month internship is really a 250-hour laptop-based boot camp, which breaks down to about 20 hours of study per week and designed to be done at intervals because untraditional candidates may have other jobs or family commitments. The curriculum covers three categories: social and emotional learning (to develop customer empathy and deal with rejection), sales methodologies and software (basic nuts and bolts training), and live team exercises to put those skills into practice.

Some of the lessons are web-based and self-directed, with students trying ways to develop new skill sets and then writing about the results. One assignment for building self-confidence asks respondents to complete and journal about a series of tasks ranging from “Do something embarrassing or silly, and enjoy it” to “Accept full responsibility for a mistake and identify what you’ll do different next time.” Another involves keeping a multi-day listening journal of some sort. (The company is vague about exactly who or what is involved, but listening more than talking is basically sales 101.)

A third lesson about time management is designed around candidates first filling out a timetable of how they currently spend their day, and then using a few happiness and results-driven principles to reorganize things. Then there’s actual technical training like queue management exercises where students can practice how to transfer notes and attachments about one potential lead to other team members in real time, while video chatting inside a portal for internal workflow.

After they’re hired, SVA links each candidate up with a mentor at partner companies like Google, Salesforce, Oracle, and LinkedIn, as well as connection to others who have gone through the program and might be able to provide each other with support.

Scott, SVA’s other cofounder, sees the program as a way to bet beyond the “great intentions” syndrome inside places that might otherwise pay these values lip service without a plan of action. “There’s a big gap between desire and actually doing it, and it is a heavy lift to actually change the system because of the way the system has already been set up,” he says.

There’s no doubt recent college grads receive plenty of career advice after they toss their caps in the air and head out to the “real world.” But while people mean well with the guidance they dish to people just starting out, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best advice out there.

Five professionals weigh in on some of the treasured words of wisdom they heard as grads that they found to be totally bogus when they got into the workforce.

1. Stop Focusing On Outside Interests

When she graduated from college, Harper Yi, an associate marketing manager at Remezcla, was told to stop pursuing unusual interests like cartoons and toys in favor of more “practical” specialties, a piece of advice she ultimately didn’t follow.

“While it’s important to gain skills that are critical to your field (and softer skills that will work across fields [and] in non-work life), there is nothing wrong with deeply and passionately pursuing your interests,” she said.

Related: New Graduates: These Are The Unspoken Rules Of The Workplace No One Tells You 

Not only do her other interests make her a stronger candidate, she explains, but they also help her stay mentally sane, too.

2. Use The System Already In Place

When she first got to Washington, D.C., American Security Project chief of staff Maggie Feldman-Piltch was told to acknowledge how things were done in the current system, and focus on moving up the ladder the “correct” and “established” way.

Luckily, a mentor gave her a different piece of advice that she ended up taking: “You can do things the Washington way; I am going to do things the Elle Woods way.”

She quickly found that creating her own path was far more rewarding.

3. You Need To Have A Job Lined Up Before Graduation–Or Else

During her senior year of college, Digiday marketing assistant Danielle Sorensen was scrolling through LinkedIn when she saw a post telling seniors that they had to have a job lined up before graduation day, or they were doing something wrong, an idea she found silly.

“I was told to start applying for jobs all year, when really I should have been focusing on building connections and relationships all year, and then really focusing on specific job opportunities within 1.5 months of graduation,” she said. “This idea that I was racing against my peers to have a job by the graduation day [finish line] was unnecessary added stress.”

Related:How To Advance Your Career In A Crappy Entry-Level Job 

Besides, many industries don’t even consider applicants unless they’re able to start immediately; a college senior applying to a job three months out would already be at a disadvantage.

4. You Have No Right To Be Picky About Your First Job

College seniors and recent grads with limited work experience are often told they should just take what they can get, but LaunchPoint Resume founder Lauren Hamer has found that this line of thinking does more harm than good.

“You’ve paid a lot of money for a degree you’re (hopefully) passionate about and are knowledgeable in some sort of specialty,” she said. “Figure out what that is and apply for those jobs. There’s nothing worse than feeling trapped in a job you hate. It will affect every other aspect of your life.”

5. Stick Any Job Out For At Least A Year

You’ve probably heard this advice before: Regardless of what you end up doing after graduation, you need to stay there for at least a year, or else you’ll seem like a job hopper (cue the scary music!).

But blogger Kris Stoff says that can be bad advice for one important reason: “Why be miserable if it’s not a good fit?”

Obviously, you don’t want to quit every job that’s not great after a couple of days, but if there are other things you want to be doing, why wait an arbitrary 12 months to leave?

Listening to the advice of people who’ve been where you are is always a good thing, but understand that you can always take it with a grain of salt.

This article originally appeared on Ladders and is reprinted with permission.