★ I’m well-traveled. I’ve lived in some of the most culturally-forward cities in the world, including Berlin, Madrid, New York City, and Nashville. Of course, traveling opens one’s eyes to new people, new tastes, and new experiences, but it also it trains you to communicate creatively and effectively: I’ve never thought so intensely about tonality, syntax, and emphasis until I was on a date with a Spanish girl who spoke good, but not great English. As Henry Miller puts it, “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of thinking about things.”

★ I write and perform music. Music is, after all, a language in itself, and perhaps the most transcendent language. I do believe that the more one is tuned in to the rhythm, cadence, and emotion of music, the more masterful and poetic one can be in all forms of language and expression.

★ I won the grammar award in 6th grade. And yes, it did destroy my middle school dating prospects for a time.

★ I speak German. You haven’t truly examined the depth of Germanic language (English is a Germanic language) until you make a stab at German. It’s complicated and it’s difficult; though it trains your brain to think very specifically about the relationships between verbs, articles, adjectives, prepositions, while navigating complex sentence structures. It’s kind of like doing Soduku — but you just finished a liter of beer and you’re on your second bratwurst.

★ I will fight you on comma placement. It’s amazing how much confusion, a poorly placed comma can cause. (That was intentional.)

★ I studied “European Intellectual History” at Brown University. Believe it or not, the founder of Uber actually named European Intellectual History his most inspiring college course in this interview. At its core, it was an examination of political, cultural, and artistic ideologies from the French Revolution to the present day. It showed me how any generation’s “truths” are not an isolated event, but rather the result of decades of conflict between political ideology, commercial culture, artistic representation, spiritual introspection, scientific positivism, and other more abstract movements. It has given me a deep, critical understanding of how narratives are shaped, and how certain cultural ideas can be leveraged to fulfill larger social, political, and industrial goals. The insight this has given me into the psychology of 21st-century media and marketing is unparalleled.

★ I’m a big fan of the band Phish. Love them or hate them, they have a very unique brand of music and have been incredibly successful with that brand — however “weird” it is. I am always impressed by their ability to combine beauty, humor, excitement, surprise, technicality, and fraternity within every performance. There’s a lot to learn in that offering, from both an artistic and professional standpoint.

★ I know a good thesaurus from a bad thesaurus. Wordhippo.com is the best on the market. You can thank me later.