When you were eight, you got your first job weaving white and red threads together into what are called Martinites. You sold them on the street like a lemonade stand. It was just sort of like a self-empowerment exercise. I wouldn't say it was particularly creative. My grandmother has an enormous library with a few thousand books. She's not big at all, but her house is covered in bookshelves. But she still has this way of thinking about what intellectual success means - tied to traditional academia.
In this audio interview with Debbie Millman, Maria Popova discusses growing up in Bulgaria, the evolution of Brainpicker and inventing the curator’s code.