San Antonio-born, Princeton-educated business consultant, entrepreneur, and artist Robert Hammond has lived in Manhattan's West Village for several years. Near his apartment was a stretch of the old elevated New York Central Railroad tracks, which had been abandoned since the early 1980's.

Your Start-Up Life is a business advice column by Rana Florida, Author of Upgrade (McGraw-Hill, September 2013) and CEO of the Creative Class Group. ...

David Stark, President and Creative Director of David Stark Design and Production breaks the rules nearly every day. He makes the point that if creativity is the core driver of his business, its solid foundations and discipline play just as great a role in its success.

Don't dissect! As business consists of many small activities, responsibilities, decisions and interactions it's necessary not to over-analyze every single transaction. Sometimes silence is best. Sometimes we all just need to be agreeable.

Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle is a modern day super hero. His beneficiaries aren't just animals but people too, who can achieve a better and truer kind of humanity by changing the way we treat the creatures we share the planet with.

It turns out that while I was spending my formative years coming up with brilliant ideas to change the world, I should actually have been screening my fellow students for their potential as my future business partners.