• Elliot Grainge advised Northeastern University grads to embrace rejection in his commencement speech.
• The CEO of Atlantic Records said he set up his company, 10K Projects, after repeatedly hearing "no."
• Grainge was appointed to run the Warner Music division in 2024.

The CEO of Atlantic Music Group had some advice for new graduates of Boston's Northeastern University: don't give up when you're told "no."

Elliot Grainge, the son of Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge, gave a commencement speech at the university on Sunday.

He told the graduates he'd learned the power of resilience when he faced rejection.

"I'm here to tell you the two greatest things people have said to me: 'That's impossible' and 'no,'" Grainge said.

He graduated from Northeastern in 2016. During his time at the university, he started two businesses he was "certain would be massive successes." One was a promotion company, the other was a live music series.

"These companies made me a total of negative $3,500," Grainge said.

He didn't that the failures to heart and remained determined to make it in the music industry after graduation.

After leaving Northeastern Grainge said he tried to convince music execs that the artists he was listening to on SoundCloud were going to be big.

After "hearing 'no' — again and again" he said he started his own company called 10K Projects.

"I heard these things so many times, eventually I thought: screw it. I'll try and raise some money, and try to sign one or two of these artists, and launch my own label," Grainge said.

"That company, 10K Projects, was born from hearing 'no' — again and again. I bet on myself. I bet on the artists I believed in. And I was right, not always, but I was right more often than I was wrong."

10K Projects has since signed artists including Trippie Redd, 6ix9ine, Aitch, and Ice Spice.

"Looking back, if just one of those individuals had said yes, or even offered me a job, I probably wouldn't be standing here today in front of you guys," Grainge said. "It was hearing 'no' that drove me to follow my gut and build something of my own."

Grainge encouraged the graduates to embrace their failures because each of his own had taught him a valuable lesson.

"Success isn't one massive leap," he said. "It's little wins, a thousand setbacks, some detours, and eventually, a door opens."

Grainge was appointed CEO of Atlantic Music Group at Warner Music in 2024, overseeing Atlantic Records and 300 Elektra Entertainment.

Warner is one of the world's largest music groups, along with Universal and Sony.

Commenters on a Northeastern subreddit noted that Grainge's father is a member of the university's board of trustees. Elliot Grainge married Sofia Richie, the daughter of singer Lionel Richie, in 2023.

• Evan King worked for Meta for five years before quitting to start his own business.
• King said startup life was more difficult than expected and three lies slowed down his success.
• One of the lies is that good marketing is necessary for a new product to take off.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Evan King, 30, a startup cofounder in Los Angeles. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I got hired at Meta in 2017 as a software engineer on the integrity team. I loved my job and had no intentions of ever leaving, but I quit in 2022

When a product I made for fun with a Meta coworker unexpectedly gained traction, I left behind my six-figure compensation to go all in on our idea. It was a huge risk and a deeply humbling experience.

Startup life was much harder than I expected it to be. After we sold our first product in February 2023, we tossed around dozens of other ideas before finding new success. Launching my first startup was deeply humbling, but it was an experience I wouldn't trade for anything because I've learned how to move on to better ideas sooner and so much more.

The stress of responsibility was so much higher than at Meta

When I left Meta, I realized I had only developed precision on a narrow subset of tasks and that my breadth of knowledge was basically nonexistent. Growing the startup was much harder than I expected, and I got pretty down on myself.

Every problem ultimately landed on my shoulders, and that weight took some getting used to. I remember bringing my laptop to a friend's birthday party, which is something I always did in case of emergency. I later found myself sprinting home on a Saturday to fix an issue when our primary database went down.

Our product became fairly well known in the Web3 space, but we weren't seeing the financial payoff, so we sold it in February 2023. It wasn't the life-changing exit that we were after, but it did give us cash to fund our future ideas.

After selling our first startup, we were completely directionless

We went back to the drawing board and started using a system for developing new startup ideas. We'd spend one day developing a new idea and decide if we had enough information and conviction to spend two days on it. Then it would grow from there.

We used this process through dozens of ideas, and most of them were quick nos. A few made it past a couple of months, and we even built some pretty impressive technology that we sold.

After several months of trial and error, we took a step back to reevaluate. We were innovating in spaces where we didn't have any expertise, like construction and trucking. We decided it was time to dive into something we know well — Big Tech interview prep.

Three misconceptions kept us from moving on to better ideas sooner

Our current startup is a hub for automated AI mock interviews and Big Tech interview preparation resources. We launched it technically in May 2023, and it's been growing since then.

After coming up with dozens of failed ideas, I realized there were three lies I kept telling myself that kept us from moving on to better ideas sooner: "We just need better marketing," "The product just needs more time to take off," and "A little success means we should keep developing."

I used to feel like we had good products, we just needed better marketing. But when you have a good product, even in its simplest form, people will want to use it. I've also learned the importance of counterbalancing my excitement about a product with realism about its success.

I miss parts of Meta, but wouldn't go back anytime soon

I used to come home from a day of working alongside friends and interacting with different people at Meta and just be able to sit on my couch and relax, feeling intellectually and socially stimulated. Now, I finish a day of work from home and I feel like I need to see a friend or do something else to feel satisfied.

I'd consider going back to Big Tech, but not anytime soon.

If you left Big Tech and would like to share your story, please email the editor, Manseen Logan, at [email protected].

Last year, a study highlighted that your doctor's office might be taking your blood pressure wrong. The current best practice is to take seated blood pressure readings with a detailed protocol: Patients must not eat, drink, or exercise for 30 minutes prior; they must have an empty bladder and sit calmly for five minutes prior to the first reading; they must sit with their feet uncrossed and flat on the floor; their back should be supported; and—a big one that's often overlooked—they must keep the arm to be measured resting on a flat surface at the height of their heart, not higher or lower.

While the setup is often different from what happens in a bustling medical office, a new study blows away quibbles over protocol and suggests that even when done perfectly, the method is second-rate. We shouldn't be sitting at all when we take our blood pressure—we should be lying down.

According to the study, published in JAMA Cardiology and led by researchers at Harvard, blood pressure readings measured while lying down were significantly better at indicating risks of cardiovascular disease, stroke, heart failure, and death than were seated blood pressure readings alone.

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