Hi, listeners, this is Tina Seelig, and I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce you to the newest podcast from Stanford E-Corner.

It's called Leap.

This new series aims to help you see and seize opportunities in your life and career.

If you like this episode on knowing when to quit, head on over to the Leap Channel to subscribe.

Life is really exciting because there are infinite opportunities and possibilities at any given moment.

I often look at situations where you go, wow, I can't believe I'm saying no to this.

But the balance has tipped more and more over time.

Like you get older, you have more commitments, you are busier,

and the percentage of things you say yes to, I think generally has to go down over time.

Welcome to Leap. I'm Tina Seelig. I'm passionate about helping people craft the futures they dream of creating.

And that's what I do at Stanford University, where I teach classes on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

This podcast takes a deep dive into how to launch your career by unpacking the often overlooked and undertaught soft skills critical to the success of every entrepreneur.

In each episode, we'll invite two people from very different career stages to discuss real-life scenarios.

My name is Constantine Bueller, and I'm a venture capitalist.

I'm John Melas Curiazzi, and I work at Spark Capital.

Today, we focus on knowing when to quit.

I still think it's probably the hardest decision that I ever made in my life, honestly, certainly professionally.

I was deciding whether or not to stay in my PhD program.

So what were you battling about?

What were your discussions going on inside your head?

Well, I kind of built this identity for myself as a future academic when I was in undergrad, you know, working in the lab every

summer, doing research, publishing papers, and my senior year in college, I applied to PhD

...