When Stephen Robert Morse was in high school, his teacher taught him a philosophy called Existentialism. At the time, this was a scary topic to broach: Stephen learned that in the scheme of the world, he was nothing. Then, as his talk explains, he learned to embrace this philosophy, and give it his own meaning, formulating the basis of Practical Everyday Existentialism.

Prior to attending the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, Stephen co-founded Skillbridge (acquired by Toptal), an online platform to find and hire the world’s best business and strategy consultants. He has worked and consulted for a number of startups in New York and London including Lightbox (acquired by Facebook), Seamless (merged with GrubHub), Quirky, Shapeways, and Appboy. Stephen was awarded a BA (honors) in English and history from the University of Pennsylvania and a dual MA (honors) in Journalism and Media within Globalization/Financial Journalism from a consortium of European institutions he attended as an Erasmus Mundus scholar. Stephen is a 2012 Tow-Knight Entrepreneurial Journalism Fellow and 2009 Robert Novak Journalism Fellow. He contributes regularly to the Financial Times and Fast Company.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

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