03 8 / 2012
BREAD!!!
When Craig Silverstein joined Khan Academy, he brought a few traditions with him from his Google days. The most delicious one is bread. It is homemade - or rather office-made - fresh every week. The sweet baked bread aroma wafts through our office and lures us to pounce at the perfectly crunchy crust and pillowy insides time and again.
Check out our pouncing skillz the first week:
Over time, this baked bread tradition has become more and more elaborate, with not just butter to accompany the main staple, but peanut butter, Nutella, and even BBQ sauce (Matt) partnering with the yummy treat.
There was a bread scare when Craig announced he was going on vacation, but luckily Chefmaster Hu stepped up to fill Craig’s shoes. And boy has he filled them!
With interns this summer, we are now doing double loaves, and have added freshly made butter (thank you Emily!), and fresh squeezed lemonade (thank you Tom and Arun!).
Like Craig, David kicks off the weekly ritual by strolling around the office with the bread to really makes us salivate after the wafting scent before we can dive in, and then announces in a booming voice: “BREAD!!!”
Tom’s expression says it all - we may have fun with a lot of things here at Khan Academy, but we’re serious about our bread.
01 8 / 2012
Super cool July and August birthday serenade by Esther and Alpert! (apologies for the quiet sound quality)
19 7 / 2012
Bike journey to SF
Last Sunday, fearless David Hu led KA on an epic biking journey from KA to SF! Check out highlights of their journey courtesy David and Alpert. Based on the photographic evidence, you may notice that food was nearly as important as the biking.
11 7 / 2012
Lunchtime visit at KA from Steve Hilton, former senior advisor to UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron
07 7 / 2012
A forest of trees!
It’s “Dress Like a Tree Day” at Khan Academy. Thank you Miss Marcia Lee for cultivating our inner saplings as a precursor to our healthy hackathon.
Wondering how dressing like a tree works? Well, check out the instructions we received, along with a few pics capturing the forest that appeared today!
- how do i dress like a tree? wear a green top and brown bottom. bonus points for real plant life affixed to your vestments.
- is this mandatory? no!
- why would i do something silly like this? because it’s silly! also, it has been scientifically proven that people who dress like trees make the coolest things at hackathons
- may i have some pictures of trees for inspiration? yes!
Take a look at the forest of KA-ers!
There were so many amazing trees. Among our favorite trees were these:
Can’t beat actual foliage and a fierce forest face
The upside-down tree!
My favorite treetops!
This tree typed up a storm with his twiggy branches
And this tree even participated from his remote locale with a pinecone and the best tree pose of the day!
Of course, I had to participate in the treeness. 
Trees out!
28 6 / 2012
Last night’s board game night involved intense pandemic strategery. Of course, the best strategery is done while rockin an awesome mohawk.
28 6 / 2012
We heart Tau Day at KA!
It may not be a big deal in your organization, but Tau Day (June 28th) is kinda a big deal in ours. First, it started with the apple tau (2 pies) that showed up in the kitchen (delicious consequences for us, the tau didn’t make out as well). [Thank you Ben Eater!]
Then, we paid our respects to Tau in these videos (which are great to watch, particularly if you have no idea what Tau is):
- Tau vs Pi: http://www.khanacademy.org/new-and-noteworthy/v/tau-versus-pi
- Pi is (still) wrong: http://www.khanacademy.org/math/geometry/circles-topic/v/pi-is—still—wrong
- A song about a circle constant: http://www.khanacademy.org/math/vi-hart/v/a-song-about-a-circle-constant
And then, we honored Tau in our exercises courtesy Emily Eisenberg! Check out the details on our blog: http://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/26083003300/happy-tau-day
After all this, another 2 tau (4 MORE pies) showed up [Thank you Alperts Ben and Leah, as well as Emily!] We sure do like our tau!
27 6 / 2012
1st Annual KA Intern Games
If you were in downtown Mountain View this morning, you might have seen our interns roaming the streets thanks to Craig Silverstein in his infinite wisdom demanding an intern-only bonding activity. While we bond quite a bit as a team, there aren’t too many intern-only activities (mainly because we full-timers want to hang out with our awesome interns too). However, today we got the interns out of bed early (a good deterrent for the rest of the full-timer devs) and into the office to compete in the 1st Annual Intern Games (yeah, kinda like Hunger Games except without the killing).
We sent them on an epic photo scavenger hunt, and all teams rose to the challenge brilliantly. Check out some of our favorite photos capturing the action. There were also impressive videos from challenges to serenade strangers and perform street shows, but those are just for the full-timers to enjoy (on repeat) - or perhaps to save for an alumni event in the future.
Hope you enjoy the photos as much as we did!
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Photo goal: Find someone who looks like a KA full timer.
Photo achievement: Interns Ankit, Arun and Jessica discovered they didn’t have to look far for stunning similarities to a few of our full-timers…
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Photo goal: Pose like a Greek god
Photo achievement: Who knew Atlas had a twin in Mary!
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Photo goal: Stage a protest for something. Bonus points if you make a sign.
Photo achievement: Watch out! With Josh and David leading the way, we might have a riot on our hands.
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Photo goal: Make the silliest faces you can
Photo achievement: Who knew Mark, Mary and Ben’s faces could do that…
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Photo goal: Find another team and spell out the longest phrase you can with human bodies. Bonus points if you include strangers (human ones, please)
Photo achievements: A nice tribute to our founder and to KA’s infinite potential. I especially like the random businessman who joins in on the action.
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Photo goal: Item with a tree on it (KA logo is not eligible). Bonus points if instead it’s your group in a tree
Photo achievement: Posing in the smallest tree that could withstand Drew, Josh and David
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Photo goal: Pose in a mathematical fashion
Photo achievement: Dylan proved who has the strongest core on the team with the help of Omar and Jamie
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Photo goal: Get a picture with a taxi driver. Bonus points if it’s in the taxi.
Photo achievement: Get all the taxi drivers at the taxi stand to join in on the fun.
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Our illustrious judging panel led by Craig concluded the festivities, announcing Team: Indians and Girls!!!! (Arun, Ankit, Jessica and Leah - the ones with the taxi drivers) the winners. Congrats!
