Second Life

Amanda Hesser is responsible for the chic e-commerce and community site Food52, which she launched with co-founder Merrill Stubbs in 2009. Before she struck out on her own, the foodie had a thriving career as an editor for The New York Times and as a cookbook author, both unexpected paths seeing as the entrepreneur studied economics and finance in college. "I had no idea really what I wanted to do, but I knew the sort of lifestyle I wanted," she tells Hillary Kerr on episode 33 of Second Life. Here's how she made the leap from cooking to writing to running her own company.