First Intern Blog Post EVER at Benzinga

Most of what I knew about internet startups before I started my internship at Benzinga came from The Social Network. Since Aaron Sorkin's dramatization seems pretty far from reality – or at least Mark Zuckerberg says it's far from reality – I wasn't sure what to expect out of working here. If you've been following Benzinga's blog for a while, you know that the office has a long-standing tradition of homemade baked goods, which I am happy to report was continued yesterday when Jacquelyn brought us all cupcakes. What you may not know (and what I didn't know) is what it's like to get things done at Benzinga. The site itself moves so fast, with real-time news updates and new stories every few minutes. The atmosphere in the office is sometimes similar. People move around from office to office and desk to desk, asking questions and bouncing ideas off one another. This hyper-activity has been great for me: not only do I get to work on marketing projects with Sarah, our Marketing associate, but I also have learned about the deficit from writer John Thorpe, done research on financial news in Thailand, England, and Brazil, and sat in on calls about business development. Perhaps most of all, I appreciate that everyone at Benzinga has a sense of humor. For example, there are funny signs posted all around the office; there's one that purports to explain what Benzinga actually means. According to the sign, back in the 1800s, small-town Americans played a game in which numbers were randomly drawn and matched to numbers printed on cards. When there was a match, the winner shouted "Benzinga!" Since Benzinga's founders were so excited about designing the site, the sign claims, they decided to name it after the game. Embarrassingly enough, I thought this was true for two days. Until next time, Cat Woman a.k.a Adela