AKING A CAREER CHANGE IN MIDSTREAM will always be risky, but Kara Goldin is a risk taker. • In 2005, Goldin, who had previously left her job as VP of shopping and e-commerce at America Online, founded unsweetened flavored-water company Hint. At the time, unsweetened flavored water wasn’t even a category in the beverage industry. Hint eventually became the drink of choice for those who want to avoid soft drinks but find plain water boring. With a valuation above $150 million, the San Francisco-based brand is also wildly popular among employees at Bay Area tech companies. • “We didn’t intend to become the largest beverage in Silicon Valley,” Goldin says, adding that Google’s decision to stock Hint at its offices led employees who’d left to start their own companies to do
