Evan wm, as the founder and former co of twitter. I tayng come in for an interview. In a week. After that, they gave me an intern ship at twitter. And i worked there for about six, seven months, when there were 20 folks at the company. You

may think triston is lucky to get an email from v williams, but notice the size of twitter's work force at the time, 20 employees total. Triston spotted the company's potential, not just ahead of his classmates, but ahead of the market. He has a knack for spotting ideas right before blastoff. David hornick, notice this two. Twitter was nothing

when tristan was excited about itt. I mean, twitter was in a place that you told your bodies you were heading to the park. Twitter at the time, was a service where you said, i'm eating a delicious ice cream cone. It was entirely unclear what one did with twitter, how one could make money at twitter, how big twitter would become.

Shortly after his twitter internship ended, he started his next email campaign. He bombarded the founders of a fledgling stratum called four squares. And again, the c o, denis crowley, responded.

I emailed them eight times. The eighth time, denis sent me an email. I'll never forget this verbatim. He said, tristan, you know what? I just may take you up on some of this. Are you ever in new york? Dens? Right? That's it. I was in eley at the time, and i was sitting on the couch with my wife, and i said, how should i reply to this guide? Ten minutes later, i sent a minemil and i said, actually, i was planning on being in new york to morrow. I

booked my flight that night, flew out the following morning. Hung out with them for a week. And a month later, as running business develoment for the company. By now you may be thinking, holy cow, c os are awfully responsive creatures. But before you start dashing off messages to the employers and investors ofy reams, i should warn you, few stories end like tristans. I've had the experience where like i was walking out of greylock, and guysa, i've been waiting here all day to meet you. And i'm like, this isn't the way to meet me. I'm going to continue walking in my car. And i would try to get a reference to me. This will get me to never pay attention to you again. You go into my security services file of people to track that file exists. But tristan's pursuit of foursquare had a happier ending. That's because he targeted teeny early stage companies, start ups with 20 people or less. The lesson here is not just his persistence, but is prescience. Some people get lucky and board a rocket ship by chance, but two rocket ships. That's no coincidence. That's a sign you can spot an undervalued idea ahead of your peers. It's like this spity sense that just keeps tingling. It's hard to stay in one job, even a wildly successful company, once you've started sensing opportunities all around you.