Katherine Boyle

And I had heard of Peter Thiel because I was a reporter and I had read about the Facebook IPO and things.

So I knew who he was, but I didn't know he was as big of a deal as he has now become and kind of is in Silicon Valley.

So I reached out to Peter Thiel.

And what's crazy about this is, again, I wasn't expecting a response.

I was very good at reaching out to people, but not everyone would respond.

And I didn't get a response from him, but he had forwarded my email to one of his kind of junior partners, principals at his firm Founders Fund named Trey Stevens.

And Trey and I had overlapped in school.

He had actually been at one of the agencies.

And whatever I said in my email or whatever kind of context he had, you know, Peter thought we would hit it off.

And so I started talking to Trey, who was brand new in venture capital.

Peter had brought him on from Palantir to really look at national security and defense.

And, you know, I kind of told Trey my story.

I was a former reporter.

It turns out he had at one point wanted to be a reporter in his life, so we really just hit it off talking.

And I said, you know, I'm really bored in business school.

I need to do something this summer, but I'd also love to, like, just work for you guys.

Like, can I just intern with you?

And again, to the point of people will not say no more than five or six times.

He said no probably five or six times.

He's like, we don't have a job for you.