Katherine Boyle

And I walked into the library one day and there's this new book called Zero to One.

It's on the shelf and it's by this guy named Peter Thiel.

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.