Stanford Student Emails Musk

Shaan shares a story about how a cold email can reach even the most powerful people, using his friend Nico as an example.

"There's this guy on Twitter right now named Soneth who's building Z Fellows, another young student program. Check out this cold email that my friend Nico, who's now a famous venture capitalist who invested in Snapchat really early on, sent to Elon Musk.

He wrote: 'Dear Mr. Musk, I'm a graduate student at Stanford taking this class. I'm writing a paper about Tesla strategy because I think you're such an innovative company, and we're going to put together our recommendations on the future of your corporate strategy. Since you're the chairman of Tesla, I thought it'd be great if we could do a short interview with you in person over the next few weeks to talk about your strategy. I'm aware that you receive dozens of similar requests on a daily basis, that's why I'll do my best to make this not only useful but an entertaining experience for you and your company's execs. Hopefully we're able to contribute first-class recommendations. I happen to sign an NDA. I look forward to hearing from you. I would be grateful if you participated in our research. Nico.'

And then Elon writes back: 'Okay, if you can limit the meeting to twenty minutes or schedule for late in the evening.'"