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A Story on Drive

blog.pmarca.com

27 pointshhm11 comments

There are a bunch of stories like this about the young Steve Jobs.

He would totally ignore protocol and directly ask to speak to the CEO of whatever company he wanted to do business with, even as a college drop out kid. More often than not the CEO in question would recognize a kindred spirit and be pleased to speak with him.

Well, yeah, who wouldn't take a call from Steve Jobs?

Good story. Reminds me a lot of how I got into programming console video games in 1995, a business I regarded as no less magical or exciting as the movie business was back then. I paid my way to GDC, then faked my way into E3 when that didn't work, managed to buttonhole the right guy there, got his business card, called him every other week, eventually got my foot in the door and started a nice long career in video games.

Now games are all corporate, though, so of course I'm doing an internet startup.

Am I the only one who is not that enthusiastic? To me it reads more like the story of a puppy dog sucking up to the big guys. I see not much entrepreneurial spirit whatsoever, the guy just alway does what the boss tells him (hand out leaflets for 4 years - ok, go to school and write to me regularly - ok). OK, there is some chuzpe talking to Gary Grant and writing to the boss even though he has the message he should write less. But still....

"Am I the only one who is not that enthusiastic?"

Yes.

The only difference in being an entrepreneur is you have the privilege of sucking up to customers directly, instead of sucking up to a boss as a proxy.

That is a very big difference.

what a short but inspiring paragraph. I just can't get enough of stories like this. This is a kid creating opportunities for himself out of pretty much nothing. These are the kind of things that make a difference between people and what they can achieve. Beautiful.

Beautiful! This was a win-win-win for everyone. I bet Mr. Zukor enjoyed reading those letters as much as Mr. Lykes enjoyed writing them.

This reminds me of something about myself that I had long forgotten. My first corporate job was as a programmer analyst trainee for a Fortune 500 company. Part of my training was to spend time in every department of the division. Every Friday I wrote a one page report to my boss even though it wasn't required. I was so happy to have the job and so grateful to have the opportunity to see the other departments, I wanted my boss to see that his "investment" in me was a wise one. He never acknowledged any report, but after about 4 months of this his secretary said, "Dave loves reading your reports."

Mr. Lykes may still be at Paramount, but I moved on when my company disappeared years ago. Thanks for bringing back great memories.

Just how old do we have to get before we stop doing stuff like this?

very interesting I love meeting people like Mr. Lykes and yourself that take the extra (not asked for) step. These are the kind of things that really separate you from the bunch. And I really think there is no age on this, as long as you are fighting to achieve more and do better you have room to keep doing things like this. And I guess once you are the manager and the president you can remember how much it means to be appreciated when someone does these kind of stuff, and will work harder to motivate those that do these (rather than not saying anything direct in response to the mails in both cases)

I used to do stuff like this all the time, but when I read this post, I realized that I don't anymore. What happened? I don't know, but maybe being 5 levels deep in a recursive function may have something do to with it.

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