Here’s a tweet that Travis Kalanick sent in January 2010. The reply from Ryan Graves happened 3 minutes later. That tweet was worth over a billion dollars. Nearly 6 years ago, a tweet was sent by Travis Kalanick that said he was looking for entrepreneurial product managers and business developers for a “location based service….Any tips?” Ryan Graves replied to the tweet 3 minutes later and said, “Here’s a tip, e-mail me. Hire me”.
Looking 4 entrepreneurial product mgr/biz-dev killer 4 a location based service.. pre-launch, BIG equity, big peeps involved–ANY TIPS??
— travis kalanick (@travisk) January 6, 2010
For those who are not familiar with the names, Travis is the CEO of Uber, the ride-sharing company that is disrupting taxi service worldwide, revamping the way we get around. Uber Technologies Inc. is an American international transportation network company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Uber currently valuated somewhere between $40 and $51 Billion. Ryan’s reply to the tweet made him Uber’s first hire and now he and Travis are both among some of the youngest billionaires in the world. Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp are the founders of Uber.
You may ask how it could be possible for anyone to have that much worth for a tweet. It isn’t. Same question was running in my mind for a while. But the fact is that Ryan did not let the opportunity to go down in vain. Six years later, with the astronomical growth of Uber, Ryan’s reply to Travis tweet is likely the most important tweet he ever sent.
The Billion Dollar Tweet is not about guessing which opportunities are coming to pay off; it’s about not losing any opportunity where you can make a difference. It’s about being alert keeping your eyes open and staying aware all the time, looking to grab the chance. Basically if you want to succeed, you have to be ready when opportunity comes knocking the door. It doesn’t come often with a warning signal and it does not always come in whenever you wish. One can’t waste time getting ready for the opportunities; you have to create whenever you can. Will you be ready for any opportunity like this?
Overview of Billion Dollar Tweet
It was way back in January 2010 the month that Travis was planning for a test run for 3 cars in New York for a mobile app that he and his friend, Garrett Camp, had just created recently.
But they were decided to start a company around the app and needed to find a General Manager to run it successfully, Travis then looked at Craigslist and Twitter looking for the right person for that job.
Then Ryan’s reply was reached to Travis as he was looking for something new and challenging job. Ryan had some experience at GE, and had worked for Foursquare for a while for free after the company turned him down for a job. Ryan was ready for a new opportunity as he was looking for a right job and took a chance with this tweet.
After that Travis replied back, they both met, then he was signed and Ryan joined Travis and Garrett on March 1st as their first hire for their adventure.
New company takeoff successes, the three of them then invited all their friends to show the demo of their product and then they officially launched in San Francisco just 3 months later on May 31st 2010.
This was six years ago.
But now things changed, by the way this week, the team that started with that tweet has built their company, Uber into a company that is currently valued at over $60 billion.
Travis and Ryan are worth over $6 billion, and that tweet from Ryan who is Uber’s Head of Global Operations began a journey which has made him a billionaire.
One question may come into our mind, how top companies are using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube? Answer is simple will they take it as a wall of content or broadcasting tool?
But Travis and Ryan think different; they take it a way to find the resources, connections and opportunities. It will depend on you how you utilize it; social media can make you feel apart from everyone. Social Media can overwhelm you, or empower you in many ways.
Conclusion
Social Media can be a time saver or a time waster. It will completely depend on you and your activities on social media. Today there is no stopping for an social media well known person. In this Digital Era Social Media is like crown, you must work on it and you must justify the use of it. Nevertheless social media is a huge platform for any solution for today’s problems.
Let me share a quote of Benjamin Franklin – ‘Never confuse motion with an action.’ I guess you know the meaning of this quote.
What do you need now or who can help you or can you help someone today? It may be a just tweet away.
Of course, let me clarify that there is no promise that one connection or one tweet will result in you making a billion dollars or impacting a billion lives all of sudden.
But there is no promise it won’t either. Believe in miracles, nothing is impossible.
