its an amazing aspect of silicon valley. Back then, it was way different too. Just like steve jobs was able to call the founder of HP in highschool and ended up getting a job there for the summer.
"Just like steve jobs was able to call the founder of HP in highschool and ended up getting a job there for the summer."
There is nothing that unusual about that now except with tech companies or any other company that is the current "belle of the ball" or super large and well known.
The idea is to learn and gain experience not to get some buzz because you have achieved some popular culture dream of working for the same place that millions of others would like to. Sure we'd all like to work at those places. That's the problem.
If you pick any company that is generally off the public radar (and not being fawned over in the press with a celebrity CEO) it is quite possible to send a postal letter to the CEO and have a fair shot of getting a summer job. Or even an email but my feeling is a letter would get more attention and seem more genuine.
Not all the value lies in the usual suspects that have more applicants than they can handle.
A corollary to this goes with low paid jobs. Our offices used to be located near a Walmart. Yet not one time in 9 years to anyone ever come through the door looking for an office or admin or warehouse job. Yet everyday people showed up at the Walmart and got a much lower paying job and (from our pov) much worse working conditions. It's important to put effort in, be creative, and not do what everyone else is doing.
The difference now vs then is that if you were a kid who had heard of HP and wrote a letter because you were that interested in computers, there's an extremely high chance that you would be a good employee in some capacity. Today for every single kid with natural curiosity and potential for working in a tech country there are probably more than 100 that want to work at Facebook just because everyone uses it and it sounds like a good job or career stepping stone.
