Google’s head of Android once cold-emailed the $2 trillion tech giant’s founder Sergey Brin for graduate school advice—he instead got a job offer

Businessman working on a laptop (Credit: Maskot—Getty Images)

• Google exec Sameer Samat got his foot in the door at the $2 tech giant not with the perfect resume or cover letter—but rather the confidence to cold email its billionaire cofounder Sergey Brin in the middle of the night. While Samat was later offered a job during an on-the-spot interview with Brin, he declined, opting to continue in his own entrepreneurial journey. Two decades later, he’s the boss of Android.

There isn’t much that is more difficult than landing a job at Google. With an acceptance rate close to 0.2% according to CNBC, you’d have far better luck applying to Harvard or Yale.