Cali Surf Bro Tweeted The Uber CEO "Hire Me :)" In 2010 - Net Worth After Today's IPO: $1.5 Billion

Kmarko5/10/2019 4:30 PM

I’m sure everyone, even people who aren’t involved/don’t care about finance stuff and the stock market, know Uber announced their long awaited IPO this morning. It’s impossible to avoid the news. Shares opened a little under 50 bucks and has the company valued at $77 billion. That’s the third biggest opening after Alibaba and Facebook.

One of the guys who just cashed in on that news?

Ryan Graves, former Uber employee, current Cali surfer brrroooooooooooooo.

How’d he get the gig?

In 2010 he responded to a tweet saying “hire me” with a smiley face.

Seriously.

In January 2010, when Uber was less than a year old, Travis Kalanick, then the CEO, tweeted: “Looking 4 entrepreneurial product mgr/biz-dev killer 4 a location based service.. pre-launch, BIG equity, big peeps involved—ANY TIPS??”
Graves saw Kalanick’s tweet and responded: “Here’s a tip. email me :)”. He included his email address, too.

He was Uber’s first official employee. He went from working for free – literally – at GE, to joining Travis Kalanick and helping him build a rideshare program.

In 2010, Graves’ work experience included a database-administrator position at General Electric and a stint in business development at Foursquare, which he got by working for the company for free after it initially turned him down.
Kalanick presumably followed up with Graves after his initial tweet, and Graves became Uber’s first hire. Graves was known throughout his time at Uber as the “Mr. Nice Guy” in contrast with Kalanick’s aggressive personality, and he was said to be well-liked by his peers both within Uber and the larger tech community. [Business Insider]

He stepped down in 2017 – after Kalanick did – but remained supportive (you would too with that kind of money riding ((no pun intended)) on it.)

Now? He’s worth between 1-1.8 billion dollars.