So I’m scrolling through TikTok last Tuesday night right? Bored outta my mind eating cold pizza. Then BAM – this post pops up with Andrea Flores tagged everywhere. Everyone’s shouting “Future superstar!” “Next big thing!” Got me wondering: man, where’s she really gonna end up after graduation? Everybody’s guessing, nobody’s doing anything about it. So I rolled up my sleeves.
The Rabbit Hole Dive
First step? Dig deep. Not just reading her Instagram captions like everyone else. Nah. I went full stalker mode – but the legal kind, promise.
- Platform Patrol: Scoured her LinkedIn, Twitter threads from 2 years back, even her college club newsletters archived online (super cringe photos dude).
- Pattern Hunting: Made a dumb spreadsheet. Colors? Green for “tech”, yellow for “artsy stuff”, red for “wtf random?” Tracked every internship mention, every project shoutout.
- Skill Spelunking: Dug into her GitHub – found old Python scripts for analyzing cat memes? Weird but okay. Then saw her contributing to that open-source disaster relief tool project last month. Lightbulb moment.
Getting My Hands Dirty
Just looking wasn’t enough. Gotta test the theories.
Mock Pitch Time: Pretended I was a VC. Brewed some awful instant coffee for full startup bro ambiance. Typed up three fake “future Andrea” scenarios:
- Corporate Climb: Smooth MBA grad -> McKinsey consultant -> VP somewhere soulless.
- Tech Disruptor: Joins that climate tech startup she interns at -> leads their data team -> company IPOs.
- Rebel Path: Says screw the ladder -> builds indie AI tools for small non-profits -> gets weird niche famous.
Then I cold emailed… myself. Seriously. Created three burner Gmail accounts like “CorporateBro_McKinsey@”, “ScrappyStartupCEO@”, and “ChaoticGoodHacker@”. Pitched each “Andrea Future” to myself pretending to be recruiters. Which one felt least like spam? Which got me excited? CorporateBro got ignored. ChaoticGoodHacker? Replied instantly. Guess my gut speaks Gmail.
The Messy Reveal
After deleting my dumb email accounts (felt guilty), here’s the juice:
- Everyone’s Wrong About Law School: Found zero evidence in 5 years of posts/talks she gives a damn about policy debates. All that “Future Senator” chatter? Noise.
- Code & Purpose Crossover: 82% of her side projects mix tech skills with social/enviro impact. Noticed her bail from that fancy finance internship early? Switched to that tiny ocean plastics NGO’s tech team instead. Money talks? Yeah, nah.
- Network Leaks: That one obscure podcast? She name-dropped “Civic Tech Hacker Houses” twice. Googled that – turns out it’s a real underground thing in Portland & Berlin. Not Stanford Grad Halls.
Final Take? Forget Fortune 500 track. Andrea’s gonna bounce from that diploma straight into building weird, useful tech for messy real-world problems with crews that don’t wear suits. Maybe flops, maybe wins big. Either way? Way more interesting than climbing some corpo ladder. The clues were there all along. Just had to do the work – and play some cringy email dress-up.
