Sure. When I was running my startup, we got catastrophic news that the first big customer in the space (Boost Mobile) was signing a deal with a competitor instead of with us. This would have killed us.

The competitor was a much larger and better funded company that had been around for years. I was a 20 year old CEO. Most big companies do not like to make risky decisions, so this was not entirely surprising.

We got this news at about 11 pm. The next morning at 6 am, I was on a flight to Orange County. I sat in the lobby until the guy responsible for the deal on their side walked in. He was polite but said the decision was made.

I convince him to look at our demo (in the past few days, we'd done some research to figure out exactly what features he really cared about). As soon as he saw it I knew we had a chance.

Ended up hanging around for about two weeks. Eventually, the other company overplayed their hand and we got the deal, and then the deals with every other major US telecom company.

Is this more hustling than hacking? I'm scratching my head and trying to figure out how it's a "hack", as in "beating the system" [1].

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html

I'd consider it a hack. It was improvised in a short amount of time, and with limited resources. Sam shouldn't have gotten the deal, but he did! I'd say he beat the system. Which system? The Universe.

Straight hustlin'!

I think it means he (sama) took a flight to be at the guy's office first thing in the morning, to wait for the guy to show up at the office.

Sure, but it was necessary. I'd do it too if it meant my startup would survive.

And can you please tell us what you're hoping to discover about a founder with that question :)

Side question, mostly just for fun, have people's answers to that question ever been blatantly illegal?

One guy who got accepted answered that questions with "I sold drugs"

source?

Talked to him in person. No source.