Dear CEO: Please Don’t Throw This Away

Who even sends letters nowadays?

AND WHO KNEW STAMPS WERE SO EXPENSIVE!?

I’m going to be real with you: I’ve never actually sent a letter in my life. Not because I’m against being old-fashioned, but because it just seems… unnecessarily time-consuming.

Which turned out to be very true.

As you saw from my previous post, the idea to send letters came partly because it sounded kind of cool and partly out of desperation.

When I started this project I broke down my options:

• Email? I don’t have their addresses. I tried.

• Phone? I don’t have their numbers.

• Show up at their offices in person? …That might be pushing it. (A little creepy, even.)

  
  

But while researching this borderline-stalker plan, I realized something: it’s surprisingly easy to find the postal addresses of the biggest 300 companies in Norway.

So I went for the slightly less creepy option, and decided to send letters.

It was definitely bold. Different. maybe sligtly insane, But also kind of charming? In a world where everyone's inbox is overflowing with sales pitches, calendar invites, and LinkedIn requests from strangers, I figured something physical might actually stand out. Maybe the act of handwriting an envelope and mailing a letter would show just enough commitment to earn five minutes of a CEO’s time. (And yes, it has been pointed out to me that sending physical letters to start conversations about the future of technology is… slightly ironic. Fair enough.)

So, I made a plan:

I opened a Google Sheet, listed the top 300 companies, and started tracking down the names of their CEOs and headquarters addresses.

Was it hard? No.

Was it boring? Oh my god, yes.

It took me around 3 hours to get through the first 50. After a few days of deep stalking and spreadsheet-filling, I had around 150 solid matches: name + company + Norwegian postal address.

Now that I knew where the letters were going, it was time to figure out what I was actually sending. Sure, letters stand out a little, but let’s be real, these CEOs still get random stuff in the mail all the time. Just because it’s old-school doesn’t mean it’s original.

So how do I get them to actually open it... and care?

I broke it down into two parts:

• The outside (the envelope): First impressions count. It needs to look interesting enough to open, but not so flashy it screams “junk mail.”

• The inside (the letter): This is where the magic has to happen; the pitch, the story, the ask! And it all has to land.

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THE INSIDE:

Why would a CEO take time out of their schedule to help me?

Honestly… no clue. But if I had any shot at getting through, the letter couldn’t just be another vague “can I pick your brain?” It had to feel personal and actually worth five minutes of their time.

So I leaned into the only real advantages I had: curiosity, ambition, and the fact that I was trying something a little unusual at an unusual age. I wrote about the project, of course, but more importantly, I wrote about why I was doing it. That I wasn’t looking for a job or even an internship. Just a conversation. A chance to learn from the people who are actually shaping the future.

I tried to tap into their human side the part of them that maybe remembers what it felt like to start out: full of questions, full of energy, and with no real roadmap. And, okay, I probably played a little to their ego too. After all, I’m reaching out because I genuinely believe they have something important to say. Hopefully, that came across.

Worst case? They toss the letter.

Best case? They say yes.

And for this whole project to work… I need 20 yeses.

Here's a copy of the letter I sent for you to read:

(very obviously my signature could use some work)

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The Outside:

They have to pop. Regular post office envelopes weren’t going to cut it, so I went to an art store and picked out these beautiful, pearly white envelopes. A little fancy. A little ✨special✨.

(The envelopes I used for the letters)

Perfect.

I bought 100 envelopes.

Then came the mildly ridiculous part: handwriting every single address (yes, actually by hand), signing all the letters, folding the letters, stuffing them one by one, and sealing them with the kind of care usually reserved for wedding invitations. Hopefully these CEOs feel special!

Then came time for the stamps.

Let’s talk about the stamps!

In my head, a stamp costs like… 3kr.

Reality check: they’re 25kr. Each.

Yes, I am now financially invested in this now:(

But by that point, I was too far in to back out. So I bought the stamps and tried to think of it as an investment in my future… Not the cute clothes I could’ve bought with that money instead. (Character development over closet development, I guess.)

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My dad always says I’m in no position to be giving advice and honestly, fair enough. But having sent 100 letters just for a chance to make this project happen, I am going to give you a bit of 19-year-old wisdom anyway, if you’re up for it:

Think outside the box.

Yes, I know it’s the most overused advice of all time. But sometimes the reason something’s overused is because it’s true.

This whole project? It only exists because I stopped trying to fit into someone else’s idea of what a “good” internship should look like and started building my own instead.

So in the spirit of turning clichés into action…Here’s me. Next to the box:

(And very much not inside it.)

If you do what everyone else is doing, you’ll likely end up with the same results they get, and I’m not interested in that outcome.

That’s why I believe, whether in your career or personal life, you should take a different path, one that forces you to be creative, think originally, and develop ideas that AI and templates haven’t already exhausted. It’s risky. It might fail. But it might also lead to something way cooler. (And if any of you take this advice and it totally flops… I’m sorry. Kind of.)

But enough of my unsolicited wisdom, I get annoyed when people give me advice I didn’t ask for, too. Lets get back to the project.

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The letters were finally done and ready to go. I learned you can actually buy stamps online now (modern miracles), and dropping them off is as easy as finding one of those little red post boxes on the corner. So I packed them up, walked to the nearest red post box, and dropped every single one in.

That was it. No confirmation email. No tracking code. Just… gone.

Now all I can do is wait and hope that somewhere, in an office I’ll probably never see, one of those envelopes actually gets opened.

And if this doesn’t work?

Well… I’ll figure something else out.

(Probably not stalking their office. But I’m not totally ruling it out either.)

Let’s see what happens.

– June