After finishing a two-year stint in Norway’s naval special forces, Antler founder and CEO Magnus Grimeland arrived at Harvard as a 23-year-old freshman in 2003. He promptly caught the tech bug, which put him in an opportune place at an opportune time. Grimeland befriended a classmate named Eduardo Saverin. He rowed on the crew team, where he met Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. He might have even worked for Mark Zuckerberg at TheFacebook, as it was then known, if he weren’t also juggling classes and athletics and caring for his infant son.
“I was close to applying for one of their internships. They more or less hired anyone in the early days,” Grimeland recalls with a wry grin. “I think anyone who took those internships is incredibly well off right now.”