It was 6 a.m. on May 24, 2012 when Eric Simons was jolted awake by a security guard yelling at him. After working until 4 a.m., the 19-year-old entrepreneur had finally passed out. Unlike other people at AOL in Palo Alto, Calif., Simons wasn’t employed there. He had actually been living there for two months, hiding out at night on couches, eating the company’s food, and exercising and showering in its gym. Now, that was all over. Simons had moved to Silicon Valley and had been given $20,000 by AOL’s incubator program that was designed to provide mentoring for entrepreneurs to learn how startups are built. When the money ran out and the 4-month program ended, Simons’ friends left to go back to college. Simons, however, needed another solution. That’s when he decided to just stay at AOL. Fortunately for him, his badge continued to work, even after the program ended. That gave him access to everything, including the cafeteria and gym. Before long, his face had become familiar to others who worked there, enabling him to move about without suspicion. Having spent several months legitimately working in the building, often quite late, Simons had noticed that although there were security guards with nightly rounds, there were at least three couches that seemed outside those patrols, so he claimed them. He would work until midnight or later, then fall asleep, and at 7 a.m. would go down to the gym for a workout and a shower. Then he would go to the cafeteria for breakfast, and would proceed to work all day. He had 10 t-shirts, a pair of jeans and a pair of shorts, so it all fit into one locker in the gym. Since AOL had their own laundromat, doing laundry was no problem. Then came the fateful morning when he got caught. Though the security guard was angry, he knew Simons had been a part of the mentoring program, so he didn’t call the police. Instead, he confiscated Simons’ badge and made him leave. Fast-forward to 2026 and Eric Simons is now the founder and CEO of Bolt, an app that allows users to build websites and mobile applications with ease. It’s now worth $700 million and Eric Simons is an overnight success years in the making.
