From a Business Insider article:

"A few months ago, Kayvon Beykpour met a fellow Stanford University graduate, Jessica Verrilli, for coffee.

Verrilli is the Director of Corporate Development and Strategy for Twitter. She asked what Beykpour had been working on since leaving Blackboard, an education company that had acquired his prior startup, TerriblyClever. Beykpour fired up his iPhone and showed her Periscope."

yes

Do you actually know that, or are you just speculating?

I know that.

Edit: I guess this is speculation but I know many, many specific examples of companies who have had early exits in this range that have come about due to personal connections. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect the dots here.

Does the average startup outside the bubble have the potential to make these connections and get similar deals? Maybe. It's a very hard bubble to pierce. Try to email any "insider" with your early stage, low traction idea and I suspect you will see a similar result - crickets.

Well I don't disagree that what you're saying is the most likely scenario. i.e. They knew someone at Twitter.

But just because its the most likely, doesn't mean that's what actually happened. Hence my question.

Aha. And my reply was less relevant to my personal knowledge of Periscope, more relevant to other similar acquisitions - including others by Twitter.