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How they Met

Visiting the Great Wall on our first date.

Visiting the Great Wall on our first date.

For their first date, Matthew invited Tatiana to China. True story.

Through overlapping circles, they had become friends over the previous 3 years, living on opposite coasts and mostly enjoying banter by text and the occasional double date while traveling. 

In June of 2016, both of them were newly single (and about 8 weeks after Tatiana had the fantastic timing to buy an apartment in Boston), Matthew very quickly got tired of attending conferences alone and was egged on by a bunch of VCs into asking that woman-he'd-kind-of-always-flirted-with if she might be interested in joining him in China as his +1.

Her response: "As a matter of fact, I already have a 10-year visa, I just bought a plane ticket, and I'll see you there." (She wasn't sure if this was a date or what exactly, but either way she didn't want to give him a chance to change his mind.) They spent 2 weeks running around China, did their "second" date in New York and Washington D.C. a couple of weeks after that, and a year later they now make their home in San Francisco — even though Tatiana plans to keep that apartment in Boston and is still determined to finish decorating it.

Customary saying-yes selfie.

Customary saying-yes selfie.

Matthew proposed on Christmas Eve on Newbury Street in Boston. A very late, very lively evening of introducing their families to each other the night before had left all of both of them a little worse for the wear. Matthew was downed by a flu, Tatiana had left him in bed to run around after last minute shopping, and they barely managed to pull it together enough to meet out for a quick bowl of ramen so they didn’t starve. As they were walking back to the car Tatiana stopped to say how happy this Holiday Season had already been for her. Matthew didn't have much of a plan but it felt like the right time. He pulled the ring out of his pocket and gave it to her. She said yes. It was a quiet moment between them, the Christmas lights, and an older couple trying to parallel park who whistled congratulations as soon as they figured out what was happening.

 


About Matthew + Tatiana

Matthew Prince is a little bit geek, wonk, and nerd (in other words, Tatiana's ideal man). He works today as the cofounder and CEO of Cloudflare, the service that makes this site (and about 10% of the rest of the Internet) fast, safe, and reliable. He grew up in the mountains of Utah before attending Trinity College (just like Tatiana's brother John — small world!) to study English Literature and Computer Science. He's a former ski instructor, recovering attorney, and repeat entrepreneur.

 

Tatiana Lingos-Webb is a recovering investment banker who once ran away with the circus to become a professional trapeze artist (literally). Daughter of a Greek physician and a British genetics professor, she studied Economics and Music at Wellesley College (obviously). She earned MBA from Babson, started her own social enterprise teaching emotional intelligence to inner city students, and now works as Chief of Staff to the CEO of a cybersecurity company (not Cloudflare). Tatiana lists her strenghts as being cool in a crisis and adept at translating the ramblings of misunderstood geeks — in other words, Matthew's ideal woman.