Hmmm. Where do you get that from this article, or his blog post?

Sure, he did get the 23andMe interview from a friend. But Google? and AirBnB? and Yelp? and Uber? and Twitch? Man, that would be a lot of connections.

Ben Horowitz carefully orchestrated a bidding war when it came time to sell his company. Qureshi "cracked the coding interview" and then orchestrated a feeding frenzy of a bidding war.

A well-played hand. ;-)

That's just how the real world works, in 99% of the cases. You need to know your stuff, but past a certain point, it's almost always better to expand your network + meet new people than to put in an extra hour honing your craft.

People don't just magically get handed a $200-300-500k job. You tend to get recommended by someone, through someone you know (i.e. friend, acquaintance).