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Comment by akg_67 | Hacker News Reader

The networking is the personal insurance policy by your cofounders against startup failure. The people connections built during networking events will land these cofounders leadership/management positions at other companies if and when startup fails instead of being unemployable or starting at the bottom. The founders, typically technical co-founders, that don't network has no such insurance in place and tend to go back to work for someone else as software engineer rather than upper level technical management positions like VP Engineering.

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The problem with this line of thinking is that smart companies:

1) Aren't going to hire somebody for a leadership position because they met them networking --- they are going to hire them based on merit

2) The people in charge of smart companies aren't at networking events because networking events are a waste of time

Startups are a way to "level up" your career only because you can skip years of moving up a corporate ladder by starting at the top and building a successful company below you. This doesn't mean that by being a CTO of a 3 person company you are all of the sudden eligible to be a CTO at a big, successful company. The process of being CTO at your 3 person company and growing it into a big, successful company is what makes you eligible for that position at a different company.

The best insurance policy for your career is to be really good at your job, which means working on your job instead of networking.

For most people on the business end of things, networking is your job.

There's a whole world out there that technologists like us rarely pay attention to, which mostly consists of building relationships with other people whose only job is networking so that when their company is looking to purchase, they think of us. Familiarity is a remarkably effective distortion on our evaluation of what is "good", and many technologists who didn't realize this ended up building something that nobody ever heard of.

The reason YC (and other top startup advisors) say to ignore this isn't that it's unimportant, it's that you can fairly easily hire all the people whose day job is networking once you have a product that people want on its own merits, while if nobody wants your product, you'll have to hire them at fat prices to get anywhere. It's a matter of negotiating leverage: show up at the table with something people really want and you will find plenty of people willing to help sell it, while if you spend all your time trying to sell what nobody wants, it will never become something people want.

>> The best insurance policy for your career is to be really good at your job, which means working on your job instead of networking.

This isn't true, in my experience. I have a few pretty good jobs on my resume (System Architect at a Fortune 50 company, Manager of Development at a big ad agency). Last year, when I was looking for work, those titles were pretty much entirely disregarded by the employers I applied to. Almost every one of them told me they never trusted titles from other companies and tried to get me to join as a mid-level engineer.

Every time I had a friend inside the company, however, I was routed to senior-level jobs that actually matched my experience. I've spent time keeping up those friendships with occasional notes and lunches. If I had just assumed that being really good at my job would be my best insurance, I would not have found the opportunities I did.

Yes, seriously, never trust titles from other companies. I've been in places where everybody was the "manager" or "architect" of something. Test manager, release manager, system manager, configuration manager, etc etc. Most titles barely had any responsibilities at all and were given even to fresh grads as they joined the team. Essentially it didn't mean anything and in reality all 15 managers were just plain developers.

This was not even a startup where people get a cto-title just by happening to be there. This was a group inside bigco.

Being good at your job is very important, but ignoring networking is something you do at your own peril.

This doesn't mean "you should go to lots of networking events" -- many of those are a waste of time. But you should build relationships with people, because relationships are a massive influence on hiring, even at smart companies. Also, relationships give you ways to experiment with new projects, learn stuff, and test your own ideas.

Lots of people ignore this and do good work, but don't get recognized. Others do average work, but have powerful networks and advance strongly in their careers. While I favor meritocratic hiring, it isn't wise to advise people that networking is irrelevant.

> 1) Aren't going to hire somebody for a leadership position because they met them networking --- they are going to hire them based on merit

Sorry, I have to disagree. Understanding the "merit" of a leadership/management role has way more to do with who you know than your merit. Management ability is almost entirely subjective.

"Aren't going to hire somebody for a leadership position because they met them networking" -- Agreed with sibling posts; relationship-building is extremely important for anyone who wants to be in a leadership role. People will trust you and listen to your ideas when they know you, after all.

"1) Aren't going to hire somebody for a leadership position because they met them networking --- they are going to hire them based on merit"

So even if that were true (which is questionable, at best), they won't hire you if you are not on their radar. One way to get on their radar? Know them / meet them.

>is that smart companies

They are (probably correctly) betting that > 80% of the people they meet at these events aren't that smart. Birds of a feather and all that.

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