It's all who you know?
sivers.org
sivers.org
As a "top ramen entrepreneur" at the time, I had no chance of winning but I contacted Woz's assistant via the website.
I said if there's any chance, anytime & anywhere of taking Woz out to lunch for a young tech entrepreneur to pick his brain please hit me back.
That's all it took - I found myself treating Woz to lunch at a greasy-spoon by his house. Gracious, awesome guy - huge presence and a transformative moment for me.
I'm glad I had an excuse to tell that story, because honestly there's not much more to add to Siver's excellent article - the plan he lays to engineering your own "who you know" is just that simple.
So now go do it.
I second you: pick up your phone.
Most people love to leave names and responsibilities on products, in credits, etc. Analyze who made what, search the web, find a name of someone which you think could help and then try to find a way to contact him at his work (do not stalk into his private life) and then call him and ask to meet him. Many people will accept.
The first I got invited to a dinner and thought I'd be just meeting the man: no, it was better than that, there were many people around and I got to meet several of the people I'd be working with later on.
So now go do it.
Yes, hustling is always a good thing and I sincerely congratulate him on his initiative, but "who you know" did play a small part in his success (not that it's a bad thing, it just is).
(BTW, in the off chance Derek is reading this - if you get a chance, please talk to the folks at The Record Co. http://www.therecordco.org/ - it was created by some Berklee folks as a way of providing low-cost recording studio services to artists who can't afford pro-studios and may need more services than can be offered using USB mics and Audacity.)
edit: grammar/typos
First draft of the post I kept saying "all because I went to school in Boston and bought a guy a pizza." Very thankful that I had the random luck to grow up in the U.S, to afford tuition at Berklee (though it was only $2500/semester back then.)
But as the article developed into saying how NOW the physical location is less important, I removed the "I was in Boston" part to de-emphasize that part of my past story & emphasize the current stuff that anyone can apply.
Now I think it doesn't need to begin with physical proximity. A well-written succinct email is the best introduction to almost anyone, and then you can strengthen that friendship by phone & email, then eventually meet in person if circumstances allow.
Also, thanks for therecordco.org tip. I'll check it out.
One Saturday, while working at the department store, some blowhard came in to purchase a bunch of housewares to send to his son in Hawaii. The guy was bossy, and basically micromanaged us as we packed his purchases into boxes for shipping, much to our consternation. While waiting for someone to fetch some dishes, Mr. Blowhard and I just started talking to pass the time, and he basically started asking about my life. I told him about going to college and when he learned I was going to MIT, his ear's perked up. Long story short, Mr. Blowhard turned out to be the owner of one of the most successful restaurants in the area, and right then and there he offered to create a scholarship fund and award be a couple of thousand dollars to help pay for my tuition.
When I tell folks about this story, they congratulate me for my hustle, but there was actually no hustle involved. I was literally in the right place at the right time, if I had traded shifts with a coworker (as we were wont to do for weekend hours) or if the right plates were on the store shelf, there would have been no money. Between this, the story of how I got my first job out of college (also a story of being at the right place at the right time), and one other story that I won't share, I've come to believe that serendipity is indeed at least as important as what you know or what you do.
That said, hustle can only help, so you may as well try. :)
I have a dozen stories of my own about being in the right place at the right time...with the happenstance of having the right preparation.
There is probably more to your story then even you know. As there always is because so many things come into play.
I knew Morris of Diskmakers before he reinvented that company and was still located in Philly in a run down building north of Old City. DM morphed around the time that the changeover to CD's happened in the mid 80's and became quite successful and of course later bought your company CD Baby. Part of the reinvention was based on things that he learned from doing business with me - he actually had wanted to become partners with me and when I turned him down him simply figured it out on his own.
You really care about your customers, and about people in general. I was always in a better mood just hearing parts of your story.
Thanks for a great read man (If you are in fact the same person =) )
Feel free to email me anytime : derek@sivers.org
And part of the reason I had the guts to do that was because I knew people then who went on to be people like Jason Snell, editor of MacUser. I knew him when he was a Mac repair guy. I knew Landon Fuller, who's pretty big in the OSS world, and he was my age and dropped out of HS and did great. I knew the executive (technical) assistant to the CEO of Cisco at the time (another HS dropout) and… lots of other people. How? IRC. A platform open to all. Then later, I wrote a Mac web site, and met all the Mac writer/publisher types. I wrote about wanting to grow up to be the female David Pogue and David Pogue commented on my blog post.
And on and on, and here I am today. I did the exact same thing in each "world" I moved through -- design (YayHooray, et al), code (PHP, then Ruby, then JS) -- meeting people in the community online, taking an interest in them, being around them, and writing and sharing what I learned. That's how I made most of my friends and met my husband. That's how I got jobs and speaking gigs.
Et voila.
Didn't matter that I started in my mom's basement in Zerosville and literally was the most computer-savvy and entrepreneurial kid in a 5 mile radius.
There are probably a few graduates of Berklee that didn't end up where there were proud to end up being -- the amount of graduates of third-tier music schools that end up nowhere is considerably larger.
The folks I know who went to Berklee didn't want an industry job, they wanted to be musicians. About half of them are working in the field, others went on to do other things. No one is "nowhere", and they're all happy, modulo normal first world surface noise.
Anyway, don't forget: we're all privileged in some set of ways. I agree that Derek was in the right place at the right time, but so were a lot of other people. I think everyone is, sometimes, but we don't always recognize it and act on it. I think that was his message.
If he were a waiter at some of these guys' tables and tried to make the same contacts, something tells me he would have had a harder time.
By saying "He was in Berklee, not me, that's why he did it", you're adopting a mental mindset that will not lead you to success.
In imagining failure before it happens, you fail twice.
It's been easy for none to climb the ladder.
That is theoretically true, but lets not get carried away with the power of being able to reach out to people directly. They also have to listen to you. I have the emails of several millionaires and two billionaires, yet I am having trouble finding funding for a startup even though everyone that sees what I'm doing claims to love it and many believe it could be huge.
Here's Mark Cuban's email - mark@hd.net (he has given this away publicly at times and claims to have an open door policy, so I'm not breaking any confidences putting it here). Now you have the email address of a billionaire. Not many people will get anywhere with it, however.
Funding is hard, best of luck.
Speaking as a minor, non-millionaire "web celebrity," it's very off-putting to receive emails from people who want me to do something for them. People who want me to read their life story and then give them some kind of "answer." People who, when I've taken the time to do so, never bother to implement my advice or even update me later.
I don't know you or what you've been doing or saying to these people, but from my first glance, what you wrote here on HN sounds frustrated… and more than a little bit entitled. Just because they're millionaires or billionaires doesn't mean they want to be seen as or treated like a cash dispenser. Even if they "believe" in what you're doing. People who have something other people want develop, very quickly, a "user" radar.
It's not the email address, it's what you do with it.
Given that you dont know what I am doing or saying, that seems like an unfair and unfounded criticism. I was responding to the comment of someone saying that merely having emails of successful people can open the door to your own success. My point was that this is the exception, not the rule, and not to get too excited just because you may have a direct line to them. Regardless of the reason you are ultimately turned down or simply ignored, the odds are that contacting these people will yield few if any results. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it; it simply means that you should understand the odds and plan accordingly.
Your comment seems to agree with the spirit of mine, while somehow lambasting it as being rooted in frustration and entitlement. You may have a future in politics.
I know plenty of people that have graduated and are still doing unpaid internships. It's a rough time in the traditional (non-tech-focused) music industry right now but I think those people I know lacked the hustle Derek showed.
It takes a certain amount of audacity to have pizza delivered for the entire class like that. I don't think many would see the opportunity or, even if they did, take advantage of it.
Absolutely, as well as initiative and passion.
Perhaps the lesson here is to a) to the best you can to put yourself into a situation where you can succeed, and b) act on every chance you get. Sounds cliché, but that is the path to success.
edit: anigbrowl beat me to it.
People who are more successful tend to imagine that it is because they are better when really they may be in the right place at the right time. There is a skill to being in the right place at the right time, but this doesn't mean there aren't a lot of highly talented people who are overlooked or downgraded for reasons which don't relate to their raw ability.
http://www.berklee.edu/bt/233/leadsheet.html
(Though yes, tuition is a major barrier at > 18k/year.)
http://www.berklee.edu/financial-aid/cost-of-attendance.html http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/financial_aid/cost...
I don't know where you're getting that. Hardly any 4-year college is that inexpensive nowadays. Granted, nearly all who need it are able to acquire a significant amount of financial aid.
This source: http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl... lists cost of attendance for Berklee to be $57,229.
Most people do not go to private, liberal arts colleges. They go to state schools or community college.
Fixating on the privilege in this case is just like making an excuse about not knowing anyone in the first place.
Hang on there. No. Just no. You're making too big a deal about the location. What if he'd been at an airport and had a MiFi and shared his connection with a guy who turned out to be a BMI exec? Or he could have gone to hear a free talk at a public library and met the BMI exec that way? That is the point he's making about opportunities being all around.
You have no idea how much it saddens me that people have become so accustomed to "security everywhere" that they just assume that in the past we always had security checkpoints everywhere.
But people who aren't at universities usually do not realize this.
Michael Lewis was an art history student at Princeton University, who nonetheless wanted to break into Wall Street to make money. He describes his almost pathetic attempts to find a finance job, only to be roundly rejected by every firm to which he applied. He then enrolled in the London School of Economics to gain a Master's degree in economics.
While in England, Lewis was invited to a banquet hosted by the Queen Mother, where he was purposely seated by his cousin, Baroness Linda Monroe von Stauffenberg, one of the organizers of the banquet, next to the wife of the London managing partner of Salomon Brothers, in the hope that his intelligence might impress her enough for her to suggest to her husband that Lewis be given a job with Salomon Brothers, which had previously turned him down. As it turned out, the strategy worked, and Lewis was granted an interview and landed the job.
Lewis then moved to New York City for Salomon's training program. Here, he was appalled at the sophomoric, obtuse and obnoxious behavior of some of his fellow trainees, and indoctrinated into the money culture of Salomon Brothers and Wall Street in general.
From New York, Lewis was shipped to the London office of Salomon Brothers as a bond salesman. Despite his lack of knowledge, he was soon handling millions of dollars in investment accounts. In 1987, he witnessed a near-hostile takeover of Salomon Brothers but survived with his job.
However, growing disillusioned with his work, Lewis quit the firm at the beginning of 1988 to write this book and become a financial journalist. The first edition was published October 17, 1989.
Interview of Michael Lewis :
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june12/mich...
because they reach out to say hello to the people they admire
One example of several: After moving to London I e-mailed a local HN user. He introduced me to some people and two weeks later I had a job.
Cheers to you mate. Good read.
http://www.wikisummaries.org/Hardball#Chapter_1:_It.27s_Not_...
Truth right here. And one of the things people ignore when they bash MBA programs. One of the most important things I'll take away from my program is the self realization and the change in the way I see the world. And of course, the people I've met.
[1]: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/28/founder-stories-how-michael-bloomberg-got-his-start-i-brought-you-a-cup-of-coffee/Situational awareness also applies to recognizing current trends in the world and reacting to them. Think about what Derek did with CD Baby: He realized that the internet had a lot of potential for selling music, so he sold music on the internet.
Unfortunately, I got dragged away from twitter due to work (no excuses really) and when I became active again just recently, i've found there seems to be so much more noise and people's willingness to have a conversation with a stranger is nothing like it used to be.
Still - I'm glad Mr.Sivers answers his emails. He's always been a great help in helping me to improve my mindset.
But even more than that, you need to have a goal, made out of concrete/steel in front of your inner eye. All major religions focus on an "ultimate goal", warfare, nationalism, professional life, "masterplans", "big pictures", the plots of the best movies and literature in human history, etc.
If you lack this goal, you will never know "who" you need to know. Randomly networking people will not help you in the long term.
It is radically more useful to phrase the takeaway as "All business is conducted by humans, and all humans rich and poor need to eat. Culturally, business is often conducted over food. Knowing these facts, you can use food to create a social connection for cheap where creating a business connection would be otherwise impossible."
That's actually pretty good advice, and it's at the heart of a lot of good advice you're going to get for career development, like arranging for coffee dates and business lunches with people who are in the line of Yes-es that you need to get hired.
It's just a little sad that you are more like to be lauded for buying pizza for somebody who could probably afford an entire houseful of pizza, vs doing something to really help somebody.
He is doing something to help somebody who needs it: himself. Your fixating on the monetary transaction is getting in the way. It could have been a random act of kindness. The money is just a small signal of giving-a-damn (there are others) that most people wouldn't jump over. He's being lauded for helping himself, not the executive.
Let's define 'kissing ass' as doing someone with the power to help you a favor you wouldn't otherwise do (hence the ass kiss), to get favorable treatment. This would fall under that definition, but then so would all kinds of things like tipping a waiter or buying your date a rose.
So, what can we add to the definition to make it work? The only thing I can think of is that we don't like the idea that the favor is to someone who isn't a peer - someone above you. But Sivers' point is that you are peers in all the ways that matter. To have opportunities open up to you, you just need two things: 1.) be provably somewhat above average at something (even if that thing is just showing initiative) and 2.) get yourself on other people's radar. You can do the first with a website and the second with an email. Back when he started out, he didn't have websites and email so he used 'showing problem-solving initiative' and a handshake.
Sivers didn't just laugh at a joke or pay empty compliments, he took a risk, took initiative, and signaled that he was a person worth knowing. Later when he got a job offer he was not just collecting on a favor, he was also providing value: he worked his ass off for them.
Calling people who show initiative and motivation to open up their options 'ass kissers' is crab mentality.
People in the 'serious' professions already have to put up with dishonesty, battle daily with unethical coworkers and organizations, and have to work with someone's crappy family member hire. So to applaud ass kissers who get a job based on connections is very bad for society. If it's just about music or acting or some non-serious field, the no one cares and no one does care.
Here's an anecdote: a good friend of mine studied and finished medicine in a foreign country (in English). He passed all the American exams, yet no school would take him. The path to becoming an American doctor is quite different and more difficult than if you were to study domestically.
However, he met a doctor from the same country who practices medicine in America. The doctor was able to secure a volunteering position for my friend, and because of that volunteering experience, he is now finishing his residency program in the top 90% of his class.
Long story short: having connections is not about creating shortcuts; it's about creating opportunities that would otherwise be impossible to obtain.
What? People don't tip the waiter as "kissing ass". The waiter is not in power, and at the time of the tip he has served your meal already. If anything, they do it as charity.
And people certainly don't buy roses to their girlfriend as "kissing ass", they do it because they want to. Except if you have this notion that males don't like romantic gestures.
>Calling people who show initiative and motivation to open up their options 'ass kissers' is crab mentality.
No, it's not. The article on Wikipedia describes the meaning of the phrase well, and this is not it.
You can "show initiative and motivation" without buying anyone in power a pizza. Millions of people have done it.
So give Sivers credit for recognizing that and acting, both out of goodwill and self-interest. He demonstrated an understanding of how the music business works over and over again in later years. Thankfully, he also understood what consumers wanted and was able to mesh those two needs to some extent.
Having a respectful audience carries significant emotional and psychological value to the speaker, so Sivers likely also had that much to offer to Wozniak.
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The lesson here is to take advantage of opportunities when they come your way, not to hand out free pizza willy-nilly.
I'd assumed he was talking about the author being the one who got connections by being rich/important, didn't occur to me he was complaining that the speaker got a free pizza.
EDIT: Confirmed. http://www.rssboard.org/rss-validator/check.cgi?url=https%3A...
It's ironic because I was just about to go try writing a news reader. I actually found the validator while reading the RSS 2.0 spec.
For some people, burning bridges and telling people what they can go do to themselves is a cherished past time that they have earned. In my opinion the hard-line approach to success is far more satisfying. Imagine making an opportunity for yourself that no one can take away because they had no part in giving it to you. That's exhilarating to know that no one has any power or influence over you. If that's not your goal, then what's the point? You might as well go work at a grocery store or something.
I wish I realized that before. I will just write some emails tonight. Tomorrow I will be successful.
I can't stand this guy's smug face. He was just lucky.
I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. - Thomas Jefferson
Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure. - Earl Wilson
I don't say this to be bitter, but let's have a little empathy with the many, many people in the world who work hard and still do not catch that many breaks. For example, no one doubts the greatness of Thomas Jefferson, but it would have been different for one of his field slaves to profess industriousness.
I also agree that if you are selling garbage in the slums of India, no matter how hard you work, it's likely going to make very little difference in your overall life situation.
At the same time, if you take the average person living in a western society, working hard does make a difference. With it you have a chance, without it you are leaving it very much to luck and circumstance.
I also find that very few of us know what working hard really means. Working hard with a focus and a goal in mind will get results.
I'm probably biased on this though, because when I was 17, living in the middle of nowhere PA, I started up a website about a band I liked, and by 19, the guy behind the band flew me to New Orleans and was interviewing me for a job working on their web presence. I was very fortunate to have learned that lesson as early as I did, and I didn't even have the benefit of living in an urban environment nor going to a well-recognized college.
Not every interaction you seek will happen, but if you don't try or give up, your chances lessen even further.
Meeting people is easy - and you'll have an easier time making friends if you weren't snarking so hard.
The message is literally: reach out and try to make as many connections with other humans as you can and maybe even help them out if it's within your capacity. _That's_it_
Now have a good long think about how cynical of a person you'd have to be to complain about that message.
I too first skimmed it cynically, my natural reaction to any self-help/motivation post. A few of his lines, read alone, do sound ridiculous. "Simply contacting a stranger.." "Just like that, I was in." "All because I bought pizza for a stranger." "Soon after arriving in New York, ... opportunities were everywhere." But I read these lines as obvious hyperbole, used for dramatic effect.
Even though he glosses over a lot of subtleties (its a blog post), I found it rather honest. Yup, it is all about who you know, and it only takes one connection. But there's a more useful truth embedded in the premise, easily overlooked in all the self-glamorizing (again with the dramatic effect): "Create great stuff... [so they can] see something done."
The one good thing I think he says is that you can connect via the internet. I currently feel pretty socially isolated, even when online, and have for years. Emailing folks generally doesn't work for me (I mean me being the initiator tends to go down in flames). And I currently have a lot of baggage concerning feeling used and pissed on by quite a lot of people. In spite of all that, I do think the internet is a great way to make connections. I have had that experience in the past and I expect to again someday.
Edit: I will add that Sivers' story of buying pizza for an industry insider at an elite school reminds me of a story I read of a woman pulling a multi thousand dollar couch off the curb and reupholstering it to improve the decor of her mansion for next to nothing with a "you, too, can do this!" type message. I have reclaimed furniture from the curb and refurbished it. I assure you, none of it was originally worth scads of money. So, no, we cannot all do what Sivers did. He had a serious leg up on how to meet and greet influential people. It is pretty insulting to imply that if you don't have the kind of success he has, you just aren't trying. (I am sure he did not intend to imply that but he does, in fact, imply just that.)