Connections don't build things | Hacker News Reader

Connections don't build things

benyu.org

45 pointsintenex19 comments

This is a peculiar essay. I think if you're going to debunk an old saying, you first have to have an appreciation for why existed in the first place. What was running through the mind of the person that originally came up with it.

So, before I reply to the essay, I'd like to share what I think "it's not what you know, it's who you know" is trying to say. I think similar to the old IBM quote, "nothing happens until a sale is made" – maybe something like "it's pretty hard to do something meaningful on your own."

Now, I agree the strongest form of these statement is no longer valid. Before the Internet, someone stranded in the middle of nowhere who knew a lot of math would have no way of knowing about the great areas she could apply her skill. These days that is less true, although I do think that being surrounded by other bright people facing similar problems (as the author is in the case of Harvard and the Theil fellowship) is probably better than just having an Internet connection.

For a more personal example, I be willing to bet that the vast majority of people reading this found their current profession via word-of-mouth. A friend, family member, or teacher showed you programming long before you were making connections via open application. (This is almost surely true in for OPs case).

Even in the case of open applications, who you know is still very important. Something like 80% of all hires come from networking.

So I think the point the author is trying to make is a very limited one: in markets that are dying for talent, talent can sometimes trump connections.

(Though with the big caveat that if you have very few connections you would almost certainly earn far more, and do far more good, if you spent some time making connections)

On second thought, maybe all the author is trying to say is that once you have connections, it feels like connections don't matter.

Indeed, Chesterton's Fence fallacy:

Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up. G. K. Chesterton English author & mystery novelist (1874 - 1936)

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/32943.html

Wow, look at all the criticism! I think the OP is making a valid point, and I'd like to throw my $0.02 in support.

Look, there are two crowds in Silicon Valley. First are the people who seem to collect connections almost as if it was some sort of competetive sport. They know everyone, they join every social network and have thousands of friends, they go through a full box of business cards in three days, attend every networking event imaginable, entrepreneurship seminars, startup parties, meetups, hackathons, you name it... I admire their social skills, but I'm barely aware of what they actually do outside of growing their networks - all they talk about are the events they've been to and people they've met.

The second crowd actually builds things. They are of course doing some networking, but they seem to stick to the essential minimum and don't play the "who's got the fattest rolodex" game. They also seem to somehow know each other, but not the people from the first group :)

Of course connections are valuable. But not so much if the only thing you build is your network!

Being someone who has a lot of technical skills, and not a lot of networking skills, I like what this guy is saying. Unfortunately, the reality is if you have lots of technical skills, but you don't know anyone, you get nowhere. If you have no technical skills but have lots of connections, you will still have a successful life in this industry. I can't tell you how many people I've worked with over the years who completely had no idea how to build stuff, despite their 15+ year career in the Enterprise.

Personally, if I could trade in all of my technical skills for "hustling" skills, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

It sort of flies in the face of all of common wisdom. The fact that this person advertises as a Thiel Fellow makes the argument a little more hilarious to me.

Why is that the common wisdom is to be in the Bay Area for startups? Is it because paying obscene taxes, obscene living expenses, etc, etc is actually beneficial to your business? No, so what is it then .... Oh. Exactly.

You miss the point. It isn't what you know, it's what you do with what you know.

Lot's of people knew how to build Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg built Facebook.

Trying to divide knowledge and hustle is a waste of time, you need both to create value.

I disagree with the point that lots of people knew how to build Facebook. They knew how to build social networks (as defined back then). No one knew how to build it. Not even Zuckerberg. He knew he was onto something when it started growing. Note that had he not been connected, Facebook would not exist as we know.

Connections are like a million other things that aren't shipping- useful, good, but possibly a way to delude yourself into thinking you're being productive when you're ignoring the hard things you should be doing.

What if "what you should be doing" is, or involves, business development, prospecting for leads, selling, soliciting feedback from potential customers, and/or raising funds?

Neglecting the importance of connections is silly... just as silly as neglecting the importance of building a solid product. And that's really my point here: this article seems to be hinting at a little bit of a false dichotomy through quoting the old saw "it's not what you know, it's who you know". Guess what, in the real world, it takes both.

I'm a software developer / hacker by trade, and my nature was such that I rejected this thinking for a long time. I though that my knowledge, skills and talent ought to be sufficient, without any need for "the old boys club". Now, at the ripe old age of 39, I've realized that while you may not need to be an "old boys club" insider to succeed, you almost certainly will need other people on your side at some point... and that involves connections and relationships.

Let me illustrate with an example... at Fogbeam Labs, we're building some stuff that I think is pretty damn cool - an Open Source "Facebook for the Enterprise" type package that you could think of as a competitor to Sharepoint or Jive Software among others. Now this is an enterprise, B2B play, and sales in this world is high-touch, and very human driven. So I drove down to Charlotte two weeks ago to an NCTA meeting, to mingle and network with CIOs, CTOs, VPs, and other decision maker types. There, I met a gentleman who runs a firm here in the Triangle region, who has paying customers already (we're still looking for our first "earlyvangelist" customer) who took an immediate interest in what we're doing. After 10 minutes of talking, he's already thinking of several of his customers that he can introduce us into. So we met again this week so I could demo the stuff for him, and after an hour or so, he's offering to introduce me to a number of potentially valuable connections, introduce us into some of his existing customers, and even chewing on some possible partnership scenarios between his company and ours.

I have to tell ya, if even one of these leads turns into something, it could be a game-changer for us and really help us turn the corner.

So, had we not spent the past 2 years or so building our product, this would all be moot. But if we build a product and never find anybody to buy it, the whole thing is moot. So the point is, connections are absolutely valuable and fostering those connections is a high-value task that you should commit some effort to. But it's not sufficient in and of itself. But neither is just building a product either.

The OP is missing the point here, the entire saying rests on the presumption that you have the necessary skill. As another saying goes, "luck favors the prepared mind". Skill and ability are considered prerequisites to creation--mixed with a little serendipity, and you'd be onto something.

[1] - the role of luck in scientific discoveries, applicable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_of_chance_in_scientific_di...

Connections do build things. They build trust when you are seeking investment. They build customer bases when you are new to the game. They build cashflow when you manage to sell to your network. Sure, they don't build the product, but more often than not they define, buy, sell, and invest on it. A business does not hinge on your ability to write code, but on your ability to sell it (or find people to sell it for you (connections)).

Putting this better and more correctly:

It's not what you know or who you know. It's what you know and who you know.

You can use one to boost the other, too, but both together are best.

I think the examples here are pretty ironic. Facebook hinged on the technical prowess of Mark Zuckerberg? I'm not sure I agree with that; this is not to take anything away of course but I think the ability to build, especially the early version of The Facebook, was fairly minimal and what mattered more was the non-technical side.

Why even bother trying to "debunk" a simple piece of folk wisdom? In fact, it's sort of a myopic debunking. No one that accepts the viewpoint expressed by "it's not what you know, it's who you know" seriously thinks knowledge is completely worthless. I just find this hard to take seriously.

It seems like a very sophomoric analysis of a folk "truism" that actually does make a lot of sense despite the contradictory refutation here.

Now, is it also true that simply building up a lot of connections and not ever doing anything is not going to get you anywhere? Sure, but that is a caricature.

Next, we're going to see a big refutation of "Show me who you're friends are and I'll tell you who you are." I'm on pins and needles. :)

Indeed, Facebook is probably the worst example ever for illustrating his point! I'm not denying the technical skills of MZ, but really, it was 99% about the right time, the right place, the need for it being already there, people being already primed and wormed for the whole social networking concept, the US college environment being good enough for spreading the meme... any "a little bit better than myspace" execution would have been enough to attract people, then the large enough user base would have been enough to attract funding.

Actually I think Facebook was neither about who knew who (serendipity), nor about the skills of the people involved (preparation) - I consider it like the fuel being already piled up and all that was needed was the right temperature and a spark ...or more like life appearing on a planet with the right chemicals and conditions: it just fucking happens by simple laws of probability governing chemical reactions (to develop this analogy further, giving MZ credit for Facebook is just like inventing the concept of god and giving him credit for life appearing on Earth!)

Sure, Facebook was technically simple for something that would turn into a Billion dollar business. You can certainly argue that the valuable intellectual property of Facebook wasn't in the actual lines of code. I don't think even the author would try to refute that statement.

But what the author is trying to say is that Facebook WAS actually built. It wasn't just something someone would talk or think about, and that's a crucial step.

Take it from a business co-founder; that's a step a lot of people who read HackerNews can dismiss as time behind a screen, but if someone doesn't have the ability to build something it could become an insurmountable obstacle. Someone who has all of the skill sets necessary to build a business is very rare, as different personality types and years of experience lend themselves more to certain skills at the expense of others (it's a huge struggle for me to learn to program, although we're getting there).

So the point of the author was, "Making connections, selling things, understanding a vision, that's great... but somehow, some way, you still have to build it."

This is offtopic. I've noticed several websites with this theme. Is there a standard template available somewhere? I'm referring to the kudos widget, the static left sidebar.

This is a blog on the Svbtle network: https://svbtle.com

The phrase isn't meant to be taken as a literal declaration, but that connections keep the wheels of progress well-greased.

This thesis is the kind that I might wish was true. And in select cases, survivor bias has and will make it seem to be true for a lucky few. For most of us, even finely honed skills built over decades will have very little consequence unless somebody with a specific need for those skills meets us and hires us. I'm out of stock on clever or inspiring ideas for apps, websites, or revolutions. What I have are keen programming, debugging, and testing skills. In a vacuum, without a job, that's a lot like not having those skills. I wish I had a lot more warm connections than I do, because going through the interview process with new folks over and over is really a slog.

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