Networking is Overrated
wins.softwareadvice.com
wins.softwareadvice.com
Then, in the fall of 2006, a guy named Austin Merritt looked me up in the Princeton University alumni directory. He was about two years out of school and had just moved to Big Sky to ski, enjoy the outdoors and hopefully find a job in the construction industry. Apparently, we were two of only three alumni in the area. He asked if I wanted to grab dinner sometime, and we did. As we drove home that night, Lauren said, “You know you have to hire that guy.” I knew I did. That would mean paying his salary from my personal savings, which was scary. But somehow, I knew it would be worthwhile.
The author linked to another other article about his company, describing his difficulties hiring good developers and "eventually" stumbling upon SEO, around 2006, when he got lucky finding a college student in Montana. [2]
SEO was pretty common by 2006, especially in places like San Francisco. I'd imagine that if he had done more networking (even in Montana) he might have figured this out sooner. He might also have had a better time finding development resources instead of having to stumble through 10 different outsourcing agencies.
[1] http://wins.softwareadvice.com/how-software-advice-got-start...
[2] http://wins.softwareadvice.com/how-software-advice-got-start...
It's hard to measure the results of networking. My first awesome gig here in Colorado came as a result of networking with no clear goal: Made a friend in the local scene, and ran into him as we were leaving a conference, where he introduced me to someone else. Ended up with a nice high paying gig from that, as well as a great item on my resume.
At this point I've done enough networking that the jobs are finding me. But people only know that I create value because I've talked with them and told them. Doesn't mean the networking was useless since I don't do it as much any more.
If you are someone who provides a lot of value, other people will go out of their way to meet you, and then you don't have to go to networking events. So the fact that you are doing networking implies that you are someone who does not provide a lot of value (or else that people don't know what value you provide).
Do you think Elon Musk goes to a lot of networking events? Do you think Steve Jobs went to a lot of networking events?
If you are early in your career and legitimately aren't providing a lot of value yet, because it's early, then I would offer that your time is much better spent cloistered away becoming excellent at what you do, than it is networking. Because if the arc of your career involves you being excellent at what you do, then very quickly you will find that people you meet randomly at events like this are not in your league -- that's just how things are everywhere all the time.
Define "a lot" and "networking event". Does Elon go to events that are explicitly titled "Silicon Valley Leads Group" or "Bay Area Startup Mixer"? Probably not. That doesn't mean he doesn't go to networking events though. It's just that his networking events are titled "Gala Banquet Fundraiser for $FOO" and you only get invited if you donated $50,000 to $FOO. When Elon Musk "networks" he's meeting other CEOs, the President, Senators, and the like. But it's still networking.
Wait, what ? No. That's not what networking is for. You don't network only because you have nothing better to do and you are at the bottom of the food chain but because networking helps you create influence in a world where ultimately, everything comes down to human beings. Do you believe that successful people don't network anymore ? You are talking about "networking" as if it is a negative last resort kind of thing for losers. Not quite. I bet if you interview any successful person, they will tell you that people skills/networking is one of the most important aspects of success. Go read the book "how to win friends and influence people" to understand what networking is all about.
Networking is not a one time event. It is a continuous process regardless of whether you are rich or poor, success or failure
It's 8 years later, I'm in my early 30s, and I feel like my network is doing pretty well. At least, some of my direct friends - people I would invite to crash on my couch when they're visiting town, or go out for dinner with weekly - are tech leads of major consumer products with millions of users, or entrepreneurs with a successful exit, or heads of university research departments, or responsible for managing tens of millions in investment portfolios. And my 2nd degree connections include early Google employees, venture capitalists, heads of government agencies, etc. This is all without doing all that much in the way of deliberate networking. I just get involved with things that I'm passionate about and seek out other people who are passionate about it - or, more commonly, get sought out by other people who are passionate about it.
It's a little paradoxical that almost all of my big career successes came from my network, but almost none of my network consists of people that I specifically "networked" with.
I think what a lot of people miss about general social interaction is that people like to hang out with other folks like themselves. If you specifically believe that networking is the key to success, you will attract other people that believe networking is the key to success, and you will end up with a network full of...well, networkers. Which can be great in fields like enterprise sales or politics where success is pretty much based on knowing lots of people who know lots of other people. But if you want to network with people who are passionate about changing the world for the better, your best bet is to be passionate about changing the world yourself, make your actions congruent with that, and you'll find that you will find and attract other such people.
ding ding ding ding ding. This is what networking is. Purposefully interacting with people whose passions, and goals overlap your own.
It saddens me that so many tech folks do exactly what you did: writing a screed about how networking is useless, in which you explicitly note that you networked, and that your network is responsible for all of your big career successes.
Addressing some of the other replies: I have done certainly a lot of speaking engagements, and yes, these have been very helpful for becoming more known and whatever, but I never do them for that reason; I always do a speech because I have something specific that I really want to say. Any publicity is a by-product (and sometimes publicity is highly aggravating and undesired). I certainly don't try to meet people via speaking events, parties, dinners, whatever. Sometimes I do end up meeting people, but not that often really, and again, it is a by-product.
In my experience, successful people almost always go to a party just to go to a party and relax or see what's up. They aren't going to a party for ulterior motives like maybe meeting someone who they might be able to get something out of and blah blah blah. Actually, successful people often just don't go to parties because they have other things to do and parties where you don't have a strong peer group are not going to be very interesting.
If you have a specific business objective, you are not going to solve that by randomly going to an event and having random conversations. You are going to solve it by calling someone on the phone or emailing them. If you don't have a specific business objective, you probably won't find much traction with whatever you are doing unless you get a specific business objective.
The useful realization for an entrepreneur in a place like Silicon Valley is that networking is increasingly a commodity. The social graphs are so much more open and connected than before that anyone you'd want to meet is just one or two hops away. Thus, time and attention is better spent not on networking, but on the harder task of being a person of value to the network, so that other people will want to network with you.
He met his wife while mingling with the audience after he gave a talk at Stanford. Does that count as networking?
There's also "networking with other current losers who are early in their career and may end up being great later."
Sometimes it works. Sometimes you end up trying to get away from boring people for 45 minutes before running back to the train.
Now, I know where to look for my future wife. Aspiring billionairesses on YC, you had me with your 'Hello, My name is ____' sticker.
Last month or so I was compelled to network aggressively being the CTO & all. Most folks I met at meetups or other networking events were flat out pointless. This also applies to so called "investor forums/pitches" etc, which to me was the worst kind.
But then I started targeting specific people using linkedin, personal references and my ROI has been great.
Also, you should never network for sake of networking. In fact most people I admire, want others to contact them only if they can help others than just exchange pleasantries. This to me was the biggest surprise but it does make sense [after the fact :)]
"Networking" is simply the process of meeting other people with whom you might one day establish a (professional) relationship with. It takes place everywhere people meet. That includes university classrooms and the offices of employers.
> So if you go to a networking event, understand that you are automatically putting yourself into this class of person.
You must have a very narrow view of what constitutes a "networking event." A lecture with a reception is potentially a "networking event." An conference is an opportunity to network. Are you seriously going to suggest that folks who attend lectures and conferences are all hapless fools? If so, I take it you rejected your invite to the Allen & Company conference in Sun Valley?
> If you are someone who provides a lot of value, other people will go out of their way to meet you...
This akin to the mistaken belief that if you build it, they will come. If nobody knows who you are and what you do because you've "cloistered" yourself for half a decade, nobody is going to seek you out because they don't know you even exist.
> Do you think Elon Musk goes to a lot of networking events? Do you think Steve Jobs went to a lot of networking events?
Steve Jobs met Steve Wozniak through a high school friend. Elon Musk is a member of the "PayPal Mafia." If you believe that Steve Jobs and Elon Musk built billion dollar businesses on their own while holed up in a bedrooms in a house on a quiet street in Silicon Valley, you might want to read up on their stories before trotting them out as examples of business titans who never networked.
> If you are early in your career and legitimately aren't providing a lot of value yet, because it's early, then I would offer that your time is much better spent cloistered away becoming excellent at what you do...
Excellence often does require focused, individual effort, but it's a lot harder to achieve if you refuse exposure to folks who have more knowledge and experience than you.
You have got to be kidding me.
Networking events are invaluable, especially to new graduates. It's important to know how to interact face to face with other human beings. It's important to show you can have a real human conversation with someone, understand body language, understand emotions and social cues.
I realize these skills aren't highly valued on HN for some, but if you really want to be successful they absolutely are.
Also - Elon Musk and Steve Jobs networked their asses off. Homebrew computer club. Speaking engagements. Hustling investors. That's all networking.
There's nothing wrong with taking time off for non-productive activities like dinner/drinks/hanging out. Living to work is a completely meaningless and pointless life. The problem with rationalization about time off is its a non-productive activity squared.
Just admit it, wanted to hang out and goof off, and talking about work a bit made it not feel as inappropriate. No need to submit everyone else to illogical rationalizations.
It takes a certain level of bravery to just say "One night, I wanted to drink, eat, and hang out, and that's OK"
There are other, in some cases highly toxic, reasons to go on about networking. One scenario is dude at the bottom of the primate dominance hierarchy takes a night off from his 120 hour work week therefore is a worthless slacker who's not worth his salary, but if the boss at the top of the primate dominance hierarchy takes a night off from his 120 hour work week, he's a "professional networker developing leads". I'm not even remotely implying this is the case in the related article but I have seen this specific behavior in several other unrelated situations.
One way to identify pathological behavior is to list specific concrete results. Not metrics or vague feelings. "Its helped me in the past" or "I've met people and talked about things" is a strong indication of uselessness. "I have 50000 followers on twitter" is a strong indication of uselessness. On the other hand a concrete result like "I met my current tax accountant at this mixer" or "I hired two guys I met at such and such con" are examples of non-pathological specific concrete results. This paragraph has to be read with respect to the "nothing wrong with occasional recreation" because if you have a side hobby of collecting twitter followers, no matter how useless that is, if it makes you smile that's all the justification you really need. Just don't make the rest of the world sit thru illogical attempts at rationalization about a hobby or recreation or faith or whatever.
Networking provides a crucial career-entry function for people who are qualified but unproven, by allowing another proven person to "vet" that you're capable, and therefore qualify you for an opportunity that may not have been open to your resume alone.
For most, networking is primarily about finding likeminded people who will ultimately point you to a well-fitting job opportunity. If you're running a startup, you've already got a full time job, and have less to gain from these types of relationships.
That's not to say that finding yourself in a room full of similar people is a bad thing for a founder. There's still a lot of insight to be gained from people who have won or lost in the arenas you currently occupy.
That same statement could apply to almost anything in life.
Networking, particularly in our industry, certainly isn't overrated. I honestly believe that I wouldn't have achieved anything close to my current level of (relative) success had I not spent the last few years networking aggressively.
Everything in moderation, that's just common sense.
But, on the other hand... what about events that are designed to cater to people who happen to fit the demographic profile of your target market? What if you can attend a networking event where you will be meeting people that you intend to sell your product to? Depending on where in your process you are, that could be very valuable. And, truth be told, at times it has to trump writing code and working on the product.
I'll argue that in the vast majority of cases, the latter type of event has far more value than the former, with the possible exception of a situation where you are specifically in the middle of trying to raise a round and are pointedly working on meeting investors.
In the end though it's all about balance. Networking is important, but you can't just do nothing but network and expect success to just fall in your lap. OTOH, if you spend your entire life in your basement building your product, you're likely to emerge with a product that nobody wants, and with no connections to help you market and sell it.
FWIW, I've made a conscious decision to all but stop attending "startup events" since we're not raising at the moment, and my time is limited. Right now, my priorities are A. meeting customers and B. working on the product.
IMO, if you do great work and have some sense of how to talk to people, the networking will happen by itself. Make yourself known for being the person that does X, Y, or Z. People will start to approach you about topics because you've proven yourself as someone who actually knows what they're talking about. The people you help will remember you and introduce you to other people they've met along the way. The best part is, it's soooooo much more natural than Young Professionals meet-ups and awkward social media photo ops.
Sometimes, you'd find yourself helping them move, or calling in a favor to get them front-row seats at a concert. And then when you'd have a need for a particular skill, you could say "it's ok, I know a guy" and call in a favor from them.
That's networking. That's all networking is. It's making connections with people and maintaining those connections over time. It's why executives and sales people spend so much time on the golf course. Connections. Relationships. Just short of friendships.
Somewhere along the line, that got packaged up, conceptualized, productized. People were told they should be networking. Here's a course on how to network. Let's have a "networking event"...bring your business cards! Networking went from a verb to a noun.
Screw that. Meet people, online and off. Help them out with their problems, or just hang out. Don't be a stranger. That's it. I bet if each of you thought about it, you network all the time.
As others have mentioned, though, there are different definitions of the term. Going to "networking events" may not be the best use of your time. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be building connections and relationships-- with classmates, professors, roommates, bartenders, skiing buddies, vendors-- as many as you can handle. And yes: interest group meetups and and clubs can be a good place to make connections.
If the author had networked with people closer to his business market, he could have potentially got advice that worked instead of spending time speaking to people far removed from his day to day work.
The thing is that if you only focus on executing internally you might work VERY HARD on a not-so-good opportunity. Networking is not just about "meeting important people" but also being on the lookout for new opportunities that may arise.
Desperately looking for contacts isn't networking. Good networkers let their network grow naturally over many years effortlessly. When they need someone they know whom to call - at eye level.
I hate to break it to you but I just commented to have the article in my comment history so I can revisit it.
All your butthurt was for naught.
Especially in startup culture, people even without ever having started one or work in the industry seems to know EXACTLY what to do. You network, you build contacts. I don't argue that it's useless but at launching and being very early on in the product cycle, even if I had contacts, I'd have no use for it as it's too generic.
The spending 50% of time describing your specific problem and walking away with answers that you already know....it's not that people that you network with are stupid, it's that you are faced with very specific problems early in the game that you must solve yourself.
Of course when you grow a business, you are faced with questions that they teach you in business school, but more than often, I find the time you spent going to networking events, you could've spent just brainstorming and cranking it out yourself.