There's some good advice in here regarding attitude and hustle.
Can I give one more piece of advice? If you (correctly) figure out that the reason you aren't getting given jobs / funding / etc is a lack of connections, then you should optimize for achieving connections. This doesn't come naturally to everybody, myself included, but it isn't harder than lots of things which are table stakes to being an engineer.
Similarly, if you keep getting told No and think you need social proof... then get social proof. Plan B, whining about how humans have exploitable deficiencies in decisionmaking processes such as requiring social proof, is distinctly suboptimal.
Plan B section 2, whining about how exploitable deficiencies opens up people to being defrauded by vendors, consultants and recruiters who can talk the talk but not walk the walk, is still legitimate (though not constructive). There's getting social proof, and then there's not being a douche. Sometimes the line isn't clear either.
Can I give one more piece of advice? If you (correctly) figure out that the reason you aren't getting given jobs / funding / etc is a lack of connections, then you should optimize for achieving connections. This doesn't come naturally to everybody, myself included, but it isn't harder than lots of things which are table stakes to being an engineer.
Similarly, if you keep getting told No and think you need social proof... then get social proof. Plan B, whining about how humans have exploitable deficiencies in decisionmaking processes such as requiring social proof, is distinctly suboptimal.