When I was in my early 20s I came across a charity auction for "Lunch with Woz".
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.
My example is not as amazing as seeing Woz in person but it got me one of the finest job out there.
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.
The issue I have with his story is when he says "When I was 18, at Berklee College of Music" he's basically saying "When I was 18, at [the MIT/Harvard/CMU/Stanford of Music]" - that is, just being at that institution gave him the opportunity to meet a BMI executive. Now, how did he get to Berklee?
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.)
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.
Your story reminded me of something that happened to me the summer before my freshman year in college. I was working two jobs at the time, 40 hours doing an engineering internship at a large company, and another 20+ hours working as a stockboy at a local department store (both in Massachusetts) - my family wasn't poor, but we also weren't rich, so I was trying to bank as much money as I could for the coming school year to take some of the load off my parents.
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. :)
"all because I went to school in Boston and bought a guy a pizza."
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.
Everything is relative; you went to Berklee and met an executive from BMI, but someone with less economic opportunity than you could still engineer contact with someone less lofty yet still further up the ladder than themselves. Your advice is still good, even if in your case chance played a significant role in the particulars.
Right. I'm as great an example as any (and so egoless, to boot!). I grew up in bumfuck nowhere, suburban Maryland. Our "town's" (if you can even call it that) main draw was… a shopping mall. We had an IKEA! OMG! I never went to any fancy or esteemed college and, heck, I dropped out of high school.
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.
Berklee is special -- and I don't know how Derek found himself there -- but I do know a dozen other people who also went to Berklee, but never bought the metaphorical pizza.
The likelihood of these chance serendipity things happening greatly increases when you're from or are in an environment that's well nourished and socially supportive.
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.
That's absolutely true, but the pizza doesn't represent success, it represents taking initiative and knowing when to step up to an opportunity.
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.
While such things do play a part, I think you greatly underestimate the number of graduates from places like Berklee who don't end up where they want to be.
I agree. The mere fact that the author was a student at an elite university for his craft gave him instant credibility with many of these people. That doesn't take away from his accomplishments - he did the work to get in there and presumably do well. However, his article implies that anyone from any walk of life can become successful by simply being friendly with successful people, which is far from the case.
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.
You're generally one email away from great, successful people. You know what's great with successful people? They're always open to opportunities. If you do it right, you'd be surprised how accessible busy people can become.
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.
>You're generally one email away from great, successful people. You know what's great with successful people? They're always open to opportunities.
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.
This somewhat undercuts your point. If I know someone I am not nearly as likely to ignore their email, evaluate their idea superficially or assume the worst. What is the use of having contact information when you can't actually get heard? It does matter a great deal who you know.
What you view as "an opportunity" and what they view as an opportunity are probably very different.
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.
>what you wrote here on HN sounds frustrated… and more than a little bit entitled
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.
Unlike Stanford, Berklee is not a straight path from the classroom to a job at the Google/Apple of the music industry (which very well may be Google/Apple).
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.
I see this idea as more of a positive feedback loop than a one way street. Knowing an Exec at BMI wouldn't be nearly as awesome if it was because he served him his daily latte at the corner coffee shop. Being good at what you do amplifies the utility of your connections.
Being good at what you do amplifies the utility of your connections.
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.
It isn't even all that necessary to be good. Even if you are mediocre or somewhat bad, a combination of connections and hustle can get you really far. I think many of us have seen examples of this, particularly in the context of startup booms.
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.
I have plenty of respect for Berklee, have been friends with, worked with (musically and not) many of their students or affiliates. But just so there's no misconceptions of elitism, their acceptance rate is roughly 50%. It is joked among musicians that you can go if you can pay. But maybe money is the initial barrier you intended to allude to.
Tuition is 36k, and their estimated cost of attendance is 63k, on par with, if not higher than, the estimated cost of attendance at Harvard University and most other top private universities. Ouch.
> (Though yes, tuition is a major barrier at > 18k/year.)
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.
It's a little off-topic, but your chances of getting out from under $100k of debt as a musician are not that good. That's a big barrier for a lot of people.
Don't know much about music schools, but I'd think Juilliard to be much more elite than Berklee, and closer to the "Harvard of music" that OP mentioned.
You're right about that. And same for Curtis Institute of Music and probably a dozen other conservatories as well. But those are more focused on "art music" / classical music.
There are speakers available at public institutions and low cost events. While I agree that privilege absolutely helps, the point the author is making is that it is more about HUSTLE and less about who you know.
Fixating on the privilege in this case is just like making an excuse about not knowing anyone in the first place.
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.
I imagine that short of someone who is a rabid fan of a particular speaker (e.g. Edward Tufte), it is unlikely that anyone off-campus is likely to find out about a particular lecture. Similarly, there's likely no reason to need to care.
>>>that is, just being at that institution gave him the opportunity to meet a BMI executive. Now, how did he get to Berklee?
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.
A Relevant story about the author of the book Liars Poker :
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.
because they reach out to say hello to the people they admire
Amen to this. I'd go a step further and just suggest saying hello. No admiration necessary. My friends occasionally tell me that I'll talk to anyone, and it pays off.
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.
Do we have an easy way of finding other HN members nearby, or was that more similar to e-mailing patio11 if you happened to move to central Japan, since we know (already) that that's where he is?
Your story reminds me of how I got my first job. I was about to head home and right before the elevator I saw an older gentleman trying to dismantle a stall, the kind you see at job fairs. I stopped and offered help. He took me up on my offer and we exchanged a brief conversation. Then I left. The next day I had a job interview. And guess who was the interviewer. My good friend who I had helped was the VP of recruitment. My interview went well and that's how I ended up out here in California.
"Lyndon Johnson would take four showers a day and brush his teeth over and over again so he would be in the same room with a bunch of politicians and he could talk to them briefly and make good connections."
"These people shaped the way I see the world. The people you surround yourself with don't just open doors. They change the way you think, and change your self-image of your capabilities."
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.
It's always the little things.. Mike Bloomberg had a great anecdote in his Chris Dixon interview[1] about getting a friend to let him into the Merrill Lynch office back in the early 80s and he'd bring a bunch of coffee/tea, with/without cream and knock and go into random offices and give the person the drink of their choice and ask if they could talk. No one turns down a free coffee.
The BMI record executive anecdote highlights that Derek had the situational awareness to see a problem and react in the right way because he knew there was a potential upside.
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.
Back in 2008, I found twitter to be really great for this. There was some successful people on twitter like James Schramko and Robin Sharma, amongst many others that I used to follow and they were great at answering my questions. I used to 'nag' them quite a bit and was surprised by how much they were willing to respond and communicate. I did this with almost everyone I followed. At one point I even got through to a producer for the BBC and he and I even chatted on the phone. It was that phone conversation that really made me understand what community engagement is really about and how it can help your product or business.
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.
This is a disempowering way of looking at it. Why focus on the wall when you could focus on the door?
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.
Oh, I'm not suggesting it's a bad idea pragmatically.
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.
This is a different argument than 'he doesn't need the favor' and as Patrick said about that one this is also a disempowering view. If you're going to look at the world through the lens of power, control and socioeconomic status then you're surely going to find it wherever you look but sure, let's tackle this one too.
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.
The reason this sort of thing does not sit well with some people is that this does not work from an ethical standpoint in many fields. What if doctors, lawyers, or engineers all got to skip school because they bought the right person some lunch? Obviously things got so bad in the past that those fields are now heavily regulated. It's not a matter of just being a hard worker. If someone works relationships to get a job and then an airplane crashes it is bad news for everyone. Clearly, when flying at 35,000 feet you want the most skilled person to have designed your plane, not the guy who bought lunch for the right person.
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.
Even in "serious" professions, it still matters who you know.
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.
>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.
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.
That is kind of how the music business worked back then. Less so now, but it is certainly still a part of the entertainment biz.
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.
And we all love receiving the attention of someone who actively listens, which requires a learnable skill that most people neglect to learn.
Having a respectful audience carries significant emotional and psychological value to the speaker, so Sivers likely also had that much to offer to Wozniak.
I happen to be in a position where the more important I've become the more free shit I've gotten. This "stuff" is technically never free, but rather it's part of the cost of doing business. It's directly related to the same cost you (not you specifically) spending the time to write content for a wide audience "for free". It's all about building trust.
Sivers bought the pizza because of who the guy was. Nothing wrong with that, but it was straight-up opportunism since the guy was a big wheel in the industry that Sivers wished to participate in, as opposed to some nondescript stranger.
The lesson here is to take advantage of opportunities when they come your way, not to hand out free pizza willy-nilly.
I'd bet that 18 year-olds blow more of their income on pizza than older people do. And weed. Regardlss, connecting with someone important to your industry is hardly blowing money.
Oops, deleted my comment while you were replying to it - once I saw patio's mine seemed pointless.
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.
Who you know and who you are friends with means a lot and can make your life much easier in many respects. That's one reason I see so many playing that social game at work. It really turns me off, even though I know it's important, I'd rather produce more and socialize less (at work).
Just an FYI, on my end your RSS feed doesn't work. Both akregator and firefox seem to agree that it's broken. That's a shame, because I really liked the article.
My question would have to be, how do you surround yourself around people you want to be around? I live in the suburbs 30 minutes outside of Providence and Providence is hardly the type of city for start-ups or innovation. Boston is on the other hand, but say I spend an hour on the T driving up. What next?
Suggested title: It's all who you know if you work in a field like music.
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.
It's all about who you know if you have no talent, or are decidedly average. If you are better than that, then who you know, while it still matters, doesn't matter as much.
not just this story, but every successful person grabbed the little window of opportunity and one thing leads to another. The key is being prepared and taking the initiative.
I don't feel the hostility you express, but I do think he is, shall we say, oversimplifying. He likely doesn't realize it.
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.)
If success isn't a matter of luck, it also isn't a sign of natural superiority over those who are less successful, or the great universal ease of becoming successful.
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 think the underlying premise in all these statements is that working hard the "right" way is what makes the difference.
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 can already see you have the social prowess to find opportunities building strong relationships with strangers in powerful positions.
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.
Let's take your theory and run with it, say that Derek was 100% lucky, that he's a hack, a fraud, just a product of some lucky circumstances, even so-- how on earth can you bemoan his simple message of encouragement?
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 didn't read it that way. It wasn't just an email and a phone call, he was sending songs for two years. His #2 is "reach out and say hello", but #1 (more important than 2) is "create great stuff".
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."
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.