Writing

How I measure value

For those of you new to subscribing and interested in my “greatest hit,” I’d encourage you to read Volume 4, which I wrote almost exactly a year ago. In it, I discuss lifestyle creep and the confidence of teenage girls. Some excerpts:

Breakthroughs

Potential Network

If you are in the startup world or listen to podcasts, you’ve likely heard of Naval Ravikant, co-founder of AngelList and early investor in Silicon Valley rocketships like Uber, FourSquare, Twitter, and Postmates. Recently, though, Naval has become a more mainstream thought leader. This seems to have started with his viral Twitter Thread titled How to Get Rich (without getting lucky), amplified by his first appearance on The Joe Rogan Podcast in 2019.

“Naval-isms” are now so popular that there is a Twitter account named @NavalismHQ with over 500k followers dedicated solely to posting Naval’s pithy words of wisdom. In general, I find Navalisms quite profound. I particularly like his saying about “a fit body, a calm mind, [and] a house full of love.”

However, I’ve been long bothered by one piece of advice that is repeated often online: “Networking is overrated… Go do something great and your network will instantly emerge.”

I think this is fine advice if you are in Silicon Valley, where people code at parties and network on dance floors. Those guys (and it’s mostly guys) need to live a little, and it’s a small city. I think it’s good advice if you are well into your “Infinite Game,” have found an interesting career that you plan to work in for a long while, and are a known entity. People literally can’t throw enough money at Elon Musk, no matter what his next idea is. However, I think it’s awful advice for outsiders, be it by vocation, location, or background.

My friend Evelyn Jun¹ (Twitter; Substack) and I were recently discussing post-college life. I told her that, when I graduated, I thought I had more close friends than I actually do. But, on the other hand, I’ve been shocked at the amount of people who don’t know how I’m doing but know what I’m doing.

Evelyn called this a “Potential Network,” folks who will amplify your successes with their presence but are notably absent during the hard times. I suppose this is fair (and certainly rational). I have more friends that I’m rooting for than friends I can assist right now. But I’ve been wrestling with (and have finally accepted) the fact that people want to know what makes you exceptional, and I can’t help but feel bad that going from Potential Network to Network seems like a step function more than a sigmoidal one, with the input being a function of “Successfulness.”

I suppose Potential Network is the 21st-century evolution of weak ties, which are the primary connectors and propagators of ideas, innovation, and diseases. I first learned about weak ties in a Tara K. Menon lecture about Middlemarch by George Eliot³ . In this case, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter have replaced a railroad station and the town gossip. But I think this less social form of weak ties eliminates two key components: consistent socialization and the potential to form strong ties² .

The town gossip only has information to gossip about if he talks to people all the time, regardless of whether they are thriving or “working on themselves.” Similarly, everyone used to have to visit the train station or proverbial office watercooler, every day. The benefits of this constant stream of information—be it through forced interactions at hydration stations or your nosy neighbor—had subtle but very real positive effects.

In the age of remote work, Zoom startup pitches, and Partiful-admin-approved events, it’s easier than ever before to be excluded if you have no physical presence. This is important because physical presence also grants you access to information exchange that represents legitimate “alpha,” in my opinion more so now than ever before⁴ . So, the good news is if you are pleasant company and a good listener, you will be increasing your potential while simultaneously improving your present knowledge.

I’m adamant that developing weak ties is essential to upwards mobility, but those weak ties are only meaningful if there is a clear path towards becoming a strong tie. I’ve decided to call these High-Potential Weak Ties. Stanford grads already have these high-potential weak ties built in. They built that Potential Network in college while they were studying, partying, and finessing free food from overzealous venture capitalists together. This four years of trust is really difficult to replicate, but it can be done.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “All life is just a progression toward and then a recession from one phrase-- 'I love you.‘“ I’d like to assert a professional life version:

Whenever an undergraduate asks me for career advice, I say one thing: Do cool shit with people you respect. If you are doing something you think is worthwhile, you will care. If you do it with people you respect, you will feel a responsibility not just to the mission but also to your fellow missionaries. And regardless of whether the mission succeeds or fails, you will walk away with more respect for your comrades in coolness.

Naturally, this means work is the easiest post-college way to develop high-potential weak ties. By way of example: everyone a semiconductors has done a stint at Intel, Broadcom, Cisco, or Arm. They all know each other and respect each other. They’ve seen one another through tremendous market upcycles and horrendous market downcycles. That’s a bond and knowledge of someone’s character you can’t fake, even if you’re not best friends with every coworker.

There are other ways to develop high-potential weak ties. Two weeks ago, I wrote about the essay “A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox” by Henrik Karlsson. I’ve gotten to know more than a dozen people over the last year because of either my or their writing online. But, those one-off conversations only became friends after we met in person. With Potential Network, face time always wins. So, build up your Potential Network, but do it in the right way by only developing high-potential weak ties or strong ones.

Voices inside my head

People close to me know it’s incredibly easy to tell when I’m exhausted. Why? When I’m tired, I am very articulate but lose the ability to differentiate between my internal monologue and actual conversations.

For example, a conversation may go as follows: