Which makes sense. Those events tend to be about 99.99% desperate business people try to sell you something, and don't really attract the attention of anyone they'd need to attract nor the level of genuine closeness you'd need anyway. It's like the offline equivalents of those 'promotion forums' and subreddits you see online; absolutely depressing as hell because no one cares about anything other than selling themselves and no one in their actual market is around to take them up on the offer. In the same way you can't create the next Facebook by solely marketing to people who want to create the next Facebook, you can't make useful connections from events where everyone has the same self centred goals.

Silicon Valley is built on networking - the referral paths that lead to talent, capital, opportunities - it's all invite only. That's by design.

Platforms won't solve this. I'm in recruiting, where we're supposedly always about to be disrupted. But the platforms don't solve the two big recruitment problems - 1: you don't need more candidates, you just need a few very good ones and 2: people who have good opportunities don't broadly see the value in setting themselves up on platforms to "just look". But a lot of unqualified tyre kickers do.

I would argue that it depends on what you are aiming for, and what your desired outcome is. If there is attrition in your field, figure out why people lose. Is it incompetence, a terminal lack of guanxi, or did they get layered by someone from the right school?

I've also never gotten a client through a personal or non-work connection. I don't think my social or family network is ritzy enough for that to work.

The author has experience on the networking side of the fence and it's interesting to hear their point of view.

As someone who has experience on the value creation side of the fence (I created a popular open source project), as much as I wish the previous statement were true, it's not.

The problem is that wealthy investors don't know the difference between apparent value and real value. It's just too complex for them to understand and they just don't have the time. Also, investors expect talent to come to them not the other way round. Another factor is that things that only appear valuable tend deliver faster exits so they may be optimizing for smooth-talkers with a sleek pitch deck rather than long term value creation.

I've worked in many companies where the manager doesn't know the difference between a good engineer and a bad one. It's extremely frustrating. You would think that these kinds of companies would go bankrupt eventually but no; they have a monopoly over their niche/sector so engineering quality does not matter at all. They can hire 100 times more people than they need and produce horrible complex code which requires constant maintenance and it will only represent a tiny dent in their budget.

If most engineering managers don't know what a good software engineer is, how can a VC or investor know? Just because they worked at Google and can solve the Tower of Hanoi puzzle using recursion does not make them a good engineer

I do a significant amount of business in Japan, and the Japanese perceive America to be all about networking. The reason being, in Japan most folks stay at the same company their entire life, there is no need to really network.

The first rule of networking: If you're clearly doing it to further a career, you will fail.

A lot of people criticize it, but "Never Eat Alone" is worth a read.

So the take-home message is don't network, just physically spam celebrities with your product. Got it.

If this article could gain that higher source of truth I'd argue it's a heck of a bombshell to the conversation...otherwise my experience and many others in comments below seem to differ.

You basically think everyone is a shark trying to get to you.

When you are relaxed at a bar (alcohol helps), you think people are chilling out; and you tend to believe what the other guy is saying.

Here is another one: Airplanes. I have made some very good friends just by sitting next to someone. (and some very interesting stories).

Another one which is a win-win: High caliber girls which introduces you to their circles. Usually it's a set of another "good" girls that have boyfriends who are rather established.

Another one is being married and meeting other married people through kids activity. I'm speculating here I have never been through that.

I've received some big breaks by knowing the correct people, but not a single one of them has been a 2-minute connection from some BS networking event. It's always been a preexisting, unrelated relationship which eventually becomes career relevant.

I'm shocked by the number of seniors/recent grads who contact me out of the blue (god knows where they got my info) asking for recommendations or a break. No, I'm not going to stick my neck out by recommending someone I've never met for an open position.

It does a few things differently that I've enjoyed.

1) It's over lunch. it doesn't require an obligation that takes me away from my loved ones in the evening. I'm going to eat lunch anyways, might as well do it with a group of friends or strangers.

2) We don't have to small talk. There's a game involved. There's rules to that help us to talk to each other. It's so much easier to do so then.

3) Playing a game deepens these relationships. I can't even explain it. But it's this artificial conflict that's been creating these stronger bonds with these folks I'm playing a game with. I can't wait to play the next game with them and have our chats afterwards.

4) The game I picked was important. I picked "The Resistance". It's similar to Mafia/Werewolf where you're basically all trying to figure out who's lying to you. So the game isn't what most folks think about when they think a game with cards or board games. It's really just talking and learning how people express themselves.

So it really goes deep in examining people and having them examine you. It's a weird feeling to go through that type of process with acquaintances. But every time I've played a "lying game" like Mafia/Resistance with a group of acquaintances or new folks, I'm so much more comfortable talking to them about so many other things.

It's been fun. I've been told by some folks it's in their top meetups they've ever done, and it takes ridiculously low effort. Just email some people to show up and play a game. Don't need to shell out for food/drinks/speakers/other garbage.

(I'm in Chicago doing this. If anyone here wants to come and play hit me up.)

However, contrast with "Networking" with a capital-N in the giving out business cards like candy at some business networking cocktail party. It's probably a combination of how deep the connection is as you say and just the general attitude that tends to pervade those sorts of events.

If you helped some remote contact of yours somehow(knowledge, connections, maybe even just lending a hand when he needed), I'm sure he would be much more likely to return the favor.