All right, let's get rolling. Welcome, Andrew. My name is Jason Yong. I am Heathen's operating partner. Today, Andrew Yong and I have a fireside chat followed by live Q&A on the topic, how to be a high-value connector networker, a very popular topic. A little bit about Andrew. He's the ex-Google and Meta product leader turned tech founder investor. Business insider dubbed Andrew, I love this, the Gatsby of Silicon Alley.
Because he runs the most in-demand events that draws founders of billion-dollar companies, Olympic athletes turned entrepreneurs, media personalities, and the world's best builders. So let's just jump right into this topic, Andrew, because people are interested. First question to kick it off. What's the biggest mistake people make when networking? Because it has a pretty bad rep. What do you think? The thing I've seen over and over again, and it's not because...
people have poor intentions um it's probably because they don't know how to do it you know the not the correct way but the sort of the preferred way is most people come in hot asking for something a lot of people even when i first started out for pre-events pre-entrepreneurship you know people go around asking for something and requesting something and if you do that right off the bat like you haven't built any goodwill with the people you're interacting with with the community and so you don't really have
you don't necessarily have the opportunity to withdraw from the well of goodwill quite yet. And so I would only position that ask after you've done something, after you've given first. The biggest mistake, someone comes to you and like, I want this, I'm looking for this. And I'm like, who are you? And who are you and what have you done for the community or for me and my network? Love that. I think of it as the 51-49 mindset where you always want to provide that 51% of the value up front.
Okay, diving into this topic, give us an example of something that you've done personally in your various years where you added goodwill to someone that you just met. When I first started out, when I first moved to New York City four years ago, I didn't have a network. I didn't have a community here. And it was important to me to quickly build out that network. So I had friends, I had potential business partners, I had peers. And so what I would go around is I would just go around.
booking coffees with people, meeting different people and asking them one question at the end. Obviously, we'd spend the former half building rapport and learning about their journey and getting some context. But I would always end with the question of how can I help? And sometimes I wouldn't directly ask, but it's like, what are you working on? Or like, what's in your roadmap for the next six months? Or what are you really struggling with right now? Then I would take that back and through meeting other people or through research or through a bit of work.
that i would do after you know that that interaction i would get back to them in in a way um that that was uh valuable to them so to get really specific you know i talked to a lot of founders here who are looking for fundraising so the easy easy way to do that is to connect them with an investor and not just like a general investor but a very specific type of investor uh to get even more specific you know they're so there's some entrepreneurs out there who built like a cpg stack brand
A lot of investors don't invest in those type of companies. They're not software companies. So what's relevant to them is a rich angel investor or a high net worth angel investor who really loves that specific type of snack, connecting them together. People looking for talent, people looking for jobs, sort of matchmaking that space. But it's typically sort of, if you're a founder, share the three things you're looking for, if you're an operator, share the three things you're looking for, and then sort of playing matchmaking at scale. The point I love about that is you close the loop.
I will tell you 99% of people never close the loop. I also make a ton of connections and I always end it. Let me know how it goes. I never hear back. So the fact that you close the loop makes you stand out immediately. And it's high value. These coffee connections when you first landed in New York, how did you even get someone to say yes to coffee? Because some people don't even get that. You have to like lean on, you know, you have to play a card. You have to lean on something. So for me at the time, it was.
I'm 24 years old. I'm early in my career. I just moved here. And it's obvious that I'm a curious, you know, fairly smart at a tech job, fairly smart individual who just wanted to get in the game and wanted to learn more about the game. That was the card I used, a young person. Now, there's different cards you can use. You can be, you know, you can play on that. I'm sort of genuinely looking to understand this space a little bit more. Or I'm looking...
I'm looking for your specific insight on this expertise area that I know you're the expert on. You just need to sort of find the thing and position your cold emails and your outreach in a way that reflects it in a humble and considerate way. So there's like a whole, I mean, I could talk about it, but there's a, and you know this as well as I do, but there's like a way you should do cold outreach if it's to someone you haven't met before. And if you just hit all those points.
That just maximizes the probability that I'll convert into a meeting. You must get a ton of in-down now. What is the favorite cold outreach you like to get? What would you say yes to? What would I say yes to? If someone's done a lot of research, I think I'm maybe more specific on sort of what I'm looking for a bit. Someone's done a lot of research and they're like, I've listened to your podcast. I've been to all your vets starting in 2020. And I'm like, I've been following your journey.
I would just love one piece of advice on X. I'm more likely to respond to something like that. If it's obvious that they've done homework and they're super engaged with what I'm doing. I agree. It's very hard to at least not give some sort of reply back when someone has shown that they've done their homework. You mentioned earlier, you always end with that one specific question.
I love the question, what's on your roadmap in the next six months or what are you struggling with? Better than how can I help? Because how can I help can sometimes be too broad, right? But the other two questions forces the other person to pinpoint something specific. And then you can quickly determine if you can help with that person or not, or if you know someone who can help. So I love that takeaway. Let me ask you this. Is there someone who you had a coffee chat with, first time person that you've met?
that completely mesmerized you because of how good their, I don't know, connection was to you or how much they knew about you? Anything that comes to mind, like a story? Is it someone like I reached out to or someone that reached out to me? It could be either. So when I was speaking on a panel about a year ago, I had this young guy, 23 years old, college grad, came up to me after and he says, into a couple of your events, I love what you're doing. Here's who I am.
And here's what I want to propose. And he offered to work for me for free for a period of three months. And he was like, I'll do all the operational work. I'll be working at the events. I'll do anything you need. And I was still a little wary because even if it's free support, there's still an onboarding process. You still have to give him access to stuff. There's still things to think about. But over the next three months, we did a trial, eventually onboarded him. It became my first hire.
the company i i thought his approach was very clever it's just he knew exactly what he wanted from the experience and he knew he he time boxed it he's like three months is all i need to um you know to persuade um andrew that you know we could work well together and um yeah today he's my he's my chief of staff he's been like instrumental to the business and i think his his network as a result of working with me has just blown up as well um but that that was it's very impressive when someone has
complete conviction on what they need to do next and when they have clarity, complete clarity on what the ask is. Especially the more specific it is. I agree. The more clear your ask, the more likely you'll get a response. And I love that example you gave of that, how this person, your chief of staff right now, how he timeboxed the ask. So you're thinking, okay, because you're right. Whenever someone gets an ask like that, they're thinking, oh, okay, I have to onboard you.
Is it going to be nine days? I still don't know who you are. I still don't trust you. What if it doesn't work out, right? Then I have to quote unquote fire you. No one wants to do that. That's a great approach. The other one I've heard, I think this came from Ramit Sethi and Tim Ferriss is, I've already done this for you. Here you go is the sweetest word someone could hear because then you could quickly tell if that person is up to your level of delivering the results, et cetera. Right.
That's a great example of how to get a job with Andrew. Okay, no, I love that example. Let me ask you this, because this is pretty popular. When you're meeting someone for the first time, either at a networking event or a friend introduced you, et cetera, how do you instantly establish rapport with someone? A lot of people have trouble with this. Yeah, I'm actually not the best of that. People refer to the skill as working the room.
I'm not good at all working in the room and being super charismatic and talking to all these people and bringing people together and being the center of attention, which is why I defer to creating the room. Oftentimes, I create the room and I'm not in the room. But I probably don't have the best answer to that. I think a genuine compliment goes a long way. I think starting with a question goes a long way. There's an interesting video I saw a while back.
about how to start a speech. How do you start a speech in a compelling manner that gets the audience immediately? And you use the same tactics as you would to speak to a stranger in the street. You don't start by introducing yourself. You start by asking them a question or by making a mutual connection through observation. For example, I noticed if there's something happening in the room, you sort of just make an observation about that and that immediately just brings you closer together.
Some of the things I normally do is a compliment, ask a question, or make an observation. I love the compliment and asking a question because it immediately brings down the I don't know you stranger guardrails. Yeah. That's a good tip instead of just talking about yourself because the other person doesn't care. I love your point about not having to always be in the room, but you can instead read the room, especially for people who consider themselves introverts.
Creating the room is super powerful because you can control. In theory, you already know everyone by the RPPs and, you know, hands, et cetera. How did you come up with that? I've always been, I'm less so now, but I was shy. And so it was very hard for me to do well in networking environments, especially, you know, when I was starting my career, I was always trying to get into rooms, trying to get,
seated tables, always trying to get my foot in the door. And I could never do it at networking events because those who were louder and those who were better at that game would always get the advantage. And so even early days, networking events, I wouldn't introduce myself to the key recruiter. I found that really hard. I would try to chat with everyone, make a bit of an impression, and then follow up offline, follow up async. And that was where I spent most of the effort. I would write a really strong email. And to date,
I still don't like being the loudest person in the room or being excited for attention. I follow up after. Over time, my mita has shifted from trying to get in, trying to get access, trying to get my foot in the door to creating the room. And instead of forcing your way in, I think of it as being a magnet for the type of people you want to attract. And there's different ways of being in a magnet. There is the physical way of doing it, which is posting an event. There is the true content.
You know, how do I create content that reaches thousands or tens of thousands or millions of people that get the right people in my inbox? How do I optimize for inbound instead of outbound? And so that sort of thinking came from like my inability to be, I wouldn't say confrontational is the word, but my inability to sort of persuade someone or to influence someone through a first interaction and instead deferring to using all these other channels that are more suited to my personality.
That's a really good tip. And even from my personal experience, when being on a nonprofit advisory board or volunteering at this conference, et cetera, it gives you a platform that's larger than yourself to then make an ask to someone. Like, hey, would you like to speak? If something's saying, hey, would you like to get 15 minutes of coffee with me versus we're throwing on this conference that brings X number of people, would you like to speak? You just open the door a little bit wider to some people.
So I love that you do that. In my opinion, you are the golden standard for someone who's done that. Because you are, like you said, you don't like to be the spotlight in the rhythm. So that's what makes it special. We have one question from Jordan in the chat. Andrew, at networking events, what's your goal when you interact with people? Do you try to meet everyone with short interactions, acquaintances, or do you go for fewer, deeper connections? It depends what your personal goal is.
in terms of you know i always ask myself before an event what goal outcome do i want is it i want 20 people to know about my company is it i just want to make a friend is it you know you see this in new york it's like i want to find a prospect for a romantic partner which is sort of the gray area happens a lot of new york city because it's new york city the rule that's worked really well for me and and and the people that attend my events is uh is the rule of three so you go to an event you try to speak or you don't try you speak with three people
With every person, you share three things about yourself and you learn three things about each person. So it's kind of like three, three, three. If you do that, you're going to leave with at least three good conversations. If you optimize for how do I learn three things about each person and how do I share three things, you're going to optimize for a fairly decent conversation. Chances are you're going to keep going. There's this idea of building social momentum where...
If you stay at home for three weeks straight and you go to a networking event, you're actually not going to really know how to react and it's going to be overstimulating. And so you need the warmup of three conversations. But most likely after three, you're going to keep going. You're going to feel great. Dopamine's blowing. You're probably going to do like five or six. So just aim for like the 3-3-3 rule and just consistently do that and you'll have success at events. I love your 3-3-3 rule. Tell me more. The three things you want to share about yourself.
How do you decide which are those three things? So it sort of just depends on what's important to me at that moment. And moment meaning probably a period of like six months. For example, for me right now, I really love, this is kind of random, but I love going to the spa and the cold plunge. What's on my mind is not actually how do I work harder and how do I scale and how do I build bigger? It's like, how do I invest more time in relaxing and having fun?
And so that's going to be a big thing. And I know just by saying that, I'm going to meet like-minded people who are also investing in relaxation and like R&R. The second thing is probably, this is so specific to me, and I'll use a more general example. Let's say I'm looking for a job. That's probably something you want to share. It's like, I'm in the market for X position. So to sort of simplify, it's just like, what are the three important things to you right now that you need people to know for you to form a deeper connection with them or a more productive connection with them?
We got another question in the chat from Elizabeth. Any of these principles or advice change when we're talking about networking through Zoom? Well, my initial framework was like the 333. Kind of hard to do that over Zoom. Assuming Zoom is like one-on-ones. So it's very nuanced. But I think in terms of the principles that apply to Zoom, the principles that apply to IRL interactions are also the principles that apply to general human-to-human connection, which is you want to be...
considerate humble kind curious all those things so in that sense yeah they're they're probably fairly consistent that's what i was thinking i was thinking if there's a unique zoom or online hack but i think with something like this there's no real hack it's uh keep it simple keep it valuable my trick for zoom is actually like i take like 80 of my meetings off video um i know that's like a it goes against the grain of some of the other advice but
i find that i'm able to maintain a better relationship with someone or build a better relationship with someone when i'm like looking at something like when i'm looking at like nature when i'm like walking around the city because i associate those positive feelings with my conversation with the other person uh but also depends like if you know most i'd say most people are sort of like i don't love video calls some people really do so for those people maybe the zoom thing works but for most people uh it's like too much video call overload
maybe the audio only thing is better and we both leave feeling more energized. Oh, that's very interesting. There's two other people I know who prefer the phone calls because they like to walk and talk and we can't do that through Zoom. Okay, that makes sense. I'm going to pivot a little bit. This is a very popular question. Okay, so you're building a network. You're making some good connections. How do you engage and keep that network updated?
with the goal to invite opportunities later on? Almost like serendipitous. I don't know where this can go, but it could be something. This person's interesting. This person's high value. How do you do that? I get this question a lot. You can make it really simple. And the simplest way to think about it or approach it is have a Google sheet or some kind of spreadsheet to track every single meeting, every single person you've ever met, harder person bit.
at least digital calls or Zoom calls, like a timestamp on when you last interacted and sort of the cadence that you want to stay in touch with them. You said in the beginning, it's closing the loop. It's following up. So many people, and I see this very bad, so many people have amazing first, second interactions and fail or forget to follow up. And that's where you lose it. That's where you lose the potential of what could be a beautiful relationship.
I think the one thing to sort of focus on here is just follow up and find what works for you to follow up with this person. Again, like some people ask, how often should I follow up? It really just depends on, you know, you feel it out. You can even ask that person. You know, I tend to find like every three months is relatively like a safe period to, it's not overwhelming, but it's consistent enough that over a two-year term, you build a, you know, thoroughly deep relationship with them.
deep professional relationship? You know, it's interesting. The people who email me every three months, one-on-one, sometimes it's just an update and that's good. But after two or three, there has to be something that's interesting to me. That's either in it for me or in it for them to move it forward. It can't just be a string of interesting updates forever, right? Because that'll get you nowhere. The other piece is, you know,
Andrew and I do not talk every month or every quarter, but through the newsletter, I feel like that's how I keep up with Andrew. So that's another mechanism. I know you better than you know yourself, Andrew, through your newsletter. Let me ask you this. You were a top performer at Meta and Google, and you were also known for being able to reach the highest level of executives when you wanted to.
either within the company or outside the company, maybe it was someone like Mark Cuban, right? When you're reaching for someone that high up, and there's a lot online about them that you go to your homework on, how do you stand out in your cold email to them? There's a few elements that are just, you know, they're must-haves. And then there's like one sort of, one thing that really helps you stand out. The must-haves are your messaging has to be fairly short and that someone can read 30 seconds, 30 to 60 seconds.
Your introduction or your hook has to be really strong where someone, let's say Mark Cuban, he responds to a lot. But most likely, if you write a really well-crafted thing, you'll respond. But your intro and your hook and your about me has to be really compelling where someone like that is like, damn, this person is interesting and I want to get to know them a little bit more. That's obviously more of an art than a science.
like writing that really well and going through multiple iterations and like not making it as robotic as many seem to write like a, like the way you were taught to write like an about me in university, avoiding, avoiding that, which is like, Hey, I do an example of that is, Hey, I do like analytics at this company. And I love, I love analytics. And, and now I'm working on risk management, you know, like it has to be a little more personal and like hooky than that.
It has to be very specific in terms of the asker you're asking. And you have to come across as humble, curious, and having a positive surplus mindset. Now, the one thing that will help you stand out after doing all those things is doing extensive research on that person and either asking them a question or pointing out detail that very, very few people would notice. For example, this is just a...
just an example it's you know not true maybe it is i don't know just um let's say it's like tim ferris i'm like tim i read all your books starting from 2010 and i noticed that when you lived in taiwan and you were training kickboxing you made this decision that most people wouldn't make it would be like how did you know that or like how much how much of a super fan are you that you went into that much detail you know to want to like bring this up with me if you can if you can do that
I almost guarantee that person will respond to your email. Obviously, like this only applies like sort of the hardest to reach folks above a certain level. If you're trying to reach, you know, I think like a director at Google, you know, you probably wouldn't have to craft an email like that. But if you're looking to reach like, you know, like a Sam Altman, then you have to get that specific. I've never reached Sam Altman. Yeah. You can do a test for us and A-B test two different emails and see how it works.
I did do something like that early on in my career to one of the top tech product leaders. And I found this very obscure, let's just call it entertainment website that they created. And then their response immediately back to me within five minutes was, how the heck did you find this old website that I did? And then that started the conversation. The hard part sometimes is not getting the initial response. The hard part is just keeping it alive to then turn it into something.
But that's where your advice on following up with extensive research or pinpointing something unique and then asking them a question or posing an interesting problem, I will say that's where I've failed a few times early in my career, was not continuing that train of thought. That's a good... That's hard. Any more on this topic? What's your point? Continuing the thread? I normally think of it as... So my mindset, whenever someone falls off my network...
or like deletes me from their contact list or like unsubscribes or someone like that, where it's like if they follow the train, I don't know if that's the right terminology, is that that is just like product market fit, you know, doing its job. It's like they weren't meant to be in my network. I wasn't meant to be in theirs. Whatever happened was, I guess that's a fancier word of saying it was meant to be. And I've never really regretted. I'm like that person has gone off on their own and I've really regretted not maintaining that relationship. That's that's never, ever happened.
I can see that. Sometimes you just have to move on and just go on to the next one. This is another popular question with your specific background. How the heck were you able to balance performing as top tier at Meta and Google while embarking on this side founder path at the beginning? You know, my first six months at Meta, I didn't do very well. My first six months, I had like a meets all expectations, which is like exactly average, middle of the pack, but I worked my ass off.
I worked a lot. You know, let's say like 60 hours a week. For me, that was a lot, which is why I didn't think I did well. But once I'd learned, and I wrote an article about this, but once I had learned the rules, you know, the rules of the game, which is the 20, this is Corrito's, you know, rule at play, which is like 20% of actions that result in 80% of the impact, meaning the 80% of the performance reviews. And again, like learning how to do, how to play that game, the performance review game really well.
I was able to cruise control. At the end of my term at Facebook, I was maybe working 15, 20 hours a week while still getting the highest rating. It greatly exceeds my expectations. And I just learned what those three things were. I normally group into three things. I mean, I'd love to hear your thoughts because I think you probably did something similar to Amazon. But the three things were managing the expectations of my leadership chain. Facebook is writing really well because we...
We use a lot of platforms that could scale your content. We use Facebook walls to distribute content. We use like posts. We use like email threads. And the last thing was, you know, the idea of like fake work isn't the word, but I would make a lot of slides and I would make a lot of templates and I would make a lot of things. And I would make a lot of resources that got scaled to the broader team where they're like, why are we seeing like Andrew's name everywhere? He must be doing a lot of work. It was similar at Google. I use the same exact principles at Google. You know, for six months, I was working.
20, 30 hour weeks. And some people are like, that's just Google. But in this case, my team at Google is actually fairly hard working. In the last six months, I worked considerably less. All the other time when I was not at the office, I'd be working on my founder pursuits. I also generally work more than the average person. I think between my corporate job and my founder stuff, I was probably working 80 to 100 hours a week. I wasn't working less. I wasn't working little by any definition. I was just
spending more of it on the stuff I loved. But that was a very long winded way to say, just like focus on the three skills or the three activities or buckets of work that are most valued in your organization. Do them well, build a brand internally, and then you'll be able to sort of cruise control after that. I mean, that's a huge call to action for people who want to even just stay at their corporate job, but do, you know, improve. But also there's a lot of people who are exploring side hustles outside.
And I think this is the way to do it. If I had to add on top of that, things that helped me eat the frog by noon on your plate. If you could just tackle one big thing a day over one year, it compounds. The second one, I got this from you, was eat the frog for your manager. That's a big one because most people would never do it. You just have to do that once a week, right? And then you'll stand out with your manager. The other ones I love is work like a lion, not a cow.
And this ties back to focusing on what are the things that are truly going to make an impact. And for me, it was saying no a lot as well. And then the other one is the internal reputation. I also spoke about this with Irina Stanisku. She runs the Caring Techie newsletter. In that example, we use the power of an internal newsletter. It's something that you fully control. You control who it goes to. You control the message. You control...
who you call out in spotlight, it's a great way to build your brand internally. And like you said, Ethan also says this advice too. Most people think I'm going to send one huge quarterly product announcement to a thousand people, whatever, a lot. But what works better are small, high-frequency announcements. Because like you just said, you want your name to appear everywhere. That is high value.
not annoying. So if you could do that, that will multiply your efforts. It's like, you know, everyone does a lot of work, but then can you step back and say, how do I 10x the work I already did? Right? We do it a lot. So I like your advice there. We kind of touched upon this, but let me know if you have other thoughts. This is popular. Everyone says network. I hate it because it's so transactional. You know?
And clearly people want to network because they do want something. Like I want to get a job. Is there other ways where you could soften that blow, navigate around that? Anything else that we haven't discussed? Charlie O'Donnell wrote a really good piece on like, I think it was like phrase, networking is transactional. And I've come to realize if there's no transaction to be made, then it's probably, then you probably shouldn't meet that person. It's all like a trade. And the trades can be, they don't have to be.
transactions of, they can be transactions of energy. This person is just, I love having them in a room. They're an awesome person. And in return, I can possibly help them do X. I realize every interaction is some sort of transaction. And I've been trying to figure out how to word this and sort of what people mean when they're like, this person is so transactional. But it's approaching every conversation with sort of humility, with curiosity, and with kindness, which is...
sort of how you would write an email as well i think if you approach those principles then you're never going to have anyone who thinks you're being overly transactional and then you also combine that with with the idea of giving first you know you you make deposits into the well before you before you withdraw from it nobody's ever going to think you're transactional if you're out there helping everyone you meet and eventually
you might need some support but by then you'll have built up trust to all these people but it's okay to think about it from a transactional lens i think it's actually healthier to think about it from a transactional lens because then you know when then you can draw the line between professional professional relationships and boundaries personal friendships and then and then like romantic partners and the family and all that stuff it gets kind of tough when all those are blended especially in like like a metro metropolitan city where
their mixers and their networking events, and some of them seem like singles events, drawing those lines, I think is healthier and it can help you be more productive. I really like this point that you just have to accept that networking, let's call it in a professional sense, is transactional. I like that you call that out because most people don't want to accept that. But personally, I believe it is the truth. And you know, for me, I'm an impatient person.
So sometimes when some people reach out to me and I know they're trying to slow play it, being nice, et cetera, I'm just like, just tell me what you, just tell me what's exactly what you want. But you have to answer the question, what's in it for me? Otherwise, there's no way I'm going to respond. But if you go into it with that mindset, I actually like that, being the impatient person I am. So as long as you add the value, then transactional is fine. So it's not, it doesn't have to be a negative word. I like that a lot. When you were at a big company.
Did you have a strategic approach on how much you networked internally with other Googlers or meta folk or externally? How did you think about that? I would always over-index on networking, whether it's internal or external, because I think, and to get, I guess, to get a little deeper, it's like it comes from like paranoia, right? It comes from internal networking comes, like overly networking comes from the paranoia that you're not going to get promoted or that you're going to lose your job. And so what you want to do is like, you want to protect your relationships.
And build, protect your relationships by making them stronger. And you make them stronger by providing more value to people internally. Same for externally. It's like, if I ever lose my job, like for me, I was like on a visa. I'm like, if I ever lose my job, I got 90 days to find a new job. So what am I going to do? I'm going to protect that externally, internally. Tactically, I had a rule. I mean, this feels a little different, but I was like, every single week, I'm going to meet one new person in an organization. And this mostly came from my excitement of joining Facebook.
you know my first the first ever tech company i worked at in new york city and i was like there's so many incredible operators in this country in this company i'm gonna try to meet one every week and i did that over the span of two years uh and met like you know like 30 30 or so people um on top of like the people i was meeting and you know in the business as usual days so that's like a helpful framework i i guess it sort of depends on like where you are and what priorities you have if someone's like job seeking you know my advice is like
five new people every week, at least five new conversations every week. If someone is in a job and they're already making money from their job and they're looking to slowly accelerate their career, maybe it's one new person every week. So it sort of depends on what your goals are. When you work at a big company, how do you decide who to pinpoint and reach out to? Who's that lucky one person a week who's going to meet Andrew?
it was whoever is interesting you know i mean i thought about my goals one of my goals at the time when i was working at facebook was um eventually i want to explore products so i reached a lot of prop people another one was like i want to build up my linkedin following my personal brand so i reached out to people with big personal brands and so it was always like you know i always think backwards of like what are my goal what are the goal outcomes i want from this and like and how do i like ladder up my actions up to it one consistent theme with you andrew is
you always have a very specific end goal in mind and then you work backwards from it. I think that's a very strong takeaway for everyone because sometimes you can just tell that people are just throwing things to the wall. They'll write like a two paragraph thing. I need help. Here it is. Here's everything about me. But those usually get crickets. So I like your approach. Here's the question. Because of your background with Meta and Google, people are curious. Did you notice, were there different soft skills you needed to be successful at those companies or was it all the same?
Google and Facebook were extremely political just based off like how the performance evaluation worked. You know, like to get a good rating, you had to get Facebook. It was like six or seven people to vouch for you. And so what it meant was like you have to be really good at making friends. So much that sometimes that was even more important than your ability to get the work done. If you were like average at getting the work done, but incredible at making friends. And when I say making friends, I mean like networking.
you're most likely going to have a better than average performance rating because that's how the ratings worked. And so most of the people I've met at Facebook were incredibly charismatic, really good at selling their story, talking about themselves, really good at building a relationship, really good at making friends. Similar case at Google. Out of all, I mean, I haven't worked at that many companies, but now I spend most of my time with...
entrepreneurs and founders who are mostly working with themselves or with their small teams the difference in their ability to communicate build relationships build rapport influence it's night and day between that and like the googlers and the meta meta folks how did you even find that insight that you needed x number of people to get a good performance review how did you even find that it was really my first performance rating i was like how do i get
I would always ask my manager every month. I was like, how do I get an exceeds? What does an exceeds mean to you? And my manager probably hated that. She was like, just enjoy it. Enjoy your job. Just enjoy it. I was like, no, I want an exceeds. So I quickly found out that she was like, I need six of the peers you're working with to write something about you and to give you a rating. And two would be teammates, two would be cross-functional peers, two would be leaders that sponsored your work stream. She would then take that packet, bring it to her.
like a committee of some sort and like, and like fight for your rating, you know? So, so you basically just needed like six really strong reference letters, pieces of evidence to give you a good rating. So I just optimized for that. I calls every week with people that I knew, I knew by the end of the six months, they're going to write my rating or I planned for it. And so I had weekly calls for six months just to build relationships with them. Not even to do work, just to chat, just to chat.
That's when I quickly realized that was the name of the game, just building relationships. Smart. You found the currency of the company that they prefer, and you worked it. Ethan had a chat with an EVP friend at a big company, and he said the exact same thing. Every company has a different policy. Figure it out. If you have a question for Andrew, raise your virtual Zoom hand, and then we will call on you. Before I do, Rebecca, you'll be first. Andrew, I have to say, some might see it as pestering.
But I think it's super effective that you've emailed your manager every month saying, what do I get to be exceeds? If you combine that with eat the frog for your manager, sooner or later, you're going to get the answer, most likely, right? So I think that was super smart because most people never even make that ask or they give up after a few rounds. But I like your persistence in that. Okay, Rebecca, what's your question? I mean, Andrew, thanks so much for speaking with us today. And I really like your shirt.
So as being the Gatsby of Silicon Valley and probably in general, are there any people that have been at your networks that you've been working with? Maybe can I give us names or maybe you can, but anyone that's like not on our radar, like they're not yet Elon Musk or Sam Altman, but they soon will be like, you know, the Gen Z Elon Musk, so to speak. Through this talk, you've heard me ask, you've heard me say, I always look for the goal outcome. So I would like, before I answer, I'm curious to hear like, what is the outcome for you? Are you looking at?
write a check in their companies or looking to follow along to see what you can learn? How are you thinking about it? Great question. I had to consider that. Probably just to follow along. Maybe in the long term, they're like, hey, maybe I do want to work at their company if I like their mission, how they're doing it, but more like follow along. It's very on the tech venture backside. It's very noisy. It's very hard to see because a lot of these companies are not necessarily revenue generating, or if they are, they're still fairly early.
Jason knows these folks as well. On the traditional business side, non-tech business side, Greg Eisenberg has found a way to build multiple companies at the same time and get them to eight figures in cash flow. Greg Eisenberg, Eric Orenberg, Sam Parr. There's a couple other names in there. Sean Corey. These are all people Jason and I talked about who we invested in.
And if we could, well, I would 100% invest in, and I know we're going to do incredible things. I would say plus one to that list. Actually, this is also a great segue because I don't see any hand raised yet, so I'm going to keep it going. When I first met Andrew, he started with a newsletter, and then he grew a community, and then that community got bigger. His newsletter started to explode, and then he started throwing all these really in-demand events with super fascinating people.
And then you did an event with Anthony Pompliano, right? And now you're doing, you just announced the OOO Summit for operators, owners, and outliers. Can you tell us more about it? Because all these people that Andrew just mentioned, most of them were speaking at his event that he's co-launching. So it's another way that Andrew is able to get his foot in the door.
and then be partners with these people, right? Which is at the same level. So tell us more about that, the summit. Yeah. Yeah, thanks for bringing it up. It's a project I'm really excited about. So the backstories, one of the reasons I left Google was I didn't want to have my visa tied to a company. I eventually wanted to live in America on my own terms, wanted to get my own green card, that sort of thing.
And I felt like I had something there. I had a newsletter, I had an events platform, but I didn't really quite know how to build a business. So over the next six months, I figured it out, found all these resources, found all these amazing experts in the entrepreneurship world that were not scammy course sellers. There's a lot of scammy course sellers out there who were like, they sell crypto projects and all these things. And it's super noisy. And so I found the right people who have now taught me how to build a business for myself where I'm now.
you know, earning more than I did at Google, which is insane to me because there's a point where I couldn't even make $1,000. And so I partnered with some of these guys who've built and sold businesses for, you know, seven, eight, nine figures to bring them to New York and for them to speak for a full day where we'll have eight to nine sessions throughout the day on how to build your audience, how to network, how to build a personal brand, how to do it as an immigrant, how to scale your company if you already have a company.
how to get out of your nine to five or in parallel to nine to five, build something that can generate a bit of income on the side. And it's on, yeah, it's on August 17th. There's these sessions or networking. I can send out the link after a bit. These are honestly some of my role models that I've figured out how to get on stage with me and share their knowledge with the world. And they're very niche. You know, they're very certain niche business builders, but they're excellent at what they do. And I think more people should know about them. Andrew, what is...
One key to running an amazing event. It's all about the people in the room and how you facilitate interactions between them. You know, not considering extremes. If you have just like a classroom or like a regular event venue in someone's apartment, it doesn't matter. You don't need a rooftop bar. You don't need an amazing ballroom. All you need is the right people in the room, a reason for them to be there in a way to get them comfortable and mingling with each other. That's really all you need for any event.
If you want to throw an intimate event where people really get to know each other, let's say at dinner, is there a magic number? I've heard it's eight, but I've pushed it. I've pushed it to 30. Yeah, it depends how you facilitate it. My dinners are typically 12 to 16 people. At the beginning of the dinner, I give a small speech. I get every single Christian in the room to introduce themselves. Every person takes about 45 seconds. They say who they are. They say...
how they can help someone else if it's specific knowledge or connection um and then they and then they haven't asked like here's what i'm looking for maybe not that they're right but here's what i'm struggling with and perhaps you can help me every single person goes one hour into the dinner it's a four-course dinner one hour into the dinner i rotate people like two very specifically two seats to the left so everyone around them is different and then the next hour i rotate them again three-hour dinner if a person is seated in that spot by the end of dinner they would have met
80% of the room, at least 80% of the room, not counting for the beginning, which is like a cocktail reception. I forgot what the question was, but hopefully that answers later. That's the magic of a good event. Now we're on the point where we're just kind of having a casual conversation, which is some of my favorites. We have Andrew's time and I want to pick it. Andrew, looking back at your time at the big companies, because most of our readers are working at big companies. Anything you would have done differently?
there's a point where i was so keen to leave google and i was just waiting for the visa to work out and i had customers ready to pay me but i couldn't because i didn't have the visa to do the job i was just so done you know with working there that i didn't even take advantage of the fact that i worked there and i still had a google email address and i still have access to the internal network i mean this is a very specific case but if you know you're about to leave and you have 12 months you have six months i would try to meet
as many interesting people internally in the company and set up potential customers. There was a world where maybe Google could have been a customer and sponsored some of my events or Google Cloud. I still knock myself on the head for not setting those up. Friendships, business relationships, all those mentors, all those wish I'd taken more advantage of the fact that I was at a company with 180,000 extraordinary operators. That's probably my biggest regret. I agree. I would plus one to that.
When you're at a big company, there's a lot of resources. And most times you take it for granted because you're so focused on your own team or your own goals, etc. But the thing with big companies is a lot of people do leave or rotate. So that becomes a big network. Nitin, you have a question? Yeah, it's a little bit off the networking relationship thing. Since you have been at the hyperfile companies, which most people have asked her, what would you tell them?
if there was some cabinet feedback that he could give them to address all the things that basically drove you out in some sense. To rephrase, what feedback would I have given my employer to retain me? Yes, or make it much better so that people would stick there and do better things. The innovation process is kind of slowing down, right? The promotion problem is a big problem, right? Everybody says it's a highly political system.
If you get into Google, getting to the next level is more based on relationships and all than actually delivering the right work. So what would you advise then? And what can they do to turn it around? That's a really interesting question. I've never thought about that. I think the thing about entrepreneurship is there's a point where you realize there's no company that you'd work for and you want to do it yourself and you want to give it a swing.
And, you know, I'm in my late 20s and it's just something I wanted to try. I left Facebook and Google and there was never a feeling of if they did this, I would have stayed longer or any feeling of resentment. Those are amazing companies. And there are days where I've had pretty hard days. And I think about like, it was awesome working there. I was like, I think I was a lot actually, there are times where I was happier when I was working that job, but I wasn't as fulfilled. And so it's trade-offs between entrepreneurship.
startups, big company, corporate jobs, they're all just different trade-offs. You know, you're working, you have better balance and you're making big W-2 salary, but you're feeling less fulfilled versus you build your own thing. You might not be making any money. You're incredibly fulfilled, incredibly stressed. It's just kind of the trade-off you get. I think Google did everything right. I think it's an odyssey, not my political answer, but I think it's an amazing company to work for it. I still think about it sometimes.
I will say, adding to Andrew, it was less of a push and more of a pull for Andrew going to become an entrepreneur. He had that founder spirit. And the thing with Andrew too, I'll say this. Jeff Bezos said, you would be lucky if you enjoyed 50% of your job because there's no world where you can enjoy 100%. Even him, there's some days where he has to do things that he doesn't want to do, right? There are some tasks that de-energize you.
So that's part of the job. So shooting for 100% is very hard. But for Andrew, looking from the outside, I could tell you it was definitely a pull. He had so much product market fit, telling him, you have to do this because you're so good at it. You're top 1%. And you need to put every resource and time and energy you have into doing it. So it was the product market for pulling. Alex. Thanks, Andrew. For someone who's interested in these types of events,
but doesn't live in New York City or San Francisco, short of taking weekend trips on a regular basis, what advice do you have for them? Do you mind sharing what city you're in? I'm about halfway between Washington, D.C. and Richmond. I'd say most cities I've been to in the U.S. At this point, I've been to 15, 20 cities just to host events or to participate. Most have communities. You can typically find them on Reddit or you Google city tech events.
or you post on LinkedIn, if there's nothing happening in your city, I guarantee just with a bit of LinkedIn posting, you'll be able to either find something or post something of your own. So my tip is do the initial research and then two, just do a bit of posting. That's how I got started. When I moved to New York, I didn't know anybody. Really, I didn't know anybody because people had left. I started posting on Twitter. I didn't have any followers. LinkedIn had a few, but mostly on Twitter.
And people were like, we need this. And so they started coming and that's how we got started. So I think you could probably do the same in your city, in your region. Andrew, you started off pretty small with the events, right? It's not like a thousand person on the first event. Yeah. I mean, they started like with walks, getting coffee. And then I had meetups of like, you know, five to 10 people. And then, you know, they just sort of like grew from there. But they're very small. They're just coffee people. I think the word of mouth was really strong with Andrew. Because as you could, everyone could probably tell, Andrew puts a lot of thought.
on how to make a unique and high value event. And then word just spread. Andrew, so before we let you go, because you're a busy person, what is something that you're struggling with now or something that's on your roadmap in six months that this community and listenership can help you with? The thing I'm, the near term thing, thank you for asking. The near term thing is like the summit event I'm putting together on August 17th with all these speakers. It's going to be in New York City.
I think it could be pretty transformational for someone who's not in the world of business building or entrepreneurship. And for someone who has the slightest itch, I think it could be pretty impactful. That's on the short term. In the longer term, 12 months, 24 months, I'm looking at building the South by Southwest of New York. I've really announced this yet, but this would be a big swing for me and my team, like a one.
you know, one year of planning. And so if anyone knows, any people have organized large scale festivals, Coachella, South by Southwest, always looking to chat with those folks and very appreciative of your connections, introductions. I like that. The South by Southwest for New York. You know, when you say it, you kind of think, how the heck is there not one already? So that's a great signal. Okay. So you need someone who has thrown large scale events in the past to help you with that.
Any other type of person, someone who's done it, I'm always looking for customers. I mean, anyone who sponsors events, banks, PEOs, recruiting firms, dev shops, law firms, accounting firms, anyone who wants to reach entrepreneurs or they make great sponsors. And I normally pay out, you know, I pay out 10% referrals and the sponsorships, you know, range from like five to a hundred K. So anyone who has any folks who wants to get in touch with sponsors, let me know.
Okay. Great, great, great. And then for the summit, is it the OOO summit or out of office? Yeah. I mean, it's like wordplay on like out of office. Yes. Because a lot of these are like, you know, the engineer at like whatever, Facebook is going out of office to go to the OOO operators, owners, outliers. So it's like a bit of wordplay on it. Love it. Besides people attending, any specific help you need with that?
You know, boosting, boosting stuff on socials. You've seen my stuff. Give it a like. It goes a long way. Yeah. Great, great, great. If people have these connections or sponsorships, et cetera, what's the best way for them to reach you? My email is andrew at andrewsmixers.com. Andrew at andrewsmixers.com. Okay. Great. I will post the video recording later and then I'll put a nice takeaways. You know, I try to keep the takeaways short, like one to maybe eight.
Hate the little long. People like short lists. This one had a lot, so you're giving me some hard work here, but I'll make it happen. Great chatting with you, Andrew. Yeah, good catching up. Thanks for having me, and thanks for everyone. Thanks to everyone for being so engaged. Awesome. Thank you. All right. See you, Andrew. We'll catch up. Thanks. Yeah, I'm just kidding. Take care, guys. Bye.