Early career strategic steps

- The most important thing is absolutely networking. I didn't realize the value and the power of networking until I was well into my late-20s, probably 28, 29, or 30. I was always so afraid to ask for things. I was like, "Networking is so fake, it's so superficial." You know, people know you're talking to them just to ask for something and in reality, that's not necessarily how it works. But there's two types of networking: There's vertical networking and horizontal networking. Horizontal networking is really critical with your peers, figuring out people who are in the same role as you or in the same space in their career as yoU, and you guys kind of build and work up together. Because eventually, you'll be in those power roles and you can support each other through that process. On the other hand vertical networking, it's critical to find a sponsor or a mentor that can support you and kind of guide you through your career. So if you're looking for a mentor or somebody who is in a role that you hope, you know, you aspire to in 20 years, find five people. Find five people on LinkedIn who are in that role or who went to the same school as you maybe or work at the company that you want to work at now and craft an e-mail and reach out to them. And you send them a message and see if they'll meet for coffee. And so, I think that's very easy, small step is being focused and directed in who you reach out to. And then the other small step I think, the internet is a marvelous place. Doing your research on the thing that you hope to achieve. That stuff is really easy to find and so you're not kind of just flailing around trying to figure out where you need to go. You can create a kind of direct path for yourself. And so I would say do your research and be specific and directed in your target outreach for networking. Usually if you've found somebody who has a similar career path as you, or has done the things that you want to do, the relationship forms very naturally. And so, I've got a couple of mentors in the VC space. While I was in business school I said, you know, "This is a change that I want to make, "can I come have coffee with you? "Can we go for a walk?" For me, I was spent so much of my second year of business school. Kind of just running up and down Sand Hill Road, like a crazy person, asking people you know, "Can't I pop into a meeting that you're having? "Can we have coffee?" And they naturally grew from there and I'm really grateful for people's openness. And everybody won't say yes. A lot of people are going to be like, "Get out of my face. "I don't talk to students," or whatever the case may be, but all you need is one yes. And that's kind of a thing that we say often in venture capital. You'll hear that so many companies heard no during their pitches. Like, LinkedIn, I think they'll say, "Well, we got rejected by 50 VCs." All you need is one yes in order to get to where you need to go.