WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY
Your network is built on deposits, not withdrawals. Invest in people long before you need them.
Relationships forged without agenda are the most durable ones in your career.
One introduction from the right person can change the entire trajectory of your career.
The best partnerships are built on friendship first, business second.
Never confuse contacts with relationships: one is a list, the other is a lifeline.
It was the era before the iPhone existed. Before the app store, before mobile-first anything, before the world had a word for the digital life we were all about to live.
I was working at Rogers Wireless, the countries largest mobile phone operator, doing business with a scrappy social platform called The Facebook. That is where I first crossed paths with Josh, one of the earliest employees Facebook had ever hired in Canada.
We were not colleagues. We were not doing a deal together. We were just two people who loved technology, who saw something coming on the horizon that most people around us were not yet paying attention to. And so we talked. We stayed in touch. We checked in on each other as the years passed and our careers each took their own shape.
No agenda. No transactional motive. Just a genuine connection built on shared curiosity and mutual respect.