Could you explain the model of human interaction that underlies B. Hrebec’s attitude towards networking? It makes no sense to me… as far as I can tell, this model assumes that everyone is identical, and therefore it doesn’t matter who you develop relationships with. Or else, people are different but they only differ on a single axis so that they can all be ranked “better” or “worse”, so that networking just sorts the good from the bad.

My view is that people have complementary characteristics/skills, so that there is no objective ranking of people as “better” or “worse” partners — there is just “better for me” or “worse for me”, which is independent of “better for you” and “worse for you”. In this situation, it is important for us to gather information about a wide variety of people (i.e. network) so that we can find the best partners for ourselves. My finding a good partner does not necessarily detract from anyone else’s ability to find a good partner (especially if the alternative is for me to have a mismatched partner, which would still prevent that person from being available).

Even if there were a universal/objective ranking of “better” and “worse” partners, extensive networking could still be beneficial because it would help the “best” partners to find each other. In this case, networking increases the reward of being a good partner, so provides some encouragement to be a good partner.

Of course, networking has some costs (if you don’t like parties, I guess) and the benefits will be a function of decreasing returns– so there’s some point at which more networking is a net loss, but I’d bet that’s only after we’ve done a substantial amount of networking.