Stay Connected
#32
Moe talked about this some time back, and she said “if you aren’t optimizing LinkedIn, you’re missing out a lot.” I feel like of weird when I ask people for their LinkedIn profiles and their response is “what’s LinkedIn?” 😩😩😩Most of us are professionals now, and play time is over. Our lives are on the Internet now and your online profile needs to be spick and span. Frankly, I open my LinkedIn more than any other social media platform, good for me I guess.
Anyway, back to the series on how to build a network. LinkedIn is it! Extract from a post I found on LinkedIn I believe. And if you don’t have a LinkedIn, hit me up and I’d help. Find below:
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Add people on LinkedIn because it is how other people will find value in your network. I get requests for introductions all the time to people I’m connected to. I only accept invitations or connections to people I’ve actually interacted with. That way I can always reference that interaction or how we met when reaching back out again, even if it was years ago. Don’t randomly accept all of the spammy invites you get from people wanting to connect because “I came across your profile and wanted to connect!” Ignore. You will only dilute your network if you accept random connections. When someone in the future asks you for an introduction to someone and you have no context or idea how you’re connected, it will be very awkward to say you don’t really know them. People use LinkedIn to measure the value of your network as a reflection of you. They subconsciously signal off of how many mutual connections you have and the quality of those connections. I’m not saying it’s a perfect proxy for someone’s talent or ability, but people use whatever cues they have to evaluate others worth, and your network is one of them.
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Article List— What I’m reading (10 articles a day x 7 days x 4 weeks x 12 months = 3360 articles a year). Building the scope of my knowledge.
Some WeWork Board Members Seek to Remove Adam Neumann as CEO: el oh el. This company is trash. smh. And it be your own…people. 😩
10 steps to become a millionaire in 5 years (or less): I disagree with his heading for #5 btw. Optimize the process and for the desired result. That’s what’s important. Anyway Benjamin Hardy puts out some pretty dope content. I’d take his word for it and work on a plan like this. 99% of readers wouldn’t.
Y Combinator guide for African startups: apparently the link was broken the last time I put up this article. Soz. Find here now.
How a Chinese tycoon caused misery for Lesotho’s wool farmers: Ummm…Lesotho wtf. I mean, I’m not sure why I’m surprised. We do this to ourselves.
Chinese firms are driving the rise of AI surveillance across Africa: Still not convinced about the new scramble for Africa led by the China?
Quartz Africa Innovators 2019: leading the change for Africa’s future: Kudos to everyone. Some solid names from Ghana that I recognize. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Recipe for disaster: The meteoric rise and ongoing demise of Blue Apron: Pretty sure every one of my friends in the States has used Blue Apron at some point. I don’t know who their primary target was, but definitely isn’t me. And for a bunch of these companies, I’m struggling to see how they had positive unit economics. High CAC and low LTV is recipe for disaster. That I eat every day, doesn’t mean I’d cook every day, but this is something I’d try once in a while. Tough.
21st century moonshot: Bezos, Musk and the new VC-fueled quest to explore the stars: Space Barons! Can’t wait to read this book.
Podcast— What I’m listening to (1 podcast episode a day x 7 days x 4 weeks x 12 months = 336 podcast episodes). Broadening my experiences through others’ stories.
The Journal- The WSJ + Gimlet make a lovechild and its called the Journal. Daily episodes on the coolest things happening in business. Similar to Business Wars Daily but longer episodes. They talked about WeWork a couple episodes ago-find out what went wrong.
Book— 1 Chapter a day x 7 days x 4 weeks x 12 months = 336 chapters. Most books have 10-12 chapters, so 1 year = 28 to 33 books. And my book list is nearing 1000 books. Send help 🌚
Done with Elon’s book finally. Talk about a real life Tony Stark. This man is pushing the needle in every single industry he’s involved in, starting private enterprises that compete with countries, setting goals to make humans multi-planetary species. This man is doing things that have never been done before. Find more about Elon here on Tim Urban’s blog, Wait But Why, and my other post “Elon is my president.”
Going with the theme of connectedness, Elon does a good job of linking all his companies, SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity. Check it out:
What’s more, SolarCity is a key part of what can be thought of as the unified field theory of Musk. Each one of his businesses is interconnected in the short term and the long term. Tesla makes battery packs that SolarCity can then sell to end customers. SolarCity supplies Tesla’s charging stations with solar panels, helping Tesla to provide free recharging to its drivers. Newly minted Model S owners regularly opt to begin living in the Musk Lifestyle and outfit their homes with solar panels. Tesla and SpaceX help each other as well. They exchange knowledge around materials, manufacturing techniques, and the intricacies of operating factories that build so much stuff from the ground up.
I think of it as maximizing synergies. Jeph calls it the spider web philosophy. Everything’s connected.
Tweet I screenshot today:
“Do something every day for a year and you will be in the top 10% of people in the world for that thing.”- @shl.
Remember folks: “Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.”