I spent $42 on a lukewarm steak salad at a «Young Professionals» mixer in 2019 just to have a guy named Gary breathe on me while explaining his crypto startup. I left that night with four business cards that eventually went through the wash in my jeans pocket and a vague sense of self-loathing. I had spent three hours «building my network,» and I had exactly zero to show for it. No job leads. No new skills. Just a slight case of indigestion and a lighter wallet.
Networking is a lie. Or, at the very least, it’s the most inefficient way to actually get what you want. We’ve been told that «it’s not what you know, it’s who you know,» which has led to an entire generation of people who are world-class at drinking bad wine in hotel ballrooms but couldn’t actually ship a finished product if their life depended on it. It’s professionalized begging. You’re asking for a favor based on a fifteen-minute conversation about the weather or where you went to school. It’s weak.
The «Let’s grab coffee» trap is a productivity killer
I used to think that saying yes to every coffee chat was the way to go. I was wrong. Completely wrong. What I mean is—actually, let me put it differently. Every time you «grab coffee» to «pick someone’s brain,» you are admitting that you don’t have enough tangible value to just show them. You’re trying to shortcut the process of proving you’re competent by being likable. But likability doesn’t scale. A public record of your work does.
I tracked my own output for six months back in 2021. I spent roughly 12 hours a month on these types of meetings. Out of 72 hours of «networking,» I got exactly one freelance referral that paid $500. That’s about $7 an hour. My local McDonald’s pays better than that, and they give you free nuggets. Total waste.
Stop asking for permission to be noticed. Start building things that make it impossible to ignore you.
What a Proof of Work portfolio actually looks like
A Proof of Work portfolio isn’t a resume. Resumes are just a list of places that haven’t fired you yet. A Proof of Work is a public trail of things you’ve actually done. It’s the «digital exhaust» of your curiosity. (That’s one of those fancy metaphors I try to avoid, but it fits here.)
- A Github repository where you actually commit code, even if it’s just small scripts to automate your boring tasks.
- A series of teardowns where you analyze why a specific product (like the Arc browser or Linear) is designed the way it is.
- A spreadsheet of 50 cold emails you sent and the data on which subject lines actually got a response.
- A collection of 10 articles you wrote about a niche topic you actually understand, like the logistics of last-mile delivery in suburban Chicago.
It’s about evidence. If you tell me you’re a «strategic thinker,» I don’t believe you. If you show me a 2,000-word breakdown of how a local coffee shop could optimize its supply chain to save $400 a month, I’m interested. The work does the talking so you don’t have to do the shouting.
The time I looked like an absolute idiot at a Stripe interview
I remember applying for a role at Stripe a few years back. I had spent weeks «networking» with people who worked there. I got the referral. I got the interview. I felt like a genius. Then, the hiring manager asked me a very simple question: «Can you show me a project where you solved a complex problem from start to finish?»
I froze. I talked about «managing stakeholders» and «aligning cross-functional teams.» I used all the buzzwords. The manager just looked at me and said, «No, I mean, what did you actually build?» I had nothing. I had a lot of connections, but I had zero proof. I didn’t get the job. I spent the drive home in silence, realizing that all those coffee chats were just a way to avoid the hard work of actually creating something. It felt like being caught in a lie, even though I hadn’t technically lied about anything. I just hadn’t done anything worth mentioning.
I genuinely hate LinkedIn and you should too
I know people will disagree with me here, and they’ll say LinkedIn is «essential for career growth,» but I think it’s a performative hellscape. It encourages people to celebrate «milestones» that don’t matter and use words like «humbled» and «honored» when they really just got a mid-level promotion. I refuse to use the platform for anything other than checking if someone is a real person. I actively tell my friends to stop posting those «I’m excited to announce» updates. They’re cringe. They’re the digital equivalent of those participation trophies we all make fun of. I’d rather see a messy Notion page with three half-finished ideas than a perfectly curated LinkedIn profile with 500+ connections.
Anyway, I digress. The point is that the time you spend formatting your profile could be spent actually doing something that makes the profile unnecessary.
The part that’s hard to hear
Building a Proof of Work portfolio is harder than networking. It’s much easier to put on a nice shirt and go to a meetup than it is to sit in front of a blank screen and build a tool or write a deep-dive analysis. Networking gives you the feeling of progress without the burden of results. It’s a trick your brain plays on you to make you feel productive while you’re actually just procrastinating.
I might be wrong about the specifics—maybe some industries still require the old-school handshake and golf game—but for anything involving technology, creativity, or problem-solving, the tide has turned. I’ve hired people based on a single well-written blog post. I’ve never hired someone just because they bought me a latte and told me they were a «highly motivated self-starter.»
If you want to start, don’t buy a domain name. Don’t spend three weeks picking a WordPress theme. Just open a Google Doc or a Notion page and document one thing you know how to do better than most people. Then share the link. That’s it. That’s the whole trick.
I’m still trying to figure out what my next «proof» will be. Maybe it’s this blog. Maybe it’s a failed side project I’ll tell you about next month. I don’t know yet. But I do know I’m not going to any more mixers. I’m done with the steak salads.
Mollie Nash