T-Shaped Networks

T-Shaped Networks

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"Am I interacting with a person or a bot?" "Do I even care if this is a person or an AI agent?" These are increasingly common questions in 2024. I am optimistic about the net benefits of AI agents serving us 24/7, but your quality of life is ultimately determined by the quality of your relationships - real ones with real people.

Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, generated a lot of attention in January 2024 when he predicted that soon there will be founders who create companies with billion-dollar valuations without a single employee. "One-person unicorns" I predict these unicorns will be lonely.

In the 2013 Spike Jonze movie, Her, Joaquin Phoenix's character falls in love with his operating system ("Samantha," voiced by Scarlett Johansson). He becomes convinced that his interactions with this AI agent are meaningful and they constitute a relationship. His illusion comes crashing down when he tells "Samantha" he loves her and the AI agent responds that she is simultaneously "in love" with 645 humans.

Social media has conditioned us to think of relationships as if we are AI agents. How many (shallow) connections can I form? How many (shallow) conversations can I manage concurrently?

Imagine that your network of relationships has a T-shape. The breadth of relationships - # connections on LinkedIn, for example - is the "roof" of the T. The depth of each relationship forms the root of the T. The combination of social media habits and remote/virtual work have combined to distort this shape. We have traded the depth for the breadth. We have wider, shallower networks instead of resilient, trusted tribes of deep connections.

There are thousands of people on LinkedIn that have tens-of-thousands of connections. Maybe you think you would have more/better career options if you have more LinkedIn connections or more likes of your posts. It costs nothing for someone to add you as a connection. There is no commitment. You cannot even be sure that the connection is a real person. For all these reasons, the value of breadth in your network - # of connections - decreases every day.

The difference between "connections" and real relationships cannot be measured in likes. The real question is, "Who is going to notice when I do not post?" Who is going to make a sacrifice to help me? Who am I willing to make sacrifices to help? Who knows the real me - not the carefully manicured avatar I project on social media? Deep relationships are where the magic happens. Many of those "influencers" you see all over your feed would happily trade thousands of followers for one real relationship.

Prioritize deeper connections. When things are going great, celebrating with deeper connections is more special. When things are not going great, these relationships are a source of resilience and hope. More than number of connections, I value relationships where we tell each other, "I love you." I have more than a few lifelong friendships that are deep enough that we end our conversations with, "I love you, brother."

To deepen your relationships, spend time together in person. If you cannot spend time together in person, get live on video. If video is not available, connect live by phone. Go below surface conversations. (How to Know a Person, by David Brooks, is an awesome guide for navigating these conversations.) Only use text messages to bridge the gap between live conversations, not as a substitute for live conversations.

AI agents are going to help us maintain shallow connections and shallow conversations with a very large network (which will include other agents). Your best conversations and your best career opportunities and your most meaningful experiences will come from the deep connections. Let the AI agents manage the breadth and give your priority to the depth.



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Rich Bell, PhD

Senior Data Scientist ? Army Veteran

10 个月

Great perspective, Billy Bob Brigmon! I love having a robust online network, but my deepest connections are founded upon shared hardship, shared experiences, and shared interests (in that order) — with the common denominator being in-person interactions.

James Hong

Sales Engineering Leader at People.ai | UWaterloo | 20+ years exp scaling 0-$100M | San Francisco based

10 个月

Subscribed! ??

Prakash Baskar

Partnering with high-growth companies and driven leaders to deliver big wins with Corpsulting?? and Datapreneurship | Author of “The Intrapreneur.”

10 个月

Interesting view point and completely agree with your words. “Deep relationships are where the magic happens.” As the platform gets more algorithm driven, which also happens to change frequently, shallow connections will come and go, but understanding and effectively engaging with our deeper connections is a must. As someone who had experienced this time and again, there are many who do not even engage openly but I k if they are reading based on the DMs. Sometimes these readers are not even direct 1st degree connections but meaningful content when shared consistently helps build those deeper connections. There is also the aspect of nurturing and keeping those deeper connections through recent meaningful discussions, and value add from both sides. (I cherish and value each one of our meetings, thank you.)

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