Consider this line from the movie “Layer Cake”:
The art of good business is being a good middleman…putting people together. It’s all about honor and respect.
It’s an interesting idea. (Quick review of the movie: Stylish, but not particularly good. Did wonders for Daniel Craig’s career, has got a really fun soundtrack, and features a very cute Sienna Miller.)
The same ground is covered somewhat more seriously in this post. Either way, I think it’s an excellent point. In strictly utilitarian terms, the number of people you’ll meet who will be directly useful to you, or to whom you’ll be directly useful, is a small fraction of the total number of pairs of people you know who would like to meet one another.
To put it another way: The overall value of your social network increases as the square of the number of nodes. The immediate value of your social network to you increases linearly in the number of nodes. You can create a lot more value by focusing on the former, as opposed to the latter.
