The Information That Matters Is Never on the Surface

There is no top-tier, universally applicable methodology, except one. Go deep in one industry, build personal influence, build a personal brand.

Author: Koutian Wu; GitHub: ktwu01

Big data and big principles are mostly what experts chat about over dinner. The real data is usually below the surface, and you have to become part of the circle to get it.

That is the strongest lesson of my PhD so far. The information that changes your judgment is never information out in broad daylight. It is not in online courses, not in bestsellers, and not in any creator’s videos, including this post.

Here are my own two circles.

I got into the academic circle through my advisor’s introductions and through academic conferences. The formal talks during the day carry limited information. The useful part comes after dinner, a few drinks in, when senior people talk and give a lot of honest, practical advice. Those judgments took them decades to build. They will not go into a paper or an article. They only come out at the dinner table, among people in the circle.

I got into the VC circle by taking part in founding a VC organization and becoming a founding member. That role gave me first-hand information and experience straight from the people leading it, how they look at deals, how they read trends, which mistakes they made. Search online for how to do VC and you will find endless advice about evaluating the team, the market and the business model, all correct and all useless.

So for international students choosing a major and young people early in their careers, I only have one thing to say.

First pick a field, dig in, and keep putting work out so people know who you are and what you do. Then find the door into that field, a person, an organization, a conference, and find a way through it. Once inside, be useful. Nobody wants to bring along someone who only takes, even if your help starts small.

I am not in every circle. I am in two, academia and VC, and I keep going deeper in both. Spread yourself across every circle and you are not really in any.

It is slow and there is no shortcut, only time and focus. But once you have built trust inside, the direction of information changes. You stop chasing it, and it starts finding you.

At that point, you are the source.