[iamelgringo]

You may be 2-3 degrees from John Doerr, but the question is, could you actually get a meeting with him?

That depends.

Adam Rifkin, the founder of the 106 Miles meetup and pretty kick ass nice guy and serial entrepreneur, was funded 12 years ago by Kliener Perkins. So, if you got to Adam's meetup, and bump into him, you're now 1 degree of separation away from John Doerr.

So, if you take Adam out to coffee, and talk to him about getting an introduction to John, Adam can certainly provide an into to John, but he's far more likely to talk to you, get a feel for what you're doing, and then provide introductions to 10 other investors and amazing people that could probably provide as much or more value than John Doer.

Good question.

There's also a very strong culture in Silicon Valley of "quality introductions".

The perceived value of a person's personal network in Silicon Valley is directly proportional to the quality of introductions that person can make to others. (Read: matching person to investor)