[piaw]

Schools in Silicon Valley don't automatically give you a network. You're at no more of a disadvantage than someone who graduated from Berkeley (definitely outside Silicon Valley). What's very important is your openness to meeting people and talking to people. If when you get a call from a recruiter you just hang up you will never get a chance to make a connection. By answering my calls and at least talking to the next fly-by-night internet startup, I have ended up at very lucrative ventures, and now have a network of friends that encompass early to mid-stage startups and post-IPO companies. It's taken 15 years to have a network that rich, but the first step is to be in a place where you can have that network in the first place.