
His mission: Meet 10k people, one at a time, for an hour at a time - pilingual
https://www.inquirer.com/news/rob-lawless-robs10kfriends-20190731.html
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dredmorbius
One way to consider this is in terms of attention, the ultimately nonfungible
resource: you can pay attention to only one thing at a time, seach moment must
be experienced, none can be called back.

If you live to 80 and devote your adult life from 20 onwards to meeting
people, if you meet 10,000 people, you can devote about 50 hours to each of
them -- a little over two days. That's sleeping or waking, working or resting.

The US House of Representatives has 435 members (add the hundred senators --
and 3 DC electors -- to get the famous 538 electoral college votes), each
representing something like 720,000 citizens. Given a 2 year term, this means
that each representative can devote a net total of ... just under 90 seconds
per constituent.

If you wanted to dedicate your adult life to meeting everyone _currently_
alive on Earth, 7.3 billions, you can dedicate just over a quarter second to
each.

At the same time, in every second, there are 215 years of human experience
lived, 14,000 years per minute, 830,000 years per hour, and 20 million years
per day. Rounding somewhat.

How much of that experience can be distinct and individual, how much is
shared? What are the consequences of forced attention, as with advertising, or
with forced isolation?

How much _can_ we know, and pass on, culturally? Is there a net effective
intergenerational knowledge transfer bandwidth limit, and how close to that
(or exceeding it) are we? How is that shared between culture, personal,
technical, and poetic knowledge?

~~~
oceanplexian
One thing that’s commonly true in statistics: You don’t need a very big sample
size to get an accurate representation of a population. I’m willing to bet you
could get away with meeting 1,000, well chosen people, and get an accurate
sample of society.

If you think about it, people aren’t all that unique. Most people share the
same personality, same hobbies, same interests and problems in life. Most of
the things in life we think apply to us (for example navigating romantic
relationships) are just common patterns that are repeated over and over again
with millions of people. In fact we’re all a lot less special than we think we
are.

~~~
codesushi42
I'm willing to bet there are more than 1000 configurations, and sampling a
mere 0.00001% of the population isn't going to get you much. In other words,
that's sampling 1 out of every 7.3 million people. An utterly useless
exercise.

Statistics is fun, isn't it?

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jamestimmins
There's a lot of cynical takes here, but I like to think of this as the type
of art project that can only take place on the internet, because there has to
be some kind of funding involved.

It's easy to decry him for having sponsors, but that is a bizarre standard.
Michelangelo had sponsors/patrons, but nobody disregards the Sistine Chapel
because he was paid for it. Personally, I really want people to use the
internet for weird, personal art projects that are shared with the world.
Getting sponsored by WeWork instead of the Medicis doesn't change anything.

~~~
omosubi
The difference is that when being sponsored by a company you have to wonder
whether the content is influenced by the brands using it to advertise. If
WeWork wanted him to show how great their spaces are or take down posts that
denigrate them, we have no way of knowing. I suppose the Medici family could
have done the same for Michaelangelo, but I doubt it

~~~
wolco
All content is designed to influence you. Just the brand association should be
evil enough.

Subconsciously, you are being told whatever feeling you have about the content
to associate with this brand or idea.

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wjossey
I’m doing my own version of this through my mentoring program for managers.
I’m at 80 since February, and it’s been a real joy (best part of my day). I’ve
had a chance to talk to managers from over a dozen countries, some of whom
call me at 2AM their time (dedication) and share with me their stories of
managing people all around the world.

Sometimes the sessions are energizing. Sometimes they’re sad. Sometimes
they’re deeply thought provoking... However, they are always worth the hour I
put into them.

My calendar is booked up this month, but September is still mostly clear :)
Hope some of you sign up for a session.

[https://freemanagermentor.com](https://freemanagermentor.com)

~~~
burnaway
i've booked a slot.

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b_tterc_p
This is the kind of thing that one may get shamed for calling garbage, but it
seems like he is just trying to make a clone of Humans of New York and make
money by hiding ads in what’s supposed to be heartwarming human stories.

Yes, this post and his brand is full of “humble” values and what not. He may
be genuine, but I don’t think it’s praiseworthy. It feels like a tool for
virtue signaling.

~~~
tasty_freeze
Calling it virtue signaling is a cheap way to dismiss something.

Virtue signaling is when a person trumpets their moral stance without a
willingness to make any significant investment in it. This guy investing
10,000 hours into the project disqualifies it from that moniker.

~~~
criddell
So people who buy a Prius are never virtue signalling?

~~~
pwinnski
Conversely, are people who buy a Prius always virtue signaling?

Perhaps the appellation is an empty way to dismiss someone without engaging
them?

~~~
criddell
> are people who buy a Prius always virtue signaling?

Of course not.

I was simply responding to the idea that a significant investment is all it
takes to counter the claim that some activity is virtue signaling.

~~~
romwell
"Significant" is a relative term.

Buying a Prius vs. buying a non-Prius is hardly a significant investment for
people who make that choice.

I guess the more proper word here would be _sacrifice_ , something you never
get back.

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bkohlmann
I had a buddy in business school who insisted on meeting every one of our
classmates for a coffee chat (~400).

By the time he got to me, it was the middle of our second (and last year). I
was skeptical since I thought it was kind of weird, plus most friend groups
had formed by that point.

Turned out to be one of the most intriguing conversations I ever had. We
became very close friends after that.

No short cut to friendship. Sometimes you just gotta get face to face and see
how things go.

~~~
x2f10
Just to satisfy my personal curiosity: how successful was he after schooling?
I have to imagine this outgoing / network-driven personality makes one quite
successful.

~~~
bkohlmann
He’s looking to buy a company / working in micro private equity. Well suited
for it.

------
ALittleLight
Seems like a strange mission. The fact that he's unemployed, lost his
girlfriend, lives with his parents, and must monetize his efforts via 22k
Instagram followers makes the exercise feel a bit sad to me. Perhaps he will
learn and grow from this and it'll be worth it. I hope so.

~~~
ebiester
Then again, few people are able to do this, and if his parents are willing to
subsidize his project, he might gain valuable insight that he couldn't do
at... say, 40 and a family.

This feels like a project I have planned with programmers the next time I'm in
between jobs.

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travisfischer
I spent a couple hours the other night lying awake in bed dreaming of spending
one year trying to help someone new every day. I was thinking it would be cool
to dedicate each work day of the year to meeting someone new and offering my
hours that day to help them in whatever way I could. The help could range from
washing their car, running an errand, to picking up garbage on their street,
to writing some code or spinning up a website for them.

I thought it would have a really nice dual effect of pushing me to get to know
a bunch of people and also teach me something about serving and helping
others.

Then I started thinking about how to leverage social media to pivot it into
meeting more and more interesting/important people and monetizing it. Quickly
realized that would undermine the original intent of the project and make it
into something else entirely that I did not like.

I don’t understand the appeal of meeting 10,000 different people as that
sounds like too much quantity and not enough quality time but to each his own.

It is super interesting to see someone else living out a version of an idea
that at 2am sounded like a pretty original concept.

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deweller
After 10,000 hours of meeting people, I would think one would have some well-
honed skills required for managing people. Of course being a good manager
requires more than just understanding people. But that level of empathy and
instincts are valuable skills for anyone who wants to work with people.

~~~
wolco
Better for interviewing related jobs.

------
Theodores
Couldn't he just get a job where he gets to help out a lot of people? Sales?
Anything customer facing. This would be a good way to 'monetise' the meeting
thousands for an hour 'dream'.

You could use this approach to get into elected office, if you actually
started now for an election four years hence then you could get in without
party affiliation.

As it is there is something peculiar and narcissistic about this project, how
can you build real friendships if you are spending all of your time doing
these ten thousand one-off meetings.

~~~
michaelt
He wants to spend an hour per-person with 10,000 people, rather than meeting
10,000 people in a single hour.

~~~
Theodores
So he could do 10,000 eye tests, teach 10,000 people first aid, try to sell
10,000 cars or fleece 10,000 people out of their pensions, all on a one to one
basis.

He is not rock star enough to meet 10,000 people in an hour.

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j7ake
Sounds like this man could make real impact working at a senior person's home.

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jrgifford
I was #2163 - I responded to an instagram post he made as he was passing
through town, and we were able to make something work. I really enjoyed
talking with him for an hour!

~~~
cstrat
Pretty cool to have been part of the mission.

I actually scrolled through his IG to find your post - so cool!

Good on you for taking part.

[https://www.instagram.com/p/BpRwd9HnfGU/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BpRwd9HnfGU/)

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mikekchar
I wish I remembered the person's name, but there is a guy in London who did a
start up and made a fair amount of money. Since then he spends his time
talking with different people to get ideas. He'll buy you a hamburger (at one
of the upscale hamburger places no less) to talk to you for an hour. I never
ended up chatting with him (I got busy), but a friend of mine did and said
that it was quite a good experience.

I thought this article might have been about that guy. It's a bit different,
though. The person I'm thinking about is independently wealthy and thinks this
is a productive use of his time. I _think_ he's gathering data for a new
startup, but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to talk to him about it.

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3stripe
Startup vanity metrics transposed to real life interactions.

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mettamage
I just asked 3 friends for fun to fly to the US to meet him. I'm half joking,
half serious.

I think I want some variety in my life :P

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adarioble
This is not particularly new concept, but the internet is a huge market so the
cake is big enough I guess.

His project reminds me of Marina Abramovic “The artist is present” she held in
MoMA ([https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/marina-abramovic-
ma...](https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/marina-abramovic-marina-
abramovic-the-artist-is-present-2010/)).

