How to Win in Business

This Silicon Valley billionaire got ahead by crashing meetings with the co-founders of Google

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Why this billionaire used to crash meetings with Google’s co-founders
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Why this billionaire used to crash meetings with Google’s co-founders

Meetings are loathed by many for sucking up valuable hours and preventing professionals from getting any "real" work done.

But one of Silicon Valley's top investors, billionaire Chris Sacca, says that if you are trying to learn as much as you can as quickly as you can, crash meeting after meeting after meeting.

"Go to all the meetings you can, even if you're not invited to them, and figure out how to be helpful," Sacca tells entrepreneur and author Tim Ferriss in Ferriss' new book, "Tools of Titans." "If people wonder why you're there, just start taking notes."

Photo by Nicola Gell

Before you crash a meeting, do some research so you'll be able to follow along.

"Read all the other notes you can find on the company, and gain a general knowledge that your very limited job function may not offer you. Just make yourself useful and helpful by doing so," says Sacca. "That's worked for me in a few different environments, and I encourage you to try it."

Go to all the meetings you can, even if you're not invited to them, and figure out how to be helpful.
Chris Sacca
founder of Lowercase Capital

Sacca is best known for his early investments in Twitter, Uber, Instagram and Kickstarter. Those bets really paid off. He went on to start his own Los Angeles-based investment firm, Lowercase Capital, and he has been so successful at picking start-ups he ranks third on the Forbes "Midas Touch" list of best tech investors. He's also a frequent guest shark on ABC's "Shark Tank."

Before he made it big as an investor, Sacca worked at Google, and early on in his career, the self-made billionaire frequently crashed meetings there too, especially ones the Google founders were attending. He simply walked in, sat down and informed anyone who asked that he was there to take notes, Ferriss says.

Eventually, Sacca "became a fixture" in those meetings, writes Ferriss.