You mean ask a specific question? Or is this silicon valley jargon?
edit:
Through the power of The Googles I now realize he could have been using the stock market form of 'ask'. It makes some sense since you're asking for an investment. Not that I like it any better...
The price a seller is willing to accept for a security,
also known as the offer price. Along with the price, the
ask quote will generally also stipulate the amount of the
security willing to be sold at that price.The meaning is slightly more specific than a generic word like "request" or "desire". It implies something specific, focused, and prepared.
'give a specific ask' and 'ask a specific question' are therefore equivalent, with the exception that the former looks like it was written by a 5th grader.
edit: ah, you're gcv :)
Team A are X points down and given the injury to STAR_PLAYER for them to come back now is a big ask
There is no 'ask' on its own and no one would refer to the ask on it's own. The entire phrase is an idiom. An ugly sounding one, but one that's here to stay, like 'day of' and 'going forward'.
I'm sure the Bcc behavior was common as well with paper memos, but I suspect the name only appeared with the invention of email. [2]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_copy
[2] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=carbon+copy%2C...
The current use of bcc more or less contradicts that and has taken on a whole new meaning.
CC and BCC are practical parts of communication but only formalized in a technical manner (beyond their physical carbon counterparts) in email, but we certainly engage in conversations which are of an "FYI" nature all the time.
Source: I am a communications nerd both from a technical and historic perspective.
to: sender_address@domain.com
bcc: recipient1@, recipient2@, . . .
It's more like making a tape recording of a conversation you are having with someone and playing it to someone else who wasn't part of the conversation. And without the person being recorded knowing that you did that.
I'm not sure how much the investment community uses LinkedIn, but it seems like the closest thing to a solution right now.
1) Comes across as impersonal to the person I'm contacting. 2) LinkedIn is often checked infrequently at best.
I'm sure any solution would have same obstacles to overcome, but this is why I don't use it.
Here's a simplified view of my email life: I have a couple hundred people (the intermediaries) I have worked with before or am friends with who each work with or talk to many entreprenuers. Each of these people knows dozens of investors. When they like an entrepreneur, they try to decide which investors would be interested in that entrepreneur. This isn't easy because angel investors change what types of things they are looking for and whether they are looking for anything at all all the time (based on what they have already invested in, on how much time and money they currently have to invest, etc.) They then send out intros to many investors. I get about a thousand of these a year.
Now, there are two types of intros. The most common is "[Founder] is looking for an investor for his company, which looks like [company]." The second is "[Founder] asked to be specifically introduced to you." If the latter, I always take the introduction. If the former I filter for only the stuff I might actually invest in. This saves me time because--since I have a pre-existing relationship with the intermediary--I can say something like "I don't invest in companies like [company], I am looking for [thesis] right now." This takes 30 seconds. If I was to reply to the founder, it would take a lot longer not to be rude. Rudeness is discouraging (I know, I raised money for my own company, lots of investors were rude), and it burns bridges. If an entrepreneur told an intermediary she thought I was rude in my reply, that intermediary may no longer send me anything. I know I, when I've been the intermediary, have stopped sending people stuff because the feedback from the entrepreneur was that they were rude.
Also, the whole point of the intermediary is to save the entrepreneur time. The intermediary sends out a score of emails asking who is interested, and some smaller number reply. The intermediary then makes the connection. Now the entrepreneur only has to deal with the people who have self-qualified as potentially interested. This saves them time (and also puts them in a slightly better negotiating position.)
The only negative to this process is the time it takes for the intermediary. I am an intermediary as much as, or more than, I am a recipient of these intros. It takes time. I've often thought about how to automate much of this introducing work: deciding which people would be most likely to want the intro, sending the emails, tracking replies, making the intros, and tracking which intros worked to feed back into the process. I suppose this is what software like Salesforce does for salespeople, but I've never found a personal CRM that can do this for me. Would love to have one.
I disagree. The "busy person" didn't ask to be put on the spot to decide whether the inviter's social capital is insufficient to overcome their busy-ness or lack of interest in the intro or whatever reason they have for declining, so you shouldn't put them in that spot.
Assuming it's laziness totally misses the social dynamics.
Knowing what information (is appropriate) to share with whom is not only not dishonest, it respects other people's privacy, and is a key life skill for effectiveness.
Consider the case of a friend looking for a job. If they come to me asking for an introduction, they may be open with me about things they wouldn't tell a stranger in the first minute of contact. E.g., concerns about the target company, fears they might not measure up, things going on in their life. It's hard for me to know what they don't want shared, I want to minimize the risk a violation of trust, and I don't want to guess at what the recipient might have an issue with. So I'll always write my own intro or ask for something I can forward.
Also, if someone dumps some unwelcome request from a pal in my lap, I'd be irritated that I had to do the work of bowing out. It's their friend, not mine, so it shouldn't be my problem. For that reason, I always ask permission to do an intro unless I have strong reason to believe the intro would be welcome. (E.g., if somebody told me they're looking for developers, I'll do intros without confirming an interest in each specific person.)
People still generally want to help people succeed. But people are also busy. I do intros like this pretty much any time I talk to two people who are likely to benefit by talking. I'd guess I average 2 a week.
I've been in San Francisco 14 years, and I think this place is even easier to navigate now than when I got here. Few cold call anymore, but that's more because we've got better things than phones. Meetups, conferences, mailing lists, on-line groups, and Twitter all allow people to connect in ways much better than strangers using a loud mechanical bell to interrupt somebody in the middle of whatever they were actually trying to do.
Doubt it. Rents and house prices are at a record high due to horrible NIMBY regulations and no one's doing a damn thing about it. Startup equity slices are tiny, and the old Silicon Valley guarantee (that working for a startup meant the founders would take a personal interest in setting you up to be a founder in your next gig) is long gone. VCs are funding lots of well-connected rich idiots, but if you don't come from the "right" social milieu, it's nearly impossible to get.
What used to be a quirky and different society is now a shitty knock-off of Manhattan that copies its worst parts but none of its good ones.
Few cold call anymore, but that's more because we've got better things than phones.
s/call/email/g. You know what I mean. Obviously calling someone you don't know is considered pretty rude these days.
There's some truth to what you're saying, but it has always been the case in complicated industries. It's the cost of doing business. It reminds of this brilliant quote by Robert Henri:
In new movements the pendulum takes a great swing, charlatans crowd in, innocent apes follow, the masters make their successes and they make their mistakes as all pioneers must do. It is necessary to pierce to the core to get at the value of a movement and not be confused by its sensational exterior.
That being said, in my four years in SV I've asked hundreds of people for advice and help, and I honestly can't remember anyone ever saying no. The collaborative spirit is very much alive, people are just busy and it helps immensely to have some basic respect for their time.
While it is harder to cold call for sure (the fact that you are referred to someone means they will at least read and/or listen to what you have to say) not being referred is not a show stopper at all.
You just have to be more creative in your approach in order to stand out.
If you don't have that skill simply practice at it with less valuable targets to start. Make your mistakes there and learn from them what works and what doesn't.
I've been cold calling from back before the internet. But one of the first things I learned from when I used to get free press by writing to reporters was to start out the email by telling them what a great article they wrote as opposed to telling them something that they could add to the story that they might have missed.
The emails where I contacted them that way almost always got a reply. So I continued with that formula and got a pretty good amount of major press writeups (NYT, WSJ etc.)
This protocol is super simple, and allows for very efficient transfer of information without putting people in uncomfortable situations.
More precisely, what purpose does moving Mark to BCC, and then acknowledging that and addressing him in the letter, serve? Why not just exclude him from the conversation completely, or leave in CC if you're still addressing him?
Another instance where it is useful is when asking a question at a mail list but asking that anyone who answers only addresses the you not the whole email list.
Just send the email with the list in BCC, and that's gonna be automatic.
(personally I have rules that catch this sort of behavior so it doesn't bother me, but I've seen it happen).
I wouldn't be surprised if such a question goes on to be ignored.
As the OP rightfully suggests, it's the little things in etiquette that are important.
I'd love to hear how the language-sensitive hacker news crowd deals with this issue, and also what tortured constructions you've seen recently. Currently I'm using "pleased to make your acquaintance" or "thanks Jim for the intro", but neither of those is completely satisfactory.
It's silly to think that there is a "one size fits all" email intro framework. Different contexts require different amounts of background information and introducer participation.
Really, the greater theme at play is the need for people to think more about how their actions (here, nearly effortless electronic ones) effect others. Sending email intros without understanding the benefits and detriments to both sides is impolite at best and downright rude at worst.
The Golden Rule applies, even to email.
It seems that the likelihood of the email being read increases the shorter email is. At the same time, I have found the shorter the email, the harder it is to write.
You can learn a lot about people by observing their etiquette.
(I am pretty sure what the first comment to this comment will be)