At dinner parties in San Diego's high-tech neighbourhoods no one needs to ask what you do for a living ― they'll have heard already on the grapevine ― but everyone will want to know how you met your first venture capitalist. For San Diego is a high-tech networker's paradise. Surrounded by the neighbourhoods of La Jolla, Torrey Pines, Del Mar and Sorrento Valley, the city's Golden Triangle is home to much of the region's high-tech industry and its support services. Just around the corner are four world-famous academic research institutions ― the University of California, San Diego (UCSD); the Salk Institute for Biological Studies; the Scripps Research Institute; and the Burnham Institute. In any week, an industrious entrepreneur can easily attend two or three networking events. And they need to. For the budding entrepreneur, making connections can win them a mentor to show them the ropes and provide crucial leads to investors. "Companies seek out people they know or have met, often through personal relationships. That's why two companies collaborate, not because they saw it in a magazine or read about it on the Internet," says Gary Pisano, a professor of technology management at Harvard Business School.
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