The Switchboard Operator

You know people.

That's always been your thing. You remember names, make introductions, see connections others miss. When someone needs something, you know who to call. When two people should meet, you're the one who makes it happen.

You're a connector. A hub. A node with unusual reach.

And somehow, this superpower keeps failing to translate into anything sustainable.

You introduce people and they go off and build things together—without you. You create value through connection but capture none of it. You're essential to the network forming, then invisible once it forms.

Or maybe the opposite: you've become so essential that you can't escape. Every connection routes through you. Every coordination depends on you. You wanted to be a hub and now you're a bottleneck, drowning in requests, unable to step back without everything falling apart.

Or maybe you're earlier than that. You can see the value of networks, you want to build them, but you don't know where to start. You're not connected enough to connect others.

However you got here, you're playing the Network Game. And you might not be able to see the board clearly yet.

Let's make it visible.

What Is the Network Game?

The Network Game answers one question: Who should be connected—and how?

Every other game produces something—ideas, models, performances, meaning, identity. The Network Game produces relationships. It creates pathways between nodes that couldn't find each other on their own.

This is genuine value. Most people massively underestimate how much friction exists in finding the right connection. The person who reduces that friction—who sees that A needs to meet B and makes it happen—creates real wealth, even if it's hard to measure.

But the Network Game has a unique problem: the value you create is designed to flow away from you.

When you introduce two people and they form a relationship, the ongoing value of that relationship accrues to them. You were the catalyst. They are the reaction. The catalyst doesn't get to keep the heat.

This isn't a flaw. It's the nature of the game. But if you don't see it clearly, you'll either burn out trying to capture uncapturable value, or you'll distort the game in ways that poison the network you're building.