Give and Take: WHY HELPING OTHERS DRIVES OUR SUCCESS

chance, so he declined, stating that he was already serving on a business council for the Democratic
incumbent, Ann Richards. As a consolation prize, he made his $12,500 donation. Then, toward the
end of the campaign, when it looked like Bush had a good chance of winning, Lay quickly made
another donation of $12,500. Even though Lay ended up donating more money to Bush than to
Richards, his decision to give only when it was strategic left an indelible dent in the relationship.
This decision “relegated him forever to the periphery of George W. Bush’s inner circle,” wrote one
journalist, citing a dozen insiders who confided that Lay created “a distance between them that was
never really bridged.” Bush never invited Lay to stay in the White House, as his father had. When the
Enron scandal broke, Lay reached out to a number of political officials for help, but Bush wasn’t one
of them—the relationship wasn’t strong enough.
There’s a second downside of reciprocity, and it’s one to which matchers are especially
vulnerable. Matchers tend to build smaller networks than either givers, who seek actively to help a
wider range of people, or takers, who often find themselves expanding their networks to compensate
for bridges burned in previous transactions. Many matchers operate based on the attitude of “I’ll do
something for you, if you’ll do something for me,” writes LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, so they
“limit themselves to deals in which their immediate benefit is at least as great as the benefits for
others... If you insist on a quid pro quo every time you help others, you will have a much narrower
network.” When matchers give with the expectation of receiving, they direct their giving toward
people who they think can help them. After all, if you don’t benefit from having your favors
reciprocated, what’s the value of being a matcher?
As these disadvantages of strict reciprocity accrue over time, they can limit both the quantity and
quality of the networks that takers and matchers develop. Both disadvantages ultimately arise out of a
shortsightedness about networks, in that takers and matchers make hard-and-fast assumptions about
just who will be able to provide the most benefit in exchange. At its core, the giver approach extends
a broader reach, and in doing so enlarges the range of potential payoffs, even though those payoffs are
not the motivating engine. “When you meet people,” says former Apple evangelist and Silicon Valley
legend Guy Kawasaki, regardless of who they are, “you should be asking yourself, ‘How can I help
the other person?’” This may strike some as a way to overinvest in others, but as Adam Rifkin once
learned to great effect, we can’t always predict who can help us.