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Published · transcript-backed

Lenny Rachitsky: uncertainty

15 Jan 2026 Lenny's Podcast How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin

“I don't know if you saw this on Twitter. Someone described small talk as the TCP/IP act handshake.”

— Lenny Rachitsky

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Everything needed to verify it.

Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Attribution
Verified speaker
Claim type
uncertainty
Recorded
15 Jan 2026
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

Transcript context

…Yeah. Again, we've talked about arriving a little bit early. You should do that. Don't arrive up too, too early. Again, if you're an hour early, walk around the block. It's fine to walk around the block. You don't want to sit in someone's office, because then all of a sudden it feels like this person's been here a long time. It feels like even though they're not scheduled, we're leaving them hanging. You're six coffees deep with the receptionist. You don't want that. So I think you want to be 10 to 15 minutes early. You do not want to be much earlier than that. We talked about meeting other convenience. I do think it's fine to start with a little bit of small talk. There are times it's not or times people are running behind, but the pleasantry of the weather is nice or how is your weekend? Or something that kind of cuts the air a little bit and then you flip into business is a good thing. Even though it feels transparent, it's still useful is what I would say. And again, it's almost a signal of, I am here for business, but I am a normal person and I'm willing to have signaling like, "Oh, I know that we should start with a normal conversation." If that makes sense. I don't know if you saw this on Twitter. Someone described small talk as the TCP/IP act handshake. I love it. It's a great description. I always describe it as like, imagine the modem crash from when we were kids on a 424. That old modem crash. That's what small talk is. It's a modem crash. We're trying to hit the wavelengths, et cetera, is the way-…

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