What no one likes to admit is that the benefits of networking are highly dependent on your demographic. Young white dude with excellent credentials? Great! There are plenty of other white dudes who will hear you out. Older lesbian Latina from an unknown school? Not so much.
Therefore, if you're more like the Latina and less like the young White dude you should focus on technical ability more and networking less. That being said, everyone should maintain their relationships at a minimum, for no amount of technical excellence can defeat irrelevance.
People will definitely try to shush this blatant reality, but anyone who's not White will definitely tell you for themselves. For what its worth, it's less about being White and more about the fact that all of the incumbents in this particular industry are White. For basketball you could easily replace "young White" with "young Black"
Therefore, if you're more like the Latina and less like the young White dude you should focus on technical ability more and networking less. That being said, everyone should maintain their relationships at a minimum, for no amount of technical excellence can defeat irrelevance.
People will definitely try to shush this blatant reality, but anyone who's not White will definitely tell you for themselves. For what its worth, it's less about being White and more about the fact that all of the incumbents in this particular industry are White. For basketball you could easily replace "young White" with "young Black"