Social Capital
You know people who seem to have opportunities fall into their lap. Jobs appear. Introductions happen. Doors open that stay closed for everyone else.
It’s not luck. It’s social capital—the accumulated value of their relationships, built over years of giving, connecting, and showing up.
Your network is an asset class. Like financial capital, it can be built, depleted, invested, and compounded. Unlike financial capital, you can’t see your balance. But it determines access to opportunities, information, and support just as much as money does.
The Two Types
Sociologist Robert Putnam distinguished between (Putnam, 2000):
Bonding capital — Your strong ties. Family, close friends, tight-knit communities. This is who shows up when things fall apart. It provides support, trust, and identity. The risk: insularity, echo chambers.
Bridging capital — Your weak ties. Acquaintances in different industries, cities, walks of life. This is where opportunities come from—novel information, unexpected introductions. The risk: shallow and transactional if not maintained.
You need both. Bonding capital alone makes you insular. Bridging capital alone makes you superficial. See Weak Ties vs Strong Ties for more.
How It Compounds
Like financial capital, social capital compounds—which is why the rich get richer.
People with strong networks get more introductions, expanding their networks further. A good reputation leads to more opportunities, which builds stronger reputation. Better information leads to better decisions, better outcomes, and more people who want to be connected to you.
The flywheel: help others → build reputation → attract relationships → have more capacity to help → repeat.
How It Depletes
Social capital can be spent down faster than it’s built:
Asking without giving — Every ask without prior deposits withdraws from the relationship.
Broken commitments — Not following through damages reputation faster than almost anything else.
Neglect — Relationships decay without maintenance. Social capital depreciates.
Betrayal — One betrayal can wipe out years of accumulated trust.
Bad reputation — Travels faster than good reputation. One widely-known failure can offset many successes.
Building It
Give first, give often. Make introductions. Share information. Help without being asked. Recognize others publicly. The person who’s always helping becomes someone people want to help.
Be reliable. Do what you say. Show up when you commit. Follow through on introductions. Reliability is the foundation of trust, and trust is the foundation of social capital.
Expand your bridges. Meet people outside your usual circles. Attend events in adjacent fields. Maintain dormant ties. Connect people across networks—this is one of the highest-value things you can do.
Protect your reputation. Underpromise, overdeliver. Don’t gossip. Take responsibility for failures. Be the same person in every room.
The Key Difference from Financial Capital
You can transfer money. You can’t transfer reputation.
You can introduce someone, but you can’t give them your credibility. They have to build their own. This is why social capital takes so long to accumulate—and why protecting it matters so much.
Common Mistakes
Treating relationships as transactions. If you’re keeping score, it’s not social capital. It’s accounting.
Networking only when desperate. The time to build relationships is before you need them. Desperation is obvious.
Optimizing for quantity. 5,000 LinkedIn connections ≠ social capital. Depth beats breadth.
Burning bridges. Industries are small. Reputations travel. The person you dismiss today may be the gatekeeper tomorrow.
Related
- Dunbar’s Number — Cognitive limits on network size
- Weak Ties vs Strong Ties — Bonding vs bridging
- Reciprocity Principle — The mechanism behind it
- Network Strategically — The protocol