RQ: Why Relationship Quotient Is the Next Competitive Advantage
A few days ago, I watched Amy Hood, Microsoft's Chief Financial Officer, deliver the commencement speech at Duke University. While she spoke about careers, uncertainty, and resilience, one part of her message stood out above everything else.
Amy said the best networking event she ever attended wasn't an executive conference or an industry summit. It was freshman orientation. She then asked the graduates to look around the stadium because the people sitting next to them were their community. Many of those classmates, she said, would still be part of their lives forty years later.
That resonated deeply with me.
From IQ to EQ to RQ
For years we have encouraged people to develop their IQ. More recently, we have recognized the importance of EQ. I believe the next competitive advantage is RQ: Relationship Quotient.
Over the past twenty-five years, I have learned that careers are rarely built by résumés alone. They are built by people. A mentor who believes in you. A colleague who recommends you. A former manager who remembers your work. A friend who introduces you to someone at exactly the right moment.
Relationships are not simply part of a career. They often determine its direction.
Investing in people the way we invest in everything else
Amy also reminded graduates that careers are rarely a straight line and that uncertainty is inevitable. I could not agree more. We cannot predict where our careers will take us, but we can decide how intentionally we invest in the people around us.
That realization is one of the reasons I built Virre. Not because the world needs another networking platform, but because relationships deserve the same level of intention that we give to our finances, projects, and calendars. In an AI-driven world where technical skills evolve rapidly, trusted human relationships become even more valuable.
A lesson I'm passing on
In fact, my daughter recently started her first job as a Senior Data Scientist after completing her master's degree. Like many parents, our conversations began with health insurance, retirement savings, and budgeting. Then I introduced her to Virre because I wanted her to begin investing in the one asset that compounds over an entire career: relationships.
If there is one lesson I took away from Amy Hood's speech, it is this: your community is one of the few investments that becomes more valuable with time.
Perhaps it is time we started measuring and building our Relationship Quotient with the same seriousness that we have always given to IQ and EQ.
Sources
You can watch her speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TNv2XGklqs