> If Gopman has any hope of winning you over, it’s IRL. Watching him work a room is witnessing a guy who’s put in his 10,000 hours of mastery; every person — ma

> If Gopman has any hope of winning you over, it’s IRL. Watching him work a room is witnessing a guy who’s put in his 10,000 hours of mastery; every person — man or woman, nerd or preppie — usually comes away beaming. “You could drop him off in a desert and he’ll find friends somehow,” his friend tells me. He approached Mark Cuban cold in a cafe — and finagled a coffee date later that week. When he spotted Mayor Lee out on a mid-Market walkabout months after The Rant, Gopman talked his way into an impromptu meet-and-greet with the mayor. To me, this was the most interesting part of the article. That Gopman has charisma. I'm curious why they talk about the "10,000 hours of mastery". When I see my very few friends who can work the room do this (e.g. go up to complete strangers and make friends, go away, make more friends elsewhere, come back and continue), it's quite like magic to me. Who do you know is like this? Have they always been that way? When the pitch forks were burning in Valleywag, there was no indication about this part of Gopman. So much of gossip is just echo chamber stuff, even in niche areas like technology.