Sorry for the harsh feedback. As a new starter, I’d expect you to be making it clear how you’re useful to me - not the other way around! It seems fairly clear t

Sorry for the harsh feedback. As a new starter, I’d expect you to be making it clear how you’re useful to me - not the other way around! It seems fairly clear that your motives are self-directed (how can I connect to talented people? What can I learn? What should I be doing? I want context.) and that you believe you deserve other people’s time. Following up on people who don’t answer your cold emails is really quite pushy in that regard. Yes, you ask how you can help, but you’re still putting much of the burden of figuring out what you can do on the other person rather than figuring it out yourself. I want to work with people on a project, not help people with their grand mission of self-improvement. One of the points in How to Win Friends is to truly consider and appeal to the other person’s interest. Do you think everyone you email is interested in you and wants to spend their time answering questions about how you should conduct your learning and career, essentially having an interview with you? (You might also want to consider how some people will feel if they know you’ve only selected “awesome” people to interrogate, and they weren’t on the list...) I don’t think you have to stop doing this if it works for you, but I’d suggest at least letting people off the hook if they don’t reply!