The 9 Skills Needed to Be a Super-Connector

Editor?s note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and entrepreneur. He is Managing Director of Formula Capital and has written 6 books on investing. His latest book he?s giving away free. He built and sold Reset, Inc in 1998 and Stockpickr.com in 2007, among others. You can follow him @jaltucher.
I know why I?m not a billionaire. Other than having the consistent self-sabotaging quality of destroying money in massive bonfires every time I sell a company, I also have a severe psychosocial disorder which makes me a horrible connector of people. Connecting people who can benefit each other is the most useful skill you can have on the entrepreneurial ladder of skills. When you help others make money by connecting them together, the world forces itself into the Möbius strip of success that brings the money right back to you times ten. Some billionaires are great at it. If I write Mark Cuban an email he responds in two seconds even though he doesn?t even know me. He?s a ?Super Connector?. I know quite a few talented super connectors and they will be very successful as they grow into future Mark Cubans.[See, "How I Helped Mark Cuban Make a Billion Dollars and 5 Other Things I learned from him".]
I?m horrible at following up. I also burn bridges. I used to play a nice social game of Wordtwist on Facebook every day with Don Graham, the publisher/owner of the Washington Post. Then I wrote a blog post, ?Don Graham is a Punk?. Guess what. He doesn?t play Wordtwist with me anymore. Another time I was trying to get a job working for the hedge fund manager Stevie Cohen. He wanted me to share a few trades with him as I was doing them. We IMed back and forth a bit during the trades. One trade didn?t work out and I was ashamed of it. So I stopped IMing him. After a few days of this billionaire IMing me with, ?Where?d you go?? I blocked him on my IM list and that was that.
But that said, I love meeting new people and I?ve always done a good job with the initial skill