Larry Chiang’s rule for a working dinner is blunt: eat before you walk in, because the room is not there to feed you. A networking dinner at a place like Fogo de Chao Austin on Congress Avenue is a stage, and a stage is not where you fill up. If you show up hungry, your attention splits between the plate and the person across from you, and the person always loses.
This is SuperModel thinking applied to food: presence beats appetite, and a clean hand free of fork and napkin is a hand ready to take notes. PQRST starts before the meal, not during it, so you preview who is coming and what you need from each name at the table. Larry’s line is that he arrives already fed so the only thing on his plate at the actual event is the conversation.
Chewing while someone explains their business is a small thing that reads as a big thing: distracted, not serious, not there for them. Eating first also means you are not the one still cutting a steak when the room stands up to mingle and the real work begins.
Think of the meal itself as an External API: you did not build the dinner, the host or the venue did, and you are simply plugging into it correctly. The goal at a networking dinner was never the food, it was the two or three conversations that turn into a next step.
Order something light if you must order at all, keep your hands free, and let the kitchen do its job while you do yours. Show up fed, stay sharp, and treat the actual eating as something you handled hours ago, on your own time.
Details: The steakhouse where the rule applies · 200 Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78701
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