I strongly suspect this is a gendered issue. The author is a woman. I am a woman. I have watched men be helpful to someone and have it come back to them as a professional connection. When I do the same thing, I seem to mostly get one of three responses: 1) romantic interest 2) the expectation that I should be helpful for free because, I guess, I am supposed to <i>care</i> about everyone in a motherly way (and most of the world seems to ascribe to an abusive Giving Tree mental model of motherhood) or 3) people stop speaking to me (I have opinions about some of the reasons for that, but this is not the place for that).<p>What I never seem able to establish is a &quot;I scratch your back, you scratch my back&quot; expectation of tit for tat professionally. The thoughts expressed in this article may not apply so much if you are male. Male helpfulness seems to be received differently in the business world than female helpfulness. For women reading this article, my opinion is that she makes some useful points, but it is probably incomplete without analyzing the role that gender plays here, which the article does not do.