tl;dr: The author credits three major life changes—getting into CMU off the waitlist, landing an early job at GitHub, and becoming a soccer club owner—to cold outreach, while acknowledging survivorship bias since he can't remember the countless cold emails that went nowhere. His takeaway: cold outreach is worth doing if you're genuine and respectful, and on the receiving end, it's worth paying forward by staying open to unsolicited pitches and resumes.