I think it’s a bit awkward for a cold-call email to open with telling me how awesome you are.

You probably are. You’re probably more successful than me. You’re probably smarter and richer and more innovative. But telling me that puts me on guard. Now I’m all like ok whatever good for you.

This particular email went on to tell me about an article one of their employees wrote that they think is good and wanted to share. I can’t go into it fresh anymore. I read the article, but it was tainted by me thinking about how awesome they think they are and all my mind could do was be critical about it. My bet is that if I went into it without all the pomp, I would have been way more open to the concepts in it.