The argument is that a well-chosen dinner table beats any amount of conference networking, and most of the book is the logistics of that: who to invite, how many, what to ask, who pays.
The useful mechanic is curation. The value is not the host, it is that the guests want to meet each other, and the host’s only real job is getting that combination right and then staying out of the way.
It is transactional in places in a way I found off-putting. The underlying observation about small rooms is right.
Read January 2015.