sent a cold message to someone two levels above me on LinkedIn and they actually replied within the hour

Almost didn't send it, drafted the message four different times and kept deleting it because it felt like a big ask for someone I'd never talked to. Kept it short in the end, just what I was working on and one specific question about their team. Got a reply in under an hour, way more casual than I expected, and it turned into a fifteen minute call the next week. Nothing's landed yet but I stopped assuming cold outreach was a waste of time.