Six months later, open the box and wonder how you could have so naively belabored the obvious. Drop in on meetings. The more important-looking, the better. If you see the board of directors in the conference room, or a group of senior managers, walk right in, apologize for being late and sit down in a free chair. Everyone will assume someone else invited you and you'll get to stay.
Most meetings conclude with the decision to have a follow-up meeting with all the same attendees.
Pay a visit to engineering. Tell them you're considering switching from a Mac to a PC and ask which version of Windows you should get. Ask if you can get Outlook to run on that. Startups pride themselves on their nonhierarchical organization. So even if you're the lowliest Web monkey, you can lunch with the chief executive.