Seems like a modern-day Haight Ashbury. In a good way.
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This is simply a club with a slightly unique theme. Nothing wrong with that, not much different from a group of folks who get together to kick a soccer ball around on the weekend. Ms. Sanghvi is the organizer, so it's her club, and people will spend time there if they find it amusing and/or beneficial. At a minimum it is an interesting experiment. The financial and development time barriers to entry into many tech business areas is so low now that it can be compared to writing novels, so maybe a Gertrude Stein approach has value.
Is this a parody? Who? Check. What? Dunno. Some kind place for hanging out whilst searching searching for the next tech thing that will satisfy the lost soul but be fabulously remunerative? Where? Check. Why? A mystery. Can't these lost souls just go to a Starbucks? There are snacks there. How? By collaborating? Also known as talking?
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Sad to see South Park go the way of the tech bros.
And what problem, or desired solution is this Commons seeking? Unlike a French Salon, or the Bloomsbury group, this is no group of artists intent on creative expression - in art or literature - I hope they are not pretending that tech is avant garde art - even if we I include the Facebooks, Ubers of the world as 'tech ' even if they merely connect people with commerce, but enable no new goods or services - nothing new made or entertainment content created - the only outcome - is socializing place for people who have already made a lot of money to find others who might help them find more money. Sort of of like a prospector in this another Gold Rush of California paying for tips by getting other miners drunk, so that they may spill their secrets information on new finds -'a tiny percentage' as it is called here.
the first Gold Rush brought a lot of people seeking fortunes into California, but didnt fundamentally advance the economy - which still needs folks to make stuff, new content, not just keep trading on ads on it - think this boom is going ot be different ?
the first Gold Rush brought a lot of people seeking fortunes into California, but didnt fundamentally advance the economy - which still needs folks to make stuff, new content, not just keep trading on ads on it - think this boom is going ot be different ?
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Now I can sleep again with my worries about these people off my mind. So glad they are off the street...
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Bless them, every one. One can't help but be charmed by the infatuation these folks have with their series of ones and zeros. They even have a quiz show machine. I'm reminded of my chuckles back when Marvin Minsky was attempting to teach a machine to recognize triangles. The thing is, they haven't done anything. They haven't found out anything. But they mean well.
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"Ms. Sanghvi recruits people to the Commons solely by word of mouth, and they join merely by showing up and contributing a few hundred dollars in dues, to pay for items like coffee, snacks and paper towels and to fund regular events at the townhouse."
While I don't have anything against the overall concept of the place, if one goal is to draw as diverse a crowd as possible, I would suggest having alternate ways for people to join. Word-of-mouth has value but will likely result in the same group or types of people joining. Requiring a "few hundred bucks" membership will rule out those who are talented but can't afford that money: how about being able to "work" or "volunteer" your way into membership or having sliding scale/ limited scholarships? Re: Arthur's comment about geography: consider using platforms like Skype to reach people in rural areas for example.
Tech is not my field but I work in Silicon Valley in science and am somewhat familiar with the culture.
While I don't have anything against the overall concept of the place, if one goal is to draw as diverse a crowd as possible, I would suggest having alternate ways for people to join. Word-of-mouth has value but will likely result in the same group or types of people joining. Requiring a "few hundred bucks" membership will rule out those who are talented but can't afford that money: how about being able to "work" or "volunteer" your way into membership or having sliding scale/ limited scholarships? Re: Arthur's comment about geography: consider using platforms like Skype to reach people in rural areas for example.
Tech is not my field but I work in Silicon Valley in science and am somewhat familiar with the culture.
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While I have sympathy for all americans trying to become professionals in such an unprofessional business climate as the one we have today, where open exploitation is expected and discarding of talent is built into the "business" model, at some point we need to turn our attention away from these bright young digital things hovering around the Bay Area and realize that the money they're all making (or not) isn't trickling down, and they aren't looking to establish businesses that employ people — it's all a very long dawn out, get rich quick scheme for the physically attractive, well connected, west coast versions of Jared and Ivanka. Meanwhile in the other 49 states (especially in the Midwest and South) a lot of people from the same generation, with just as much gray matter, but not enough chic, are wasting away, a lost generation cut off from opportunity by an american education system that is not only based on traditional snobbery, but has enshrined the sort of "business" model as parlour game for the well connected and over credentialed that silicon valley represents— A casino where it doesn't really matter if you loose your shirt, because only the wealthy are playing.
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Jobs and Wozniak started Apple in a garage, Elon Musk started his first company with a $2000.00 loan from his father. The nerds that created silicone valley are not the beautiful well connected people that you seem to despise. They are brillian,t capable, hardworking people and they come from all walks of life and every country in the world.
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It's irrational and unfair to accuse me of despising people I am simply rationally criticizing. Criticizing their vanity, and our educational system that massages it. Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were un-self-serving. Not so much the people currently in Washington. So yes, Jobs and Wozniak - role models, but Silicon Valley accelerated culturally much faster than DC, but in a parallel fashion we find whatever was, no longer is. I'm not ruling out some sort of burst of initiative from Silican Valley that might make it relevant to the national evolution at some point in the future. But for now, as current news stories in this paper (and not my comments) show — it's a who you now and who you blow world out there and those are the driving sources behind it's "development". Remember "Those jobs aren't coming back." Told so coldly and uncaringly to President Obama? Apple lost it's relevance to America then. It's an international entity which doesn't seek to employ americans or pay taxes here. That's legal, but it leaves the nation in need of another zeitgeist. It isn't on the horizon yet, but the business leaders of Silicon Valley don't want to lead the country, they want to own the world. Those two things may ultimately prove mutually exclusive. Or not.
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