the startup world is becoming inundated with people who just want to sell stuff to startup founders
He's part of the parallel universe in silicon valley (physically, and in spirit) of people who hold seminars, arrange mixers, make blogs, write twitter posts, and generally act as a big sideshow and social group for 2nd rate startups and their entourages.
It's a surreal place filled with the same people at every event (and linked on every blog or re-tweeted on every tweet) who seem like they must be important, but aren't.
Sometimes worlds collide and Tim Ferris does a talk at Google (or TED - WTF?) or Tara Hunt doles out free beer at a conference room at Yahoo!...
In my experience unless your girlfriend is working for one of their boutique PR firms you can safely avoid everything about this world.
I'm coming to do a geek/startup tour of silicon valley... can you recommend any events/groups that don't suck? Because what you're describing sounds pretty similar to the worst of our local networking groups, and I get really irritated when I show up for one and its a bunch of guys trying to sell me management consulting and a 'startup' speaker that made millions selling used hardware.
It's hard for me to recommend anything, because I don't feel like I've gotten much out of the good events I've gone to. I'm not really an event guy. I'd probably be more useful in the negative for particular cases, like "that one sucks - definitely DON'T go to that one." Also - I haven't gone to any of these things for almost a year.
That said, SuperHappyDevHouse is the only event that is genuinely hacker oriented. Some of the particular tech specific meetups I've been to have had good presentations.
If you really want to network it's probably best to figure out where your favorite startups go out to drink beer on Fridays. If you're looking for hackerish, generally interesting things to do, events like Maker Faire are pretty good.
So you wouldn't recommend the entrepreneur educational events Stanford organizes? The tech stuff we have here, somewhat, although I'll be there for the Hadoop Summit. Was hoping to get a glimpse into people making all these connections that the valley is supposed to offer a startup.
Gonna catch an open coffee, but still looking for things to do relating to startup/biz side of things. I'm not looking to network for anything in particular so much as get a good sense of the environment.
But you're saying that cocktail hour by Blanko.com would not be a great networking event as it would be characterized by wanton douschebaggery? I'm trying to catch some of those too, just to experience them.
Sorry to pick your brain, but I'm 'exploring' valley/provincial market differences for fun.
Since you seem to know Andrew so well, how do you explain that he lives in Santa Monica and does most of his interviews over Skype? Really though, if you spent some time on mixergy.com you might appreciate what he does instead of blindly judging Andrew.
Comments
the startup world is becoming inundated with people who just want to sell stuff to startup founders
He's part of the parallel universe in silicon valley (physically, and in spirit) of people who hold seminars, arrange mixers, make blogs, write twitter posts, and generally act as a big sideshow and social group for 2nd rate startups and their entourages.
It's a surreal place filled with the same people at every event (and linked on every blog or re-tweeted on every tweet) who seem like they must be important, but aren't.
Sometimes worlds collide and Tim Ferris does a talk at Google (or TED - WTF?) or Tara Hunt doles out free beer at a conference room at Yahoo!...
In my experience unless your girlfriend is working for one of their boutique PR firms you can safely avoid everything about this world.
I'm coming to do a geek/startup tour of silicon valley... can you recommend any events/groups that don't suck? Because what you're describing sounds pretty similar to the worst of our local networking groups, and I get really irritated when I show up for one and its a bunch of guys trying to sell me management consulting and a 'startup' speaker that made millions selling used hardware.
It's hard for me to recommend anything, because I don't feel like I've gotten much out of the good events I've gone to. I'm not really an event guy. I'd probably be more useful in the negative for particular cases, like "that one sucks - definitely DON'T go to that one." Also - I haven't gone to any of these things for almost a year.
That said, SuperHappyDevHouse is the only event that is genuinely hacker oriented. Some of the particular tech specific meetups I've been to have had good presentations.
If you really want to network it's probably best to figure out where your favorite startups go out to drink beer on Fridays. If you're looking for hackerish, generally interesting things to do, events like Maker Faire are pretty good.
So you wouldn't recommend the entrepreneur educational events Stanford organizes? The tech stuff we have here, somewhat, although I'll be there for the Hadoop Summit. Was hoping to get a glimpse into people making all these connections that the valley is supposed to offer a startup.
Gonna catch an open coffee, but still looking for things to do relating to startup/biz side of things. I'm not looking to network for anything in particular so much as get a good sense of the environment.
Oh, actually that kind of thing sounds cool. I just haven't been. Stanford is great and is worth going to an event there if you're in the area.
But you're saying that cocktail hour by Blanko.com would not be a great networking event as it would be characterized by wanton douschebaggery? I'm trying to catch some of those too, just to experience them.
Sorry to pick your brain, but I'm 'exploring' valley/provincial market differences for fun.
Which groups suck? :)
I'd suggest Startup2Startup that's held in Palo Alto.
I attended the most recent one while I was out in the valley, and I thought it was really good.
Thanks, I wish I'd caught Steve Blank's talk, reading his book right now.
I like the cut of your jib.
Since you seem to know Andrew so well, how do you explain that he lives in Santa Monica and does most of his interviews over Skype? Really though, if you spent some time on mixergy.com you might appreciate what he does instead of blindly judging Andrew.
Have you ever actually met Andrew?
nope.
"Those who can Do. Those who cannot Teach" (or Blog).
"Where ends Performance, starts Appearance"