Been thinking again about Sam Altman’s comments on co-working spaces, at the tail end of his Conversations With Tyler podcast: conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/sam-a
Conversation
It’s an interesting combination of a few obvious ideas:
1. Most (smart) people are mimetic.
2. You are the average of the 5 closest people around you.
3. Great ideas are fragile.
4. So … great ideas get crushed when you put a sufficiently large group of smart people together.
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I remember walking into an ‘incubator-with-coworking space’ three years ago (I won’t say which one, but it’s still running and is somewhat respected in SG) and realising that much of its pitch is “come join a community of smart ambitious people; startups aren’t so scary!” …
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And I remember thinking “well, if you need the safety of a community to start a company … maybe you shouldn’t?”
But like I said, they seem to be doing well, what do I know? 🤷♂️
Replying to
Also true. I've been to enough wework events to know what that vibe is like.
I used to go to a coworking space in an AMK industrial park which had small tech biz vibes. Everyone was successful in their own small way. No wantrepreneurs. No "change the world". Suited me.
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