Not my cup of tea

I went to Yes & over the weekend and it was disappointing. I was drawn in by:

The theory was, if you get a group of smart, engaged individuals together in the right place that great things would happen.

Sadly, the conference was not that.

I was expecting more of a Strange Loop experience. Something is a far away place where each interaction leaves me thinking, pondering, and expanded.

Instead, Yes & is a big, fun partay.

If you'd like to hang out in the pool, get drunk, share new strains of medical marijuana, and go to a fun prom with all the hipsters from the Mission, Brooklyn, LA, and Portlandia, Yes & is the place to be.

Everybody I met was friendly and nice. But I had very few substantive conversations. I can't think of a conversation, a session, an interaction that left me thinking and pondering.

So, I left early. I rented a car and drove back home to the pets.

None of this is to say that the Yes & organizers didn't produce a hell of a partay. But if I'm going to spend days with a bunch of people rather than my kids, my pets, and my code, I want to learn and grow as a person. Yes & did not offer much of that for me.

The other thing that really hit home is how "Hollywood" the tech industry has become. So much of the conversation at Yes & was about who knew who rather than substance. Taking meetings and going to wild parties in Palm Springs was a Hollywood, 1960s thing... it is the mid-century modern that partially spawned the personal computer revolution as a rebellion... because the personal computer gave the individual control... so going to a wild partay in Palm Springs and talking to people who just need to get a meeting with the right producerVC to pitch their scriptstart-up made me very sad at a deep, core level.