Hacker Dojo is pure HACKER. From the outside looks like it could once have been an auto body shop, with garage doors replaced by floor-to-ceiling windows.
When the sun is about to set, it sits in Waymo’s shadow. It’s surrounded by a Google satellite except for a nearly identical building across the parking lot with garage doors still intact.
And it’s raising money to move.
Word at the front desk is that its lease expires next year, and the building will be knocked down to make room for Google sprawl; someone else says high-rent condos. For now, it just happens to be a dwindling light industrial park that isn’t full-on Big Tech.
But Hacker Dojo is growing, or plans to: it’s raising money to move to the next place, perhaps with 10,000 square feet instead of 7,000; two classrooms instead of one. It doesn’t matter what Google will do.
One evening this week, there’s a Python class in the one classroom and in the main area Bill Lennan is teaching a system with a script that’s built to overcome friction in communication.
He’s up front wearing a colorful polo shirt with a tulip-like pattern; it had been washed a few too many times to tell with precision. His grin was imperfectly unmistakable; his head was neatly shaved; weathered skin and a few wrinkles hinted at decades of Valley experience.
He propped up his laptop and… heh, isn't it great when technology works.
This place is SO HACKER: One guy is scribbling notes about something, a few others tapping at their laptops. A handful look up. They sat in identical swivel chairs with orange perforated backs, behind plastic-topped, nearly white bench desks.
A strip of blue lights glowed against the foam ceiling tiles; monitors and unplugged cables were strewn about.
Engineers need to network. Pitch. Persuade… the system even helps with dating. It’s flawed beliefs and mental models that hold you back.
This is part of a progressive system. You’re trying to get the variables as much in your favor as possible.
And here’s the system…
Write questions on an index card. Go to Starbucks. Take 5-10 exhales. Order a drink, even just water. Ask the barista how their day is going. Respond with I hope your day is going well. Then congratulate yourself to set the habit.
That’s one rep. Enough reps…When I’ve run the script 1,000 times, I know how it turns out.
Level up from five minutes to fifteen. Then to thirty. At that level, you don’t just ask questions. You also talk about yourself.
Then, count off and let’s practice. Time for Level 1… start up that script.
How are you doing today? What brought you here? What do you hope to get out of it?
It took about a minute for Level 1 to get off track. A 20-something engineer was BAKED. I don’t do this all the time, but I was SO focused and I needed a break. A bit of banter, then he said to the other guy: you have the ‘tism… I know it.
A few ‘90s-looking arcade machines are grouped a dozen steps from Hacker Dojo's front door. They’re the kind that run retro games like Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat.
The rising millennial tech aristocracy recalls them fondly; to the Gen Z hackers, they’re just retro.
Tonight, starting at seven and running (officially) until twelve, it’s Friday game night. Ping pong balls click back and forth in the background; a few curious newcomers wander in. The sign by a global map says drop a pin at your origin.
The classroom is past the bench tables and swivel chairs. The table by the classroom door is EXPLODING with board games. The woman at the front desk says we keep on getting more donated.
Jake, who had a scraggly blonde half-beard, was in the back setting up Werewolf it’s kind of like Mafia but much faster; the guy across the table was wrapping up something on his laptop. You need five people before playing.
It was 7:45; within a few minutes, the table had eight. And the board game room was PACKED with board gamers. Voices drowned each other out.
Jake says this app hasn’t really kept up but it works; the round cardboard chips on the table are just conversation starters. This is mental hell for the naive newcomer.
But so says Jake… after a game you’ll get the hang of it. Another Werewolf veteran: it took me two or three turns to figure it out.
This is the board game room way: Do you want in? There are no scores; come and go as you please.
People can join until the table gets too congested; we’ll split after the next round.
So how do you play? The easiest outcome is to kill a werewolf. Jake taps a button in the app that looks like it isn’t working, but it is, and it starts talking.
Close your eyes. If you’re a hunter, open them… villager… seer… hunter… mason… witch… werewolf. An honest game of Werewolf is by design NOT honest. I think she’s the werewolf, no he his, who are you actually…?
I think the werewolves are colluding.
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