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My Year in San Francisco’s $2M Secret Society Startup
- markwaldron 11y agoGreat read! Now I so badly want to be apart of a secret society
- dcschelt 11y agoIt's a bit of a long read, but well worth it IMO.
- izak30 11y agoYou can always be the (secret) society you want to see.
- GirlProgrammer 11y agoBecome an Erlang programmer!
- cperciva 11y agoYou mean you're not part of one? But all the rest of us are...
- btilly 11y agoI'm pretty sure I am. But which one is a secret even from me!
- brudgers 11y agoLARP'ing Foucault's Pendulum was all I couldn't help but think...and hoping it would get to the Rosicrucians. The lessons about social networks made it all worthwhile, though, I guess.
- cowabungabruce 11y agoThis is Jeff Hull's follow up to the Jejune Institute, which I was lucky to have participated in and you can see a documentary on it called "The Institute".
- CPLX 11y agoBetween this and the Trump campaign's success I'm increasingly certain we are living in a Hunger Games prequel.
- lydialaurenson 11y agoHi! I'm the article author. AMA :)
- josh2600 11y agoWhen you think about the governance of cults, do you think the latitude society could've worked if the authors had been upfront about their intentions from day 1? That is to say, if the invitation had said "we are building a secret society for the elite", would that have sufficiently filtered the population such that monetization would've been possible? I'm thinking of this from the perspective of startups which have a false freemium narrative vs companies which monetize from day 1. User acquisition would've been harder, but each user would've crossed a wider moat to entry.
- lydialaurenson 11y agoMIT Sloan has a great article about converting visitors into subscribers that I think is arguably relevant here: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/turning-content-viewers-into-subscribers/ http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/turning-content-viewers-i... I think that if you're trying to build a product that you want to charge for, then it's worth signaling that aggressively from the beginning (building what they call the "ladder" in that article). That said, Latitude did send some signals (e.g. the Marketplace section on the website, etc). But of course, it was challenging to balance that with the whole invitation-only "you are special" mythos. I think that it would also have been possible to announce the monetization plan differently, with more tiers of engagement, and more explicit levels of "earning" a free membership. There was only one paid membership option, which was hundreds of dollars. The company could also have pursued a totally different plan -- like finding a fiscal sponsor and applying for grants. Nonprofits have a higher survival rate than startups, and their art was so unique and beautiful, I think it could have had potential for major grant support. This would have required a major shift in approach though (and probably staffing, too).
- daodedickinson 11y agoWhat kind of grants? I think using public funds for a private secret society could be quite controversial.
- fvrghl 11y agoI submitted this yesterday. I thought HN didn't allow recently submitted articles? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11240405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11240405
- dcschelt 11y agoI actually submitted this 13 hours ago, not 1 hour ago. Take a look at my profile. Curiously, the front page shows 1 hour. Regardless of that discrepancy, fvrghl's post was still prior to mine, as it's from a day ago. I'm not sure what's going on with the time stamps.
- dcschelt 11y agoCheck that. 17 hours ago. Still doesn't explain my ability to submit the link.
- striking 11y ago"Interesting" posts that don't make it to the front page are sometimes revived. I once received an email asking me to resubmit a link to something considered interesting, as part of a kind of trial for whether it should be the norm on HN. The behavior is now built in, so you don't need to interact with the system for your link to come back if it's "interesting".
- brudgers 11y agoMy understanding is that HN's moderation involves some discretion.
- eghad 11y agoThe Longread from last September on The Latitude's expansion into a startup was pretty solid foreshadowing: http://blog.longreads.com/2015/09/24/we-value-experience-can-a-secret-society-become-a-business/ http://blog.longreads.com/2015/09/24/we-value-experience-can...
- archagon 11y agoWhat an interesting article. To me, it illuminates two things: the desire for that child-like sense of depth and mystery that many of us still look for in our everyday lives, and the tendency for Silicon Valley money to turn everything it touches into a slide-deck-laden commercial enterprise. Sadly, as much as I love the idea, I see the same thing happening with venture-funded cooperative living arrangements. When I was studying in Berkeley, I lived in a student-run co-op house. We were the wardens of our creaky 1920s manor: we did all the cleaning, made repairs, painted (and mural-ed) the walls, did some remodeling, picked out the furniture. Even membership was decided collectively. As a result, the community we had was an emergent property of our environment, and it created friendships that have lasted for the past decade. Sitting in the overgrown backyard garden or watching the glimmering city lights from the roof, I felt immersed in a world of beauty and mystery for the first time in many years. Lately, I've been seeing a lot of co-living/"nomad house" startups being posted to HN. You see photos of beautiful houses all around the world; fancy toys in full-size entertainment dungeons; attractive young people all working on their latest business venture. But I can't escape the feeling that all of this exists in that same corporate Neverland described in the article. Venture capital runs through the blood of these communities. They exist to make money. They don't own the houses. They don't get to decide their own fate. It's all a petri dish carefully designed from an office building somewhere in the Financial District. As a result, when a true community does manage to take hold in this sort of artificial ether, it becomes all the more agonizing when corporate decides to pull the plug on you. If only the incentives were aligned; if only corporate didn't "really needed to monetize" the venture... Maybe these sorts of spiritually-significant projects (and I do include the Latitude Society in this) simply don't work when run as a conventional business. And yet, there's clearly a deep desire for them to exist.
- spaceflunky 11y agoDon't fool yourself, the student run co-ops are no different from the venture capital that runs any other co-living/"nomad house" you speak of. Because, in a way, the student is the "start-up" and the money paid for tuition is "venture capital," put up in hopes to see an ROI, in terms of money or societal contribution, from the student. Speaking as a former UC Berkeley Cloyne co-oper, I've seen a handful of former co-opers try to transition the "magic" of the USCA into normal life. They failed because the reality is that American society doesn't it lend itself well to collectivism and the lack of capital needed build a functioning co-op. Sure the student co-ops ran great when everyone is unattached, uninhibited, young dumb, full of cum, and fueled by venture capital (e.g. student loans, scholarships, etc). But once you pull all that out, the wheels fall off the cart pretty quick.
- iokevins 11y agoSeems like the video indicates Nonchalance used a projector, to animate the fable, on the book pages...or was it something more exotic (?) Kind of hard to see. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAazLmTcmb0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAazLmTcmb0
- hamiltonchan 11y agoLooks like a projector to me too, based on the lighting at the end. Would have been really cool if it was a Harry Potter e-ink invention. Too bad...
- izak30 11y agoYeah, it's a projector. pre-recorded projection mapping, custom electronics as a triggering mechanism. Automation for the projector and underlying computer. flask-socketio + Chrome for the media player. You saw what the article was claiming was the total budget right? If we had done "mischief managed" levels of wizardry on that budget you would have heard about a very different aspect of what we did.
- izak30 11y agoAhoy! I just stumbled on this. I was the Director of Technology for this set of local bizareness for its last two years. I won't say "I'm happy to answer any questions" because I may avoid some. If you want to ask, maybe hit me up, Especially the tech, especially if you got to play and have a good idea of what we were doing. Also! I think I'm signed up to give a talk in May at ADG. If you're interested in this sort of world-building, and the hacker side of it; maybe come to that? My talk isn't on the shedule yet, but it's penciled in (and Definitely go to Catherine Herdlick's if you can!) http://www.meetup.com/Adventure-Design-Group/ http://www.meetup.com/Adventure-Design-Group/
- kbhn 11y agoThanks for stopping by! What was the most memorable moment of the whole experience for you?
- izak30 11y agoYou mean the experience of running tech for a "secret society" or of my going through the immersive/interactive experiences?
- partisan 11y agoAt this pace, those secrets that were just welling up inside you won't ever make it out. Why not just answer one or both of those since either one would prove to be interesting to the readers you've hooked with your original post.
- tlrobinson 11y agoAttempting to scale a "secret society" has extremely obvious problems...
- daodedickinson 11y agoMaybe he should have gone for the religious angle and tried to get non-profit status.
- cm2187 11y agoFreemasonry is achieving this pretty well. I can count the number of movies that make a reference to freemasonry on my fingers with a single hand. In fact I am surprised it was not mentioned in any of the comments or the article.
- runjake 11y agoI would not classify Freemasonry as a secret society. Freemasonry wants new members and while recruiting is (supposed to be) a big no-no, being visible (preferably while bettering your community) is encouraged. The appearance of symbols in movies and other media are somewhat like rickrolling or "masons were here" tagging, intended for other masons. An allusion to the "We Are Everywhere" motto which is intended well, but ends up sounding ominous to outsiders. There are appendant bodies within Freemasonry that certainly are secret societies. Even secret from most Masons. Some Googleable (eg. J-----rs), some not. I can answer more specific questions here, if desired. They have their own legends, symbols, and modes of recognition. Some of these are as small as a few people, and some are worldwide. Source: Am one. Edit: I should mention that this is all from my perspective in the US. European Freemasonry works substantially differently and I'm not familiar with perceptions and processes there. Thanks cm2187
- cm2187 11y agoThings might be more transparent in the US, but in Europe, freemasonry: - only recruits by co-option - membership and activities are secret - medias pretty much observe a remarkable silence / lack of curiosity on their activities Now I am not sure what are the exact criteria to call an organisation secret but it ticks the box to me.
- draw_down 11y agoDoes this seem... incredibly lame?
- smartician 11y agoFunny how polarizing it is. The elitism, faux secrecy and utter pointlessness of this just ticks me off (along with the other criticism mentioned in the article), but some people, including the author, seem to gobble this up like candy.
- davidw 11y agoTo me it all seems like another planet from that of 'ordinary people' with a house and kids and hobbies. To each their own, I guess.
- munchbunny 11y agoIt's a power fantasy. There's an "in group" and through various mechanisms, it's perceived to be a concentration of power. Some people want to be on the right side of the line, while others actively distrust any organization that advertises the power fantasy behind a hidden agenda, or think it's childish, or both. My view is that there's no harm in indulging this power fantasy if it's just a game, but when you try to merge it into your everyday life, you're playing with fire. Secrecy begets exclusivity and intentional power imbalance, and society as a whole needs less of both.
- beeboop 11y agoI am a huge cynic and probably one of the first people to agree with a post like yours, but I really have to disagree. I saw very little power dynamic going on from what I read. There was a level of mysteriousness in that some people knew a lot more than others, but seemingly a large part of this project was experiencing the discovery and exploration of the project. Hence the reason when the author asked a ton of questions, the guy replied "I could tell you, but do you really want to know?". It was seemingly a large art project. Some people were "in the know" because projects like this require the full time work of several people. You exclude as many people as possible because it ruins the illusion that people enjoy. Your post may as well criticize Disney World for being a power fantasy because they don't allow park visitors behind the scenes.
- lsiebert 11y agoI never got an invite to this. I started working in the city two weeks before the shut down, so perhaps this is for the best. But I have gone to: A game of space ships on the frontier and brown coats, using Nerf Guns, run in a Dungeon. A game of cosmopolitan monsters with a 20+ year history of play in countries around the world. A private performance space, where I've met amazing friends: amazing people, magicians, performers, stars of world renowned shows, artists, gamers, cyber security wizards, and more. Community organized get togethers for Metafilter users. Secret Meetups for Ingress Users. I'm sure there are more things that nobody has invited me to, I mean there is underground, and there is the center of the earth, but I would imagine that Latitude is only the tip of the iceberg, a single cavern in a vast but hidden space.
- mathattack 11y agoIn my younger days when I lived in SF, I felt that most of the fun in the city was in it's subcultures and underground societies. The city officially closed very early 11 or 12, and then the "other" took over. I'm glad that it's not dead yet.
- seanp2k2 11y agoSame thing with the music scene in the Bay Area. There are tons of underground parties happening behind plain doors and in warehouses all over if you're part of the announcement groups on Facebook / group chat programs / info lines. Breaking into it isn't too hard but can take a few weeks of effort. The best way is, of course, to talk to someone already part of that scene and have them show you around :)
- Fomite 11y agoThis feels very much like the kind of thing that could have benefitted from an endowment, rather than a monetization strategy.
- Animats 11y agoIt's sounds like a well-produced LARP. Like Escape Room.[1] It wasn't really a society. It was a startup pretending to be one. With today's high real estate costs, it's hard to do anything like this in the physical world. People no longer rent storefronts as clubhouses, or set up social organizations which own their own buildings. Hacker Dojo morphed from a hacker space to a commercial co-working startup for that reason. [1] http://realescapegame.com/pzrsf/ http://realescapegame.com/pzrsf/
- izak30 11y agoI'd disagree with your assumption that it wasn't a real society. Maybe it wasn't really secret, maybe it wasn't...something or other; but that was, and for many many people, is, real. It might be more apt to say that it was a society pretending to be a startup. Pretend is almost always the wrong word when anybody in the room takes it seriously.
- pilingual 11y agoHacker Dojo morphed from a hacker space to a commercial co-working startup for that reason. This is false. Hacker Dojo is a non-profit, and many members and those on the board are passionate about its future. The Dojo has the best rates in the Bay Area ($100 for non-work hours and $195 for 24/7 vs. $300 avg for SF/SV). There is a maker-space with a laser cutter on the way, and an electronics area that Woz only wishes existed back in his day. There are several events each day, including tech meetups and educational classes. Dojo rents out some of its space to bootcamps and startups. Why? To meet its fundraising goals. In May, Dojo will move from Mountain View to Santa Clara; however, several members are interested in buying a building in the next couple of years assuming commercial real estate experiences a down market. I assure you, there is nothing "commercial co-working startup" about it. It is and will continue to be a community-focused non-profit. The board members wouldn't allow otherwise.
- lsiebert 11y agoWait, what happened to the Laser Cutter that was there, that Carlos was training people on?
- FireBeyond 11y agoI'm curious. "I'm asked to surrender my possessions. So in go my iPhone and wallet"... and yet somehow there's photos of everything beyond that point.
- josephpmay 11y agoIn the end of the article he talks about how he went back and photographed everything after it shut down
- lydialaurenson 11y agoShe. She talks about it. ;)
- josephpmay 11y agooh, ouch. Sorry. And on international women's day :) Really great article, btw.
- lydialaurenson 11y agoThank you :)
- lydialaurenson 11y agoHi! I'm the article author. Praxis events were held in the same building as the slide, receiving room, etc. So I got the photos later, months after my initial Latitude experience.
- Dnguyen 11y agoInteresting read! I've always love new experiences and have been thinking of ways to share with people. Do you think instead of a single entity covering the cost, a group splitting the cost would make this idea lasts? For example, businesses that sponsor the society can get 3 invitations each to give to their top three customers. I'd love to brainstorm this if anyone in SoCal is interested.
- rmason 11y agoIs it just me or isn't this a case of a rich guy building his own cult? It either became too expensive or more likely he became bored with it and shut it down.
- daodedickinson 11y agoEh I don't he really believed in it enough for it to be a cult. It's sorta like that, I guess, but a bit half-hearted or at least three-quarter-hearted for a cult. It sounds like it was a cult for some people (the ones telling that story to their kids every night, for instance). Cults are fun, there's obviously a lot of demand for them among the atheists / logical workers of SF who have to live with so much boring truth all the time (e.g. the guy who says "I feel like much of my life is so focused on Doing The Thing that I don't take that kind of time very often. The feeling of warmth and excitement and sparkling eyes was really strong, and it formed a lot of my sense of what this group was and why it was meaningful.").
- ryandrake 11y agoAdmittedly only skimmed the article, but I missed exactly what this group actually did. Philanthropy? Community service? Multi-level marketing? What's the purpose of having some secret group that only exists to be secret and to be a group?
- developer2 11y agoI read the article from top to bottom, and these questions aren't exactly answered. I got the impression it was a group of mostly artistic types getting together for conversation, essentially bringing social networking back to the real world instead of through screens. How the hell this was supposed to be a "startup" that expected to grow into a profitable business is beyond me. In any case, Jeff Hull inherited many millions of dollars, blew a chunk of it on a personal pet project, and then had a hissy fit when he tried to monetize it and met resistance. Classic child-like behavior of inherited wealth, completely detached from the real world where the rest of us have to work hard to earn a pittance.
- rl3 11y ago>One member wrote later that “I was stunned, flabbergasted, to learn that a significant number of people don’t even bother taking that step. A friend sits you down, asks of you absolute discretion, and then gives you a mysterious card that, if activated, literally opens a door to a new world of adventure, and you DON’T EVEN USE IT? C’mon, people: Be better.” Maybe they could smell it was a lame transmedia project that was trying too hard to copy Eyes Wide Shut. I mean, any real-deal secret society is going to have rules that—when broken—result in membership revocation via way of tragic suicide. It's just not an authentic secret society experience without that constant spectre of death looming over each and every member. In all seriousness though, I enjoyed the article, and it's neat that most of the compelling narrative in the society ended up being user-generated. You also have to give its creators credit for trying something that far out in left field.
- brbsix 11y agoI wonder if people forget that there are plenty of legitimately secret societies like the sort you described (in just about any sufficiently large city in the world). They're called criminal enterprises. With few exceptions, I don't think most people on HN would enjoy being part of them. However I can certainly think of a few pleasant ones that reminisce the cryptic business card. Then I read on a bit further and realized we were just talking about a game.
- cm2187 11y agoI would have said rather copy "The Game"
- unclefishbits 11y agoI had at least 2 people who never did it because it felt like someone got high at burning man and tried too hard.
- moridinamael 11y agoHumans ruin everything.
- indubitably 11y agorich people with too much free time
- bikamonki 11y agoThe first time I saw a game of MTG I was instantly hooked. 20 years ago on my way to class I saw some guys playing the game and I stood there watching for a while. I was invited to play and that was it. Played for a few hours, skipped class, walked away with a deck, skipped many, many more classes thereon. Nothing had ever wrapped me in such a way, a delicious combination of fantasy, role playing, strategy, wits and beautiful art. I played the game for many years and even now when I seldom run into my collection (now forgotten in a closet) I remember that first feeling and get a sudden urge to go build a deck. Yet the magic faded until it died, it did when I started to see the business behind it, the artificial scarcity, the product cycle, the content adjustments to target new generations of players, the manipulation, the rules aimed to sell more. The business killed the feeling. I suppose the same thing happened to many Latitude members: they were exposed to a crude reality check (pay to play) which killed the fantasy. It is a big question for all startups: how to not kill that initial true value once you need to monetize.
- rhaps0dy 11y agoWould that pay-to-play feeling have been less bad if the cult had been a nonprofit?
- bikamonki 11y agoA nonprofit? Makes no sense. A business is fine. The problem is when the business crosses that thin line and it becomes too aggressive in its profit-seeking. In MTG the game stopped being a casual thing and it became a competition (regulated and very profitable). To compete one needs powerful cards which become quite expensive due to its power and scarcity (which is artificial b/c many more could be printed). The original cult changed then, forever. Social networks do the same. FB for instance, it did deliver value at the beginning. It was super useful and innovative to get and keep in touch with fam and friends. Then the brands came, then ads flooded. That killed the original value. I closed my FB account and no value was lost b/c nobody in my circle is using it anymore for that original purpose. In fact, I regained value (time and privacy). Now we share on Whatsapp groups (which I am sure will soon be flooded with brands and ads in order to make back the billions). We'll move our sharing to something else.
- vespergo 11y agoWow, I'm glad I have so many better hobbies than this.. This seems like a sad state of affairs to me.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- acjohnson55 11y agoWhy not just join Scientology? Seems like it scratches may of the same itches.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoVery interesting. Im only halfway through so this is a pre-comment: Anyone interested in this sort of immersive experience needs to watch The Game with Michael Douglass. Skip the trailer and its spoilers. Just watch it. It's like this but better. Preempted the appearance of such things you might say.
- andyidsinga 11y agoMr penumbras 24 hour bookstore
- dnr 11y agoHah, I just read that a few weeks ago and that's the first thing I thought of also. I wonder if the author was a member/participant in this.
- thatfrenchguy 11y agoSo, it's like normal social interactions in something that look like a club or a non-profit but done by a private company that watch you all the time ? That sounds to me like something for people that lack actual interesting social groups...
- ethanbond 11y agoOf course it is. That's why it's in San Francisco run by techies.
- bencollier49 11y agoThis reminds me of "Visit Port Watson". Similar purpose, similar execution.
- kjstevo 11y agoI don't know why but the author's experience and description of the scene reminded me a lot of Myst and how I felt the first time I ever played it. I envy anyone who is fortunate enough to experience even a portion of that IRL.
- dovdov 11y agohipster D&D
- dovdov 11y agohipster D&D
- thehooplehead 11y agoThe initial description of the library had me thinking of 'the Man Who Was Thursday', a book which includes its own absurd secret society. Also, anyone interested in real-world social games might enjoy Journey to the End of the Night (http://ichaseyou.com/ http://ichaseyou.com/). It's not a secret society, but it shares some elements of roaming through your city, playing a game with strangers, and creating your own adventures.
- lydialaurenson 11y ago+1 for Journey. It's awesome. The person who runs it, Thomas Lotze, was also a Society member and is quoted in my article.
- lydialaurenson 11y agoAlmost forgot to tell you all -- I wrote a followup and FAQ on one of my blogs here: http://lydialaurenson.com/my-new-article-in-vice-about-san-franciscos-startup-secret-society/ http://lydialaurenson.com/my-new-article-in-vice-about-san-f... (For those who haven't seen my previous comments, hi, I'm the article author! Thanks for reading!)
- ElComradio 11y agoThis article felt much like reading a pitch for a MLM scheme.
- unclefishbits 11y agoJust sharing my experience: I wasn't in search of it, but I'm known as a creative and energetic guy that loves fun and am totally curious, etc. I am 100% the target market, except that I am 40. A younger guy involved with The Institute film gave me a key. I alone found it charming. I didn't take it seriously. For fun, I thought to invite some friends. I think 6? Every single one of them had a weird experience where people took it far, FAR too seriously. I, at one point, had to accompany a good friend and his young girlfriend, at night, in the rain, in a foreign city to them. When I was going up the stairs to the final room, some people high on fake power and taking the whole thing FAR too seriously gave us a chilling and somewhat disturbing lecture about how serious it is for people to do it on their own, etc. It was unbelievably absurd, and destroyed all the simple charm. I abandoned it after that. When delightful ideas try way too hard... it vacates the intent.
- KannO 11y agoHmm.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
- unclefishbits 11y agoJust sharing my experience: I wasn't in search of it, but I'm known as a creative and energetic guy that loves fun and am totally curious, etc. I am 100% the target market, except that I am 40. A younger guy involved with The Institute film gave me a key. I alone found it charming. I didn't take it seriously. For fun, I thought to invite some friends. I think 6? Every single one of them had a weird experience where people took it far, FAR too seriously. I, at one point, had to accompany a good friend and his young girlfriend, at night, in the rain, in a foreign city to them. When I was going up the stairs to the final room, some people high on fake power and taking the whole thing FAR too seriously gave us a chilling and somewhat disturbing lecture about how serious it is for people to do it on their own, etc. It was unbelievably absurd, and destroyed all the simple charm. I abandoned it after that. When delightful ideas try way too hard... it vacates the intent.