I had the same experience when I moved back to the Bay Area. I made a serious effort to find meetups and connect with hacker spaces, etc. Most of them were veil

I had the same experience when I moved back to the Bay Area. I made a serious effort to find meetups and connect with hacker spaces, etc. Most of them were veiled product pitches or fishing for developers to hire. Also, some of the meetups had people obviously looking for ideas to take. Really turned off by all of it and quit going out. When even TechShop went bankrupt I realized that the "scene" was long gone. All the eccentrics and wizards seem to be gone. It's all just crass transactional factory workers. Last contract I was surrounded by people who talked about the entire line of Audi and BMW sedans, but had zero interest in any ideas.