6 ms·

Ask HN: Where do you go to meet interesting like minded people?

32 points by chunky1994 15y ago

This could be a website, an actual location, anything! I'm curious to know where you first met your most interesting friends, and whether you still frequent that place!

xradionut 15y ago
Scour the local meetups that look interesting and research the age of the group and the average attendance. Contact frequent attendees and query them. I'm in a large metro area so there are professional, hobby, social and sporting/outdoor groups of all types. I've met folks from hikers, body builders, travelers, sci-fi readers, robotics enthusiasts, radio operators to MSSQL DBAs.
jrubinovitz 15y ago
I'm from the Philadelphia area, so I head to Philadelphia tech meet ups and more so hackathons lately now that I'm working and want to keep churning out side projects while meeting awesome people who, broadly put, like hacking. You still need to search out for the "interesting, like minded people", but I find they're worth it.
MichaelApproved 15y ago
http://Meetup.com http://Meetup.com
alfiejohn_ 15y ago
I've found that my local Perl Mongers was a great place to meet like minded people - http://www.pm.org/ http://www.pm.org/ for your closest one :)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
jakubmal 15y ago
Try attending local TEDx meeting: http://www.ted.com/tedx http://www.ted.com/tedx
monkeypizza 15y ago
I go to a local go (wei qi) club - it's full of guys who have a tendency to get obsessed by abstractions...
sneak 15y ago
Hacker News, Twitter, IRC. I follow a lot of people on Twitter and I have interesting tweets, and many follow me back. I have made several new offline friends this way. Some of my IRC friends from the 90s are some of my closest friends now, too. It's cool 'cause they're geographically distributed so I have people I'm tight with in almost every major country. Interestingly enough, one of my closest friends in my city I first "met" on the GNU Screen mailing list. I met him randomly at a conference here after moving and recognized his name. Also, local user groups are good places, too. PS: Freenode irc is full of dorks, but it's a good starting point. Try EFNet or one of the smaller hacker darknets (e.g. Buttes or hardchats or antisec/anonops) for the real motherfuckers.
dagw 15y ago
Usenet, back in the day, was a great place to meet awesome people. I still have several great friends whom I first got to know via usenet. Unfortunately usenet kind of died, and for some reason all the replacements that have shown up since are but a pale shadow of what usenet once was.
bigiain 15y ago
Burningman.
seclorum 15y ago
http://metalab.at/ http://metalab.at/ Its the only place I bother going for a good time here in Vienna ... ;)
- loungin 15y ago
  That is AWESOME! I've always wished for something like that where I live (currently Sacramento, CA USA) and had seriously considered starting something very much like that. Way cool that it has started somewhere already. Kudos! Want to know something more random? I happen to be in Wien right now on vacation :) Definitely going to check this out... edit: typo
- waru 15y ago
  That looks awesome. Is there a resource online to find all the start-up/tech incubators in Europe, or the world? I'll be traveling in Europe soon and would love to visit more places like this. Thank you!
  - seclorum 15y ago
    Get thee verily to http://hackerspaces.org/ http://hackerspaces.org/ !
    - waru 15y ago
      Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!
orphan 15y ago
Most of my longterm friends were either in or peripherally attached to the warez scene on efnet in the 90s.
leejw00t354 15y ago
Try www.meetup.com I joined some local startup meetups. I went to my first one a week ago and it was a really great experience. I was able to speak to like-minded people about my ideas to get feedback. I was also able to get marketing advise and listen to other interesting ideas people had
nosse 15y ago
My roommates at helsinki university of technology have been a real eye openers for me. I can't say they are really like minded, but interesting as hell. Roommates don't have to be just roommates, they can be great friends.
alex1 15y ago
School. If you're in college right now, and especially a top-tier university, try to meet as many people as possible. Don't miss this opportunity; your network will be invaluable once you're done with school. College is a great place to step out of your bubble and college admissions committees usually do a good job of putting a diverse group of interesting people in one place. Meet people from different backgrounds, countries, and majors. Even though you may not realize it now, you will one day need most of the people that you meet in school.
iamelgringo 15y ago
I started a meetup 4 years ago to solve this problem. It's turned into a startup of sorts: http://beta.hackersandfounders.com/faq/meetups/is-there-a-hackers-and-founders-in-my-area/ http://beta.hackersandfounders.com/faq/meetups/is-there-a-ha...
chriseidhof 15y ago
University, online (if you do interesting stuff people will find you), lots of meetups (mostly programming language related meetups), co-working spaces / shared offices and sometimes randomly in bars. Make sure you talk to a lot of people. Also: a lot of (most?) people are very interesting if you look well enough. Not everybody seems to be interesting, but once you get to know people well, they might surprise you.
monste9 15y ago
Public Access Unix Systems. sdf.lonestar.org is my favourite.
softbuilder 15y ago
In my experience "interesting" is often at odds with "like-minded".
johndbritton 15y ago
I've met tons of really interesting people while traveling. I Couch Surf with interesting strangers all over the world and some of them end up becoming very good friends. http://couchsurfing.org/people/johndbritton http://couchsurfing.org/people/johndbritton
arb 15y ago
Local hackerspace draws an eclectic crowd. Hardly like-minded in most ways, but always interesting. (http://tangleball.org.nz http://tangleball.org.nz) Networking through it also often leads to people from neighbouring groups, including artists, academics, entrepreneurs, politicians, activists and so on (many of whom might not self-identify as hackers/makers).
JonAtkinson 15y ago
This is very location-specific, but if you're in the north of the UK, the Geekup (http://geekup.org/ http://geekup.org/) network has been invaluable. It's a loose-knit group of groups, which usually meet in pubs and hold a few tech talks. The Geekup template would be easy to replicate elsewhere (it's essentially a site and a mailing list, though I don't mean to denigrate all Andrew's hard work!). Personally, it's been a great source of contacts and friends, and I'd love to see the model expand elsewhere. I also find a lot of interesting and smart people at Barcamps; there are enough regulars that attend a LOT of Barcamps (again, I'm in the UK, and elsewhere may vary), and they're usually great fun.
verdverm 15y ago
my local hookah bar
ig1 15y ago
Unconferences/barcamps.
marvinsum 15y ago
Try cold emailing people. Really, it helps. Find a list of people doing like-minded things and just shoot off a bunch of emails. You can ask them a question, or comment on something they did or wrote. Some won't reply, but most do.
clockwork_189 15y ago
I am tech minded, hence to meet such people I would either go to Tech conferences, talks and universities. I find it the best way to get inspired while at the same time meet new people. Even better is volunteering in such conferences as you get to meet many new people
kellco 15y ago
1. Startup Weekend (They might have one in your city.) 2. Internet Marketing Summit 3. Founders Institute 4. Toastmasters/Rotary or other business clubs in your city 5. Tech Conferences 6. Online Forums/discussion boards (marketing/biz/tech ones) Since I'm on my computer all day and at home a lot, I have to go to events to meet people which I'm getting better at.
vonstark 15y ago
I meet interesting guy at meet-up, or friend of friends. that's why I build meetcliv.com It collect & analyze the information from web and let u meet the guy u want to meet. :)

32 points by chunky1994 15y ago

This could be a website, an actual location, anything! I'm curious to know where you first met your most interesting friends, and whether you still frequent that place!

xradionut 15y ago

Scour the local meetups that look interesting and research the age of the group and the average attendance. Contact frequent attendees and query them. I'm in a large metro area so there are professional, hobby, social and sporting/outdoor groups of all types. I've met folks from hikers, body builders, travelers, sci-fi readers, robotics enthusiasts, radio operators to MSSQL DBAs.

jrubinovitz 15y ago

I'm from the Philadelphia area, so I head to Philadelphia tech meet ups and more so hackathons lately now that I'm working and want to keep churning out side projects while meeting awesome people who, broadly put, like hacking. You still need to search out for the "interesting, like minded people", but I find they're worth it.

MichaelApproved 15y ago

http://Meetup.com http://Meetup.com

alfiejohn_ 15y ago

I've found that my local Perl Mongers was a great place to meet like minded people - http://www.pm.org/ http://www.pm.org/ for your closest one :)

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

jakubmal 15y ago

Try attending local TEDx meeting: http://www.ted.com/tedx http://www.ted.com/tedx

monkeypizza 15y ago

I go to a local go (wei qi) club - it's full of guys who have a tendency to get obsessed by abstractions...

sneak 15y ago

Hacker News, Twitter, IRC. I follow a lot of people on Twitter and I have interesting tweets, and many follow me back. I have made several new offline friends this way. Some of my IRC friends from the 90s are some of my closest friends now, too. It's cool 'cause they're geographically distributed so I have people I'm tight with in almost every major country. Interestingly enough, one of my closest friends in my city I first "met" on the GNU Screen mailing list. I met him randomly at a conference here after moving and recognized his name. Also, local user groups are good places, too. PS: Freenode irc is full of dorks, but it's a good starting point. Try EFNet or one of the smaller hacker darknets (e.g. Buttes or hardchats or antisec/anonops) for the real motherfuckers.

dagw 15y ago

Usenet, back in the day, was a great place to meet awesome people. I still have several great friends whom I first got to know via usenet. Unfortunately usenet kind of died, and for some reason all the replacements that have shown up since are but a pale shadow of what usenet once was.

bigiain 15y ago

Burningman.

seclorum 15y ago

http://metalab.at/ http://metalab.at/ Its the only place I bother going for a good time here in Vienna ... ;)

loungin 15y ago
That is AWESOME! I've always wished for something like that where I live (currently Sacramento, CA USA) and had seriously considered starting something very much like that. Way cool that it has started somewhere already. Kudos! Want to know something more random? I happen to be in Wien right now on vacation :) Definitely going to check this out... edit: typo
waru 15y ago
That looks awesome. Is there a resource online to find all the start-up/tech incubators in Europe, or the world? I'll be traveling in Europe soon and would love to visit more places like this. Thank you!
- seclorum 15y ago
  Get thee verily to http://hackerspaces.org/ http://hackerspaces.org/ !
  - waru 15y ago
    Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

orphan 15y ago

Most of my longterm friends were either in or peripherally attached to the warez scene on efnet in the 90s.

leejw00t354 15y ago

Try www.meetup.com I joined some local startup meetups. I went to my first one a week ago and it was a really great experience. I was able to speak to like-minded people about my ideas to get feedback. I was also able to get marketing advise and listen to other interesting ideas people had

nosse 15y ago

My roommates at helsinki university of technology have been a real eye openers for me. I can't say they are really like minded, but interesting as hell. Roommates don't have to be just roommates, they can be great friends.

alex1 15y ago

School. If you're in college right now, and especially a top-tier university, try to meet as many people as possible. Don't miss this opportunity; your network will be invaluable once you're done with school. College is a great place to step out of your bubble and college admissions committees usually do a good job of putting a diverse group of interesting people in one place. Meet people from different backgrounds, countries, and majors. Even though you may not realize it now, you will one day need most of the people that you meet in school.

iamelgringo 15y ago

I started a meetup 4 years ago to solve this problem. It's turned into a startup of sorts: http://beta.hackersandfounders.com/faq/meetups/is-there-a-hackers-and-founders-in-my-area/ http://beta.hackersandfounders.com/faq/meetups/is-there-a-ha...

chriseidhof 15y ago

University, online (if you do interesting stuff people will find you), lots of meetups (mostly programming language related meetups), co-working spaces / shared offices and sometimes randomly in bars. Make sure you talk to a lot of people. Also: a lot of (most?) people are very interesting if you look well enough. Not everybody seems to be interesting, but once you get to know people well, they might surprise you.

monste9 15y ago

Public Access Unix Systems. sdf.lonestar.org is my favourite.

softbuilder 15y ago

In my experience "interesting" is often at odds with "like-minded".

johndbritton 15y ago

I've met tons of really interesting people while traveling. I Couch Surf with interesting strangers all over the world and some of them end up becoming very good friends. http://couchsurfing.org/people/johndbritton http://couchsurfing.org/people/johndbritton

arb 15y ago

Local hackerspace draws an eclectic crowd. Hardly like-minded in most ways, but always interesting. (http://tangleball.org.nz http://tangleball.org.nz) Networking through it also often leads to people from neighbouring groups, including artists, academics, entrepreneurs, politicians, activists and so on (many of whom might not self-identify as hackers/makers).

JonAtkinson 15y ago

This is very location-specific, but if you're in the north of the UK, the Geekup (http://geekup.org/ http://geekup.org/) network has been invaluable. It's a loose-knit group of groups, which usually meet in pubs and hold a few tech talks. The Geekup template would be easy to replicate elsewhere (it's essentially a site and a mailing list, though I don't mean to denigrate all Andrew's hard work!). Personally, it's been a great source of contacts and friends, and I'd love to see the model expand elsewhere. I also find a lot of interesting and smart people at Barcamps; there are enough regulars that attend a LOT of Barcamps (again, I'm in the UK, and elsewhere may vary), and they're usually great fun.

verdverm 15y ago

my local hookah bar

ig1 15y ago

Unconferences/barcamps.

marvinsum 15y ago

Try cold emailing people. Really, it helps. Find a list of people doing like-minded things and just shoot off a bunch of emails. You can ask them a question, or comment on something they did or wrote. Some won't reply, but most do.

clockwork_189 15y ago

I am tech minded, hence to meet such people I would either go to Tech conferences, talks and universities. I find it the best way to get inspired while at the same time meet new people. Even better is volunteering in such conferences as you get to meet many new people

kellco 15y ago

1. Startup Weekend (They might have one in your city.) 2. Internet Marketing Summit 3. Founders Institute 4. Toastmasters/Rotary or other business clubs in your city 5. Tech Conferences 6. Online Forums/discussion boards (marketing/biz/tech ones) Since I'm on my computer all day and at home a lot, I have to go to events to meet people which I'm getting better at.

vonstark 15y ago

I meet interesting guy at meet-up, or friend of friends. that's why I build meetcliv.com It collect & analyze the information from web and let u meet the guy u want to meet. :)