> So much of the tech energy before the pandemic was seen in conferences and hackathons etc. Many of these had people who were not super social. > The reality

> So much of the tech energy before the pandemic was seen in conferences and hackathons etc. Many of these had people who were not super social. > The reality is that people do better when they congregate in areas with other smart people. The agglomeration effect is real and well proven. Eh, I went to a few conferences before the pandemic. It was always mostly irrelevant. People seemed to go only because it was a chance to travel on company money, and get some swag/booze for free. The talks were always very inconsequential. > it explains why people were willing to pay even twice in costs if it increased the odds of success and the size of success by 10-100x. [citation needed]