Go to San Francisco #867
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Go for it :) |
Esp. @kaguillera. We are cofounders! |
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Or maybe we should spend the money on a video. 😳 |
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Reticketed #870.
In fact, they dropped 22%, from $580 to $450(!). |
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Back up to $580. :-/ |
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From private email:
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I just talked to @kaguillera on the phone, and put this ticket on his radar. |
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Wow!!
Other than these issues I think it would be good. It would be two weeks of intense focused hacking and networking. That is always a good thing. |
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@kaguillera My proposal here is that Gratipay pay for the trip. I can't afford it personally, either! 😮 So the question is: does Gratipay want to pay for two, one, or zero of us to make this trip? |
I think it would roughly be per person, yes. I haven't had anything super-solid come through in terms of free places to stay, so I think we'd need to book a room on Airbnb today or tomorrow in order to lock something in for this. That plus we'd need two plane tickets.
Now at $530. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ |
I don't know how to estimate this. This past week at All Things Open has already netted us one new contributor (#866), as well as a number of industry connections (#757 (comment) ff.). How do we estimate the value of that? |
Well, my thinking was that YC's interviews are highly likely to be one or both of those weeks, since the week following is a holiday in the U.S. (Thanksgiving) and this week is so soon to book travel. |
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... and there's so much to do out there! |
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To be totally honest I am feeling guilty/bad to use that amount of Gratipay's money (I know that is kind of weird considering that I said it would be too much money for my finances) but that is just how I am. |
Now we're up to $675 for bad flights and $775 for good ones. We're less than a week out, I think the price is going to keep going up from here. :-/
I am torn. It will not be the same, but remember that there is a slim chance we will be out there together in January, February, and March for YC (#836). Even assuming YC doesn't come through I suspect that we should be visiting SF at least once a year if not twice anyway. This trip is reconnaissance in that respect. We can plan ahead better next time. |
Indeed. Let's see if we can use GitHub reactions on this comment to vote! :-) Options for Trip to SF to Hack and Network
Ping @aandis @chrisdev @clone1018 @dmk246 @JessaWitzel @mattbk @rohitpaulk. @kaguillera Perhaps you and I should vote last, though I think we do need to reach a final decision today. |
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I've voted to send one person, only because of the % of cash we'd be burning if we sent 2. |
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% of cash is % of total cash? Or % of cash this month? I like context. |
@JessaWitzel % of total cash :) From the description:
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@rohitpaulk I assumed the thread started where I was mentioned! Fail. Person who likes context should be diligent in finding it. I'm a newb. Also I think I'm super valuable and am a great return on investment. :) Go! |
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@wwitzel3 is encouraging me to leave all my thoughts so here: As someone who is risk averse I would likely not go if it were up to me. However, if you think this is a pivotal moment for gratipay and that going has great potential to allow you to get a ton of work done and make good connections that will ultimately jump start the project into making more money, you should go. I vote send two people if you think that is the case. What else does the money get used for? |
Here is our budget. The big thing not included there is lawyer's fees, which we're going to have some of soon (for gratipay/gratipay.com#4117). Those, of course, rack up quick.
Couldn't agree more! :) P.S. I've added "in Bank" to "% of Cash." :-) |
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I'm getting ready to pull the trigger. I've texted @kaguillera, apparently he's away from his phone. :-) |
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I'm voting for making the trip solo. I hear @kaguillera saying he is okay with that at #867 (comment), and that seems to be the sense of things on #867 (comment). Okay! Booking flight and room! |
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Flights books. 👍 🛫 🛬 |
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Waiting for @JessWhit to help me recover our Airbnb login ... |
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yep away from my phone but not my laptop. It is cool if you can do it on your own. It will be like the conference but only longer and without a schedule 👍 😃 |
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Thanks @kaguillera. Sorry. 😞 See you tomorrow, ya? :-) |
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Flight confirmation: https://gratipay.freshdesk.com/helpdesk/tickets/6027. |
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yes. Paramount? I will check my phone as soon as I find it |
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http://chrismessina.me/contact ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I don't generally like to put stories like the following on the Internet, because I think it cheapens them. This one is such a great illustration of the meaning of Gratipay's mission—to cultivate an economy of gratitude, generosity, and love—that I decided to share it. I just passed Cameron for the third time: six feet tall, Asian-American, baggy jeans, filthy blue sweatshirt unzipped with the hood up. He was crouching under a city map in front of the Burger King next to the streetcars at Powell and Market. Scattered in front of him were coins and bits of chalk. Cameron sleeps in Union Square. He showed me where the first time we met. "Under that tree. My buddy sleeps there. We watch each other's stuff. Some people are bad, but I try to help people. Like, if I have five dollars, and you need money, I'll just give it to you. I'm all about love." He was acting skittish, though, and a passing janitor confirmed my suspicion. "Hey, you can't do that!" After he'd wheeled his trash can past, Cameron looked at the sidewalk in front of him and said, "I'm writing 'love'. They keep telling me not to, but I'm going to do it anyway." I gave him a heart coin and moved on, as he swooped back in for a few more surreptitious strokes. I only found traces a day or two later. Sorry, janitor. The second time I found him crouching on Market. He didn't seem to remember me at all—no biggie, the city is busy. "I'm writing 'love', but I don't have any chalk." Just stubs in front of him. "I'm all about love." Not so skittish. No janitors down here. He didn't recognize me just now either. "Hey Cameron." He looked up slowly, blankly. "You want a burger or something?" "Huh?" "Do you like hamburgers?" "No, man, I just need chalk." He gestured long-faced at the stubs in front of him. "I don't have any chalk." "Where can you get it? I'll go get you some." "Really?" Incredulous. "Yeah, really." "Walgreen's. It's on the second floor." "Okay. You want to come with me, or should I bring it back here?" "I'll be here. It's two dollars. I've been collecting these coins." Shuffles the coins around. "Just plain white chalk? No colors?" "Yeah, white chalk. It's on the second floor." Seven minutes later he was up and moving about, inspecting his work and kicking coins around. I figured I'd just drop off the goods rather than bother him again, but he noticed me. Slowly taking it in, "Is that for me?" Now I'm wondering if this dude is Dory. "Yeah." "You bought those for me?" "Yeah, man, for you." We paused for a moment, standing side by side, looking down at the two fresh packs of plain white chalk sitting next to the stubs. "You didn't have to do that for me, but you did." Turning around and pointing to the sidewalk, I said, "Well, you didn't have to do that for us, but you did." After another pause, Cameron's face broke into a smile as he went for the dap. Our fists connected and we smiled at each other, then I silently turned to go. Ten feet away, he called out, "That's love, man." I looked back, gave him a thumbs up. Crouching again, staring me in the eye and smiling broadly, he said, "I like you." |
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Also, I had an awesome time visiting with J.C. Foust and Aza Raskin out in Oakland, who are working on https://other.chat/. Aza and I first met over ten years ago at a ChiPy meetup. This is the first I've met Juan-Carlos. (Danny never showed … looks like I missed a DM on Twitter.) That and the SELC dinner were a much better slice of Oakland than my experience last week. At the SELC dinner I was able to connect briefly with Janelle and wave to Maira, and I met three folks from the Christensen Fund, which sounds pretty amazing, and a couple others. Janelle brings a really refreshing quirkiness to law, without compromising on rigor. Cartoon bylaws! :-) |
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In other news, I did hear back from Chris Messina. We might be able to meet tomorrow. |
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Alright, time to pack up and check out of the hotel. |
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Checked out, now at the Amazon Loft. Movin' pretty slow today ... |
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Had a guy recognize me. "You're not very invisible, are you." :-) Just talked for a while with him and a guy from https://typeql.com/ (who knew of Gratipay). |
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I am definitely exhausted. I feel like crap. |
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Alright, meeting Chris at http://www.prospectsf.com/ in an hour. |
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Mind-exploding meeting with Chris. tl;dr is that given our current strategy, diversity is another point of leverage with tech companies in addition to (and probably more powerful than) developer relations more broadly. That fits with our previous experience, of course. Zooming out, he challenged us to think about the role of government in making work for people in the coming years, in the light of New Deal works projects. The government cares about preserving order, and keeping people preoccupied with work is a significant part of that. We talked about "virtual work," layering a less urgent kind of work on top of the post-scarcity/attention economy. Not exactly a converging conversation here at the end of the trip. :-) |
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http://www.piamancini.com/ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I've got about three hours before I should start heading to the airport. |
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I dropped my bags off back at the hotel. Didn't want to haul them around. |
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I'm at the airport. Just checked email and I did hear back from Pia. Will pick up on #458 ... |
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I found tiny, tiny little sparks of gratitude and generosity in San Francisco. Tiny, tiny sparks. |
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Home! |
I knew this seemed familiar. Public radio and television do this all the time: |
I spent 12 days in San Francisco in early November, 2016. I met a lot of people in a lot of different contexts, and started to rebuild some awareness of Gratipay as a going concern. I came up hard against the difficulty in what we're trying to accomplish with funding open source: companies have precious little incentive to pay for value they already possess.
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I had a really good time during All Things Open (#757) getting to hack a lot and then going out to interact with people relevant to Gratipay. Under #836 we've been talking about stopping by YC even if we don't get an invite. Of course there's plenty of other networking to do out there as well even if we never make it to YC.
I'm looking at a trip November 7—19. Right now flights are running just under $600, and I'm finding Airbnbs in the $500 to $1,200 range (depending on how many roommates).
My experience in Raleigh this past week indicates to me that two weeks in San Francisco could be amazingly productive. My tendency is to think that a private room actually in SF would provide the most valuable combination of space to hack and proximity for networking. I've reached out to see about finding a place to stay apart from Airbnb. Assuming that doesn't come through, I think a budget of $2,400 would cover a 12 day trip.
We have about $7,000 in the bank right now and are accumulating about $182/mo (780 - 562 - 36).
We'll need to act pretty quick to lock in the flight and room. Prices could go up drastically tomorrow, for all I know.
Anyone have a strong sense one way or another on this? I just really want to get this candle lit again! 🕯️
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