The big difference between the ants in Silicon Valley: "Hacker Hostel" to attract the majority of entrepreneurs stay

As a global technology and entrepreneurial mecca, Silicon Valley has attracted corners young people, according to the print edition of The New York Times, published July 6. But they are forced to make a living by temporarily renting in cramped apartments. Although the physical environment is very similar to the "Ant clan" in China, there is a fundamental difference between the two living conditions.

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Hacker Hostels

This is a three-storey building, located in a quiet residential area, from the outside to see nothing special. But in the third floor of a set of two-bedroom house but placed several Zhang Yi, enough to 10 people sleep. The living room was empty, with only a few cushions, a small table, and a lot of notebook power cords strewn on the wooden floor--at first glance, like breaking into a snake's nest.

Most of the tenants here are 20-year-old boys, piles of dirty clothes are thrown at the bedside. There was no TV in the house, and the guests were wearing headphones and using laptops to watch the video. Steve El-hage, a 23-year-old Steve Aire, came here from Toronto this May. One recent afternoon, he took a piece of ham from his bag and stuffed it into his mouth without any processing. "You see, I was going to make a sandwich, but it didn't work," he said. "he said.

This is not a dormitory, but should be called "Hacker Hostel." There are several places in Silicon Valley where tenants are renting for long periods of time, but most have one thing in common: they are ambitious entrepreneurs, but they are still at the bottom of Silicon Valley and are not as wealthy as Facebook. This has long been the function of public rental housing, but now, but gradually evolved into a business.

This hostel in San Francisco is affiliated with a small chain company that specializes in a bunk bed with three stores. The tenants are young programmers, designers and scientists who work, eat, and sleep here.

There is no big difference between crowded apartments for immigrants. But a lot of tenants come here not only to the low rent of 40 dollars a night, but more importantly to make friends and exchange ideas. The new tenant even has to be selected to stay, the standard is to see whether they can contribute to the existing team. Justin Carden, a 29-year-old software engineer, lives in a hacker hostel in Menlo, a biotech start-up company. In his view, such hostels feel like Stanford University.

"You can get unparalleled intellectual inspiration from here," says Carden, "if you want to change the world and make the world a better place, you have to have the right people." ”

Historical origins

Hackers have long been working together to solve problems in cramped space. Of course, the hacker is referring to Mark Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg), rather than the Internet thief who specializes in stealing passwords. In the 60 's, researchers at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab slept in the attic and took turns to use mainframes in sweltering basements.

Ethan Mollick, an assistant professor at the Wharton School that specializes in entrepreneurship, Isen Moric that the hacker hostel reminds him of his experience at MIT in the past 10 years, where graduate students make beds in cramped offices.

"We all work hard and don't care where we sleep," he said. That's how we learn. People always complain that academic research in computer science doesn't help programmers much, but it creates such an atmosphere. ”

The online housing leasing service provider, Airbnb, has driven this trend in the Silicon Valley region. By typing the word "hacker" on the site, you can find dozens of similar Silicon Valley hostels. But not all hotels are fully documented. Keti Levinson (Katy Levinson) runs a hacker hostel, but she declined to disclose the exact location because she had heard that a hotel had been shut down because of a conflict with the landlord.

Operation mode

The operators of the San Francisco Hacker Hostel, described above, call themselves Chezz JJ, and their two other stores are in Mountain View and Monropach. Each store has a "captain" who is responsible for screening tenants from Airbnb applications.

These captains are women, and they are chosen for their personalities and careers, and those who only want to be cheap will be shut out. The 26-year-old Sasha Willins (Sasha willins), a graphic designer who is the captain of the San Francisco hotel, summed up a polite way to reject her. "The feeling of being shut out is not too strong if many problems are used to force the other person to give up the application." "she said.

New tenants can receive pillows, quilts, sheets, towels and other supplies. The captain occasionally cooks several meals for everyone, such as mimosa pancakes. In return, the captain is free to stay and enjoy a single room.

The idea for such a hacker hostel is Jade Wang, Jade Wang, a 28-year-old neuroscientist who worked for NASA. She co-founded Chez JJ with her friend Choslin Port (Jocelyn Berl). She said she once rented an apartment through Airbnb, but suddenly realised that "nerds" like herself would certainly like to live with like-minded people.

"Nerds don't necessarily lack social skills in normal people," Jade Wang says. "If 99% of the person in a big room is a nerd and only 1% are normal, the social skills of those who are normal can also exhibit a disadvantage." ”

Good atmosphere

Every hotel in Chez JJ has a different atmosphere. Mountain View City is mainly entrepreneurial, many tenants are developing new applications or new websites. They usually get roommates practiced before they meet with investors.

Monropach Hostel is just moved from Paroorto this summer, mainly based on scientific research. The hostel's captain, Casey Greene, is a 26-year-old molecular biologist and some of her roommates are science students at Stanford University's Summer Program (Kessi Grinnie). They also set up a periodical club to get together to discuss academic papers.

The size of the San Francisco hostel is much smaller, and it's more like a dorm: there are occasional stains in the bathroom and a lot of leftovers in the sink. Some tenants only stay for a few days, while others have been living for a few months, but have been looking for a more stable home.

Nelson Wu, a 27-year-old electrical and computer engineer, has lived there for 2 months, even treating it as their corporate headquarters. The company, called Massdrop, can help people get preferential prices in the form of group buying. Nelson Wu Most of the time in the sitting room cushion, fiddling with his MacBook Air, often until three or four o'clock in the morning to sleep.

Nelson Wu revealed that their site was just online this May, received a value of 12,000 of dollars in car detector orders, but because PayPal thought their account risk is too high, so suspended the transaction, their funds frozen for 6 months.

Nelson Wu and Haji maxed out their credit cards to complete those orders. They almost went bankrupt because they did not attract investors. Hajis said Massdrop has recovered, "although no longer eat bubble noodles all day, but also not good where to go." ”

However, they have since moved out of the hotel and have recently recruited their first employee, a 18-Year-old student who met at a hacker hostel.