I've been thinking about getting a nice large space in San Francisco, to use as a coworking space, or to run events out of. It'd be great to have a hub for the people I like, some mix of startup, EA, progress, AI safety folks. Some inspirational spaces include Lighthaven, Constellation, and the SF Commons.
I've had this idea in the back of my mind for a few months now, but recently the it's been gaining traction. I've spoken to some small startups and folks who seem interested, have engaged a commercial real estate broker, and am touring one place next Tuesday. But I also have significant hesitations about the whole idea.
Market resolves to YES if by the end of Q1 2025, I've launched a space and/or signed a lease for it. If I've made what I deem significant progress but haven't launched/signed any lease, I'll extend the timeline to this market to Q2 2025
Why start a space?
I would personally want to use it!
My friends in SF seem pretty excited to use it too
I keep inviting people to cowork from the Manifold/Manifund office and now it's a little more full than ideal
Impact: on priors, it makes sense that something like an EA/AI Safety hub ought to exist in San Francisco, where all the AI development actually happens, rather than Berkeley
I sometimes pitch this idea as "Constellation in SF", though I expect my space would be as different from Constellation as Manifest is from EAG
I like new challenges, and haven't done a coworking space before
The parts that interest me: enabling good work, community organizing, financial structuring. OTOH I'm not excited about interior design or day-to-day operations
Historically I've been pretty good at community-building stuff like Manifest, Mexifold
And I think I'm good at stag hunts in general, which "start a coworking space" is shaped like
It'd much easier to organize future events if I own a space
San Francisco is my home, I like it very much, and want to give back
Starting a coworking space is one kind of bet on the future of SF
The existence of a good space in SF should spur more people to come, too
Why not
Opportunity costs: I think this would probably take 2-8 weeks of my time up front (plus ?? ongoing commitment costs to me, depending on whether I can find good people to run it)
Even though I'm good at community building, I'm not sure it's what I was put on this earth to do
I'm a hopeless introvert at heart (though sometimes I conveniently forget this fact)
Coworking spaces are bad businesses, as far as I can tell
Nowhere near the margins of software
The upsides mostly flow to the tenants I think?
Maybe the answer is "charge more" but I'm somewhat allergic to that
(nb this is probably true for conferences too)
Many other event/coworking spaces have failed or are failing
E.g. Lightcone Offices, Atlantis, Solaris AI, Wytham Abbey if you squint
It's not obvious to me that SF Commons or Constellation are currently doing well (at least well enough to make me go "yeah there's no point in me starting my own")
My SF community might already be way more densely networked than ideal
My calendar already feels uncomfortably saturated with parties and other events
See Alexey Guzey: "i think sf will ruin gwern"
"Coworking" might be actively harmful (bad for focus, lead to groupthink). Famously, Paul Graham refused to offer coworking to YC startups
I do think the Constellation setup of "provide lots of private offices" might be good
Maybe somebody else will do it if I don't 🤞
I've been pretty happy with the service Lighthaven provides, and if they were in SF I wouldn't be considering this
Physical spaces mostly serve human users; maybe there's more upside in serving AI users
though, as a human, I like humans, and probably will for a long time
Maybe most interesting work in SF happens inside of labs, so there's less need for this kind of space
If you'd like to see this space exist, reach out to me (austin@manifund.org), or comment below! Some things I'd like help with:
Seed funding
I expect this would cost ~$50k/mo, though I do also hope to recoup a lot (or even profit) from running this, and return that to "investors"
Recs for great folks to help run the space
Skillsets I'd be looking for: interior design, day-to-day ops generalist, people with good taste and initiative
Interest from users who would pay for the space
Coworking tenants like startups or individual researchers; event organizers who like our vibe
Recs for locations
I'm generally looking around Alamo/Hayes since those are nice areas close to where I live
1,000
3.00Sam Altman, against coworking:
Every time someone decides they’re going to build the next Y Combinator, the idea is always the following: “It’s going to be just like Y Combinator, except we’re going to provide free coworking space.” I always want to say to people, “Did you ever think that maybe we thought about that, and it’s a feature, not a bug, that we don’t have it?”
I think the single thing that has differentiated YC more than any other decision we’ve made is that we do not have a coworking space. We bring the companies together once a week, but that’s it. It’s enough for a community, but it is enough to build your own identity.
Coworking spaces have two big classes of problems. Number one, they are a band-pass filter. Good ideas — actually, no, great ideas are fragile. Great ideas are easy to kill. An idea in its larval stage — all the best ideas when I first heard them sound bad. And all of us, myself included, are much more affected by what other people think of us and our ideas than we like to admit.
If you are just four people in your own door, and you have an idea that sounds bad but is great, you can keep that self-delusion going. If you’re in a coworking space, people laugh at you, and no one wants to be the kid picked last at recess. So you change your idea to something that sounds plausible but is never going to matter. It’s true that coworking spaces do kill off the very worst ideas, but a band-pass filter for startups is a terrible thing because they kill off the best ideas, too.
The other thing is the average level of ambition and willingness to work hard at a coworking space is incredibly low. There’s this reversion to the mean that is not what you want in your life.
@Austin Super interesting! I guess he's describing co-working vs small groups working together. When I think of co-working I figure the counterfactual is someone working-from-home. That's one reason I am more confident about the EV from co-working
The current Solaris AI office seems very great -- it's already set up for coworking, very turnkey, the price and size is quite reasonable (10k sqft for $17k/mo rent, or 2x for both floors); it's one of the most convenient options, and I'm tempted to take over its lease.
IMO the biggest downside is location; it's halfway between Mission and Hayes, which is kinda in the middle of nowhere by SF standards, and somewhat of a commute for me personally coming from Nopa
One extra upside to the current Solaris office is that they've already built out a space with some great existing startups, who I'd love to have continue (eg modal.com is super cool). Though TBD if there's a clash of culture/wants between those folks and my vision for the place
I'm in Dublin rn and just RSVPd for an event later this week. had a look at the venue, spotted this on Google Maps, and thought of you Austin!
it's called The Clockwork Door
https://x.com/thomasschulzz/status/1856059349573238914 . Though, the fact that they failed to have this pan out is a small negative update
I'm pitching Mik to help - she has initiative, is good at interior design and operations!
I think coworking does trade off productivity with fun. But not necessarily in a bad way! I've found that:
I get more work done when at home with fewer distractions
At the office I can have productive conversations (i.e. ideating, solving hard problems) with coworkers (or former coworkers 🪦) that have high context on manifold or what I'm working on
Conversations with non coworkers will likely be more fun than productive
@ian mm fair point. From Richard Hamming, You and Your Research:
I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, "The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind." I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing — not much, but enough that they miss fame.
@Austin in light of this fact, the coworking space should be set up like the monastery in Neal Stevenson’s anathema book. So the innermost office only opens to the inner office every hundred days and the inner office only opens to the outer office every 10 days and the outer office only opens to the outside world once a day. This will allow for the ideal amount of ideation versus grinding.