Alcohol, Startups, & Adam Neumann

Interesting factoid: In 2014, WeWork was serving 90,000 free beers per month to employees.

At some point in my pre-Internet tech career — yes, I’m that old — I began to notice the toxic effects of cutting-edge technology on certain personality types. I remember hanging out with the then cyber ninjas of the day, known by the now quaint term of Unix gurus, watching them dispense their wisdom to the lay people.

More memorably, I still recall their arched eyebrows when you couldn’t keep up with obscure technical references, or didn’t state your questions in a special format that they could parse.

On that last point, I was once told that I wasn’t asking some tech query properly, and the wise guru then restated the question and answered it. They were role playing Mr. Spock. And I was having an understandable Dr. McCoy- like reaction.

Yeah, it was essentially a boys-only club that had its own exotic rituals, and there was a clear demarcation between the true priests and the rest of us. They were fanatic believers in their super-human tech powers and felt that they could solve any problem thrown their way. We’d say today they were emotionally shut down narcissists who enjoying basking in their own egos.

Of course, few could maintain that level of enthusiasm and blind devotion to their tech god. Something had to give.

There was always a certain level of alcohol-fueled activities, but unlike today’s startups, it was done off-site at…