Very experimental market!

As we think about /Austin/will-i-start-a-coworking-or-event-s , I'm interested in forecasting how well different Bay Area coworking, office, event and community spaces end up doing over the next while. The goal is to have an index or "stonk" value that represents holistically how good & thriving each of these places is.

Each space resolves to a number from 0-100 around Jun 1. where 0 represents "space does nothing or is actively terrible for the world" and 100 represents "the best community experience I can concretely imagine"

I don't have a specific criteria nailed down yet. By default this will resolve to my personal taste, though very open to suggestions on how to operationalize this (eg surveying a set of judges or all space users; incorporating metrics of utilization or revenue; or a blend of all of these).

FWIW, quick personal judgements as of December:

• Lighthaven: 70

  • Great for events! But it doesn't feel like there's a thriving, sustained community of awesome folks yet -- and the kind of events they run (MATS, longevity) cut against community formation. The "FHI" proposal seemed promising in that regard.

• Constellation: 60

  • A bunch of people who I respect a ton work here, so they're doing something right! Also very well stocked. I think it's too gatekept atm to serve a proper community function. (Low confidence.)

• FAR Labs: 50

  • Nice space, seems like it covers all the bases, happy hours seem good but irregular. (Lower confidence, I'm just not around that much)

• The Commons: 50

  • I think this started at like a 75 and then degraded a bit as memberships opened up, and it was rarer to find folks or events I cared about.

• "Space of our own"

  • Placeholder to refer to the space that I'm looking into starting, name shamelessly borrowed from AO3

• Frontier Tower

  • Hypothetical upcoming 16 floor repurposed wework, link

And not included in the index, but for reference (and bc ranking things is fun):

• Manifold office: 20

• 1907 Golden Gate (my house): 30

• Manifest Summer Camp, Jun 2024: 80

• EA Bahamas, May 2022: 94