Silicon Valley 'Hacker Hostels' Pack Coders Like Sardines For $40 Per Night (Eat, Sleep, Code)

Business Insider ^ | 07/06/2012 | Alyson Shontell

[SeekAndFind]

From WeWork Labs to General Assembly, there are a lot of incubators that give entrepreneurs a place to code during the day.

There aren't many that offer sleeping arrangements as well.

Three "hacker hostels" have cropped up in Silicon Valley, The New York Times reports. Coders, designers and scientists can spend the night packed like sardines in rows of bunk beds for $40. The hostels are all run by the same management company, Chez JJ, with accommodations in Menlo Park, Mountain View and San Francisco.

Chez JJ was founded by 28-year-old neuroscientist Jade Wang and Jocelyn Berl. Wang had used Airbnb to rent a room in her apartment; a fellow "nerd" crashed with her. The idea for hostels sprung from there.

Most of the hostel tenants are 20-somethings who are currently building startups or are in search of inspiration. Every new comer is given a blanket, pillow, towel and sheets. There's no TV. Every once in a while food is cooked for the group.

Not just anyone can stay at the hostels. Like any startup incubator, you actually have to be working on something to be accepted. Tenants are screened by hostel captains, all of whom are women, to make sure they'll contribute to the hacker community. Tenants also have to have a good attitude or they're kicked to the curb.

“The intellectual stimulation you get from being here is unparalleled,” one of the tenants, Justin Carden, tells NYT. “If you’re wanting to do something to change the world and make it a fundamentally better place, you need to be around the right people.”

[SeekAndFind]

Sasha Willins, the head of the "hacker hostel," and Jason Wohlstadter work on a laptop at the hostel in San Francisco, June 13, 2012. There are several hacker hostels in the Bay Area that offer short- or long-term stays for aspiring tech entrepreneurs on the bottom rung of the Silicon Valley ladder.


Phillip Cohen in the bedroom of a “hacker hostel” in Menlo Park, Calif., where aspiring computer entrepreneurs live cheaply

[martin_fierro]

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[The Antiyuppie]

I filled out the matchbook on the left; I wanted to be an undertaker but I checked the wrong box, and the rest is history. Actually, I think I would have been better off becoming an undertaker.

[bunkerhill7]

Actually garages and bedrooms are the best incubators. These connube hostels actually are great places to spy and steal other people`s ideas. This is a stupid idea. I would never work on a startup code with other people around me with cam phones. These idiots don`t have a clue about the real business world out there- They are in lala land.

[MNIL]

Looks more like a stupid fad than any long term business model.

And.

Wow, they invented the hotel, except they removed that troublesome privacy part.

[lack-of-trust]

Sounds profitable for Chez JJ

but

expensive for the tenents 30days x $40 = $1,200 a month.

[longtermmemmory]

all the nagging and none of the comfort.

seriously? start up idea theft must be rampant.

must be the perfect place to steal IP.