When we think of networking, it conjures up polite pleasantries, small talk, and speed dating vibes. Andrew Yeung, the big tech community guy, is giving networking a makeover. While a buttoned-up networking approach might work for some industries, it doesn’t fly in the start-up world. 

His events are a convergence of the curious from tech, the start-up space, the venture world, social media “celebrities” and creators. Yeung’s more like that cool friend who knows everyone – a conduit for connection, rather than the star of the show. 

He sends an icebreaker introduction email the day before the event, assigning color codes for groups of people he thinks will hit it off. 

For Tuesday night’s event, I was in group Brown. In my cohort, we had a product management lead, a health-tech product founder, an a16z-backed founder, a producer who sells tv pilots to networks, an ad network platform CEO and a token-gated events platform founder. 

We never figured out the common thread of our group. The shared consensus was we were put together because we’re “all awesome.” The truth is everyone there was awesome. From the post-event email thread, it looks like our group formed the unofficial Andrew’s Mixers Run Club. Other groups have held spin-off intimate dinners and welcomed new players into sport teams. 

At Yeung’s parties it’s friendship first, business second. It’s a pop-up of likeminded people, all with a work hard, play hard mentality. So New York. 

Read more: Andrew Yeung, the Big Tech Product Lead Who Moonlights as a Matchmaker

On a rooftop with drinks and conversation flowing and lower Manhattan twinkling in the background work became play. Most of us, to some extent, are transplants – coming to the city from different states or countries – all here with a fire to do cool things and a shared comradery. 

There’s no hierarchy at Yeung’s events. 

“Somehow, Andrew makes these events 50 percent women. I don’t know how he does it. You’d never see that in Silicon Valley,” I heard over my shoulder. 

I was chatting with Liza, who works in marketing at American Express. She’s bilingual and heads up the enterprise interest in China. We spoke about her time in San Francisco, whether TikTok will get banned and how she plays competitive Frisby in her spare time. 

Liza spotted Jack Appleby from Morning Brew and disappeared into the crowd to introduce herself. Connections calcify when you meet IRL, especially after years of being a fan through likes, comments and DMs. 

Onto the next. I was in mid-conversation with a digital nomad, Cliff, who had sold his company when a JPMorgan executive came up to us. “You look so familiar,” she said to Cliff. He listed off all the possible rendezvous but couldn’t figure out when they might’ve met. Another woman joined us, introducing herself as the girl who messaged Cliff with product feedback for his new app. “Bring it on! Tell me all the problems with it,” he said, with a grin. 

I enjoyed watching a five-minute debate about whether the app was showing her location or not, turn into a possible new hire. Joy, who is the head of community at an early-stage VC fund that invests in local entrepreneurs, pitched why he should bring her into the team. I sipped my G&T and watched her pitch roll of the tongue. 

What’s so special about these parties, much like web3, is they cut out the middlemen. The focus is on connections and community, not companies or corporate interest. A new, self-sovereign way of bypassing big tech and curating our own careers. 

Once we venture out of our eco chambers we can get real-time insights about how what we’re creating will touch the world. Whether it’s an app to help people quit drinking or web3’s answer to solving digital wallet complexity, it’s inspiring to see that an open house format like this exists.