Most Tech Conferences Are a Waste of Time and Money
Mike Smith
Spicy Level
The Take
The talks are on YouTube. The networking is better on X. The hallway conversations can happen on Zoom. Spending $2K on tickets and $3K on travel to stand in a convention center is 2015 thinking.
+Why I'm Right
Conference ROI is almost never measured or positive
The best connections happen online where you can filter by relevance
Travel time is productive time lost
AI enables richer remote collaboration than any conference floor conversation
?The Counter-Argument
“In-person serendipity is real and hard to replicate. Some deals only happen face-to-face. And the discipline of leaving your desk and immersing in an industry has genuine value for breaking echo chambers.”
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