I attended the SF startup school at the end of 2013 and had a similar experience but perhaps not quite so negative:
1) There's seemingly no access to the speakers outside of listening to what they have to say from a stage. The speakers were really great, and very interesting, but it's a shame I couldn't speak with one or two of them
2) Office hours with PG was incredibly entertaining, but I didn't take much away from it
3) I (perhaps naively) thought I'd be surrounded by people I could learn from so I made a point of talking to as many people as possible. Every single person I took the opportunity to engage with was looking for an idea/funding/technical co-founder blah blah blah. The good news is that I left feeling like our little app http://www.staffsquared.com was doing really rather well given we'd bootstrapped it. The bad news is that I didn't get much in the way of advice or new connections from the day. Perhaps the clue is in the name - startup school, 90% of the people I spoke with had just left college/Uni and were trying to find a pathway in to startups.
I'd definitely recommend the Startup School if you like one or more of the speakers. I left feeling energised and slightly wiser from the talks I listened to. I didn't stick around for the big one, Zuckerburg, because I felt like I'd sat and listened enough for one day...your mileage will definitely vary.
1) There's seemingly no access to the speakers outside of listening to what they have to say from a stage. The speakers were really great, and very interesting, but it's a shame I couldn't speak with one or two of them
2) Office hours with PG was incredibly entertaining, but I didn't take much away from it
3) I (perhaps naively) thought I'd be surrounded by people I could learn from so I made a point of talking to as many people as possible. Every single person I took the opportunity to engage with was looking for an idea/funding/technical co-founder blah blah blah. The good news is that I left feeling like our little app http://www.staffsquared.com was doing really rather well given we'd bootstrapped it. The bad news is that I didn't get much in the way of advice or new connections from the day. Perhaps the clue is in the name - startup school, 90% of the people I spoke with had just left college/Uni and were trying to find a pathway in to startups.
I'd definitely recommend the Startup School if you like one or more of the speakers. I left feeling energised and slightly wiser from the talks I listened to. I didn't stick around for the big one, Zuckerburg, because I felt like I'd sat and listened enough for one day...your mileage will definitely vary.