You've been with Meetup since its early days. How long has it been and how do you spend your days in the office?
I've been with Meetup since November of 2003. Back then Meetup HQ was located on a lonely street in Chelsea with only about 15 team members. Before me, Biz Ops was just Brendan (the CFO) and he was too busy handling finances, HR and other business issues to keep up with general office needs, such as restocking soap, toilet paper & others office supplies. As you can imagine, everyone was very very happy the day I started. Now, with close to 60 employees I spend most my days managing a small team doing a mixed bag of duties which include maintaining the office, planning events, and keeping the awesomely hard working Meetup Team happy & comfortable. Somewhere in there I also manage to assist Scott Heiferman, the CEO of Meetup.
There are quite a few secret 'internal' Meetups scheduled inside the office by Meetup's very own HQ people. Without giving away too much, can you tell me about a couple of them?
There are a variety of Internal Meetups here. Most are for learning and sharing knowledge amongst team members. The two I know most about are Linda's Working@Meetup group which is for recruiting purposes and the Meetup HQ social Meetup group which I organize. Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to divulge too much information since the founding member would have me stricken down with a dragon scepter. Let's just say, it's Super Cool and has been active since January of 2004.
You're into biotechnology and breakdancing. They both start with a B. Any comment?
I've heard that all good things come in three's so I'd better start looking for another Meetup group that begins with a B. Do you have any suggestions or should I email Meetup Support?
I've heard you've travelled a lot. What do you think about those New Yorkers that claim that they couldn't live anywhere else?
Well, I can't really comment on that since I am originally from Michigan. I consider myself a new New Yorker since I've only been living here since 1999. I can tell you this much - I love living in NYC and I love to travel to new places but there's always a point during every trip where I can't wait to get back to NYC.
What's your official comment on people sleeping in the office?
Not many of us have the luxury of living in Manhattan due the fact that it's insanely expensive. That being the case there are a fair amount of employees that live in Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey. Now, if you know anything about the transit system in regards to Jersey, you know that certain trains stop running at some point during the night making it almost impossible to get home. So my official comment is: Meetupers work hard and play hard and sometimes you've got no other choice but to crash on a comfy red Meetup couch. Just keep your drooling to a minimum.
Davide is on Meetup's Community Support team.
