[hkmurakami]

I went to Startup School in 2014 (this was at De Anza, not Stanford) and made one good friend at the pre-Startup School BBQ. IMO that alone made the meet and greet cocktail party nature of the pre-event worthwhile. I don't think the "meet people" aspect was nearly as strong during the actual event.

The talks were "inspiring/motivational rather than practical/tactical", and I agree that you can get 95% of the value from the video streams. I think that being in the presence of "luminaries" will bring you back down to earth realizing that they're just ordinary folks at the end of the day.