[cmontella]

Agreed in hindsight, but at the same time there was no place else where a couple of 20-somethings could grab a cup of coffee with a VC and walk away with a handshake deal for $2 million dollars. That just didn't happen in Denver et al in 2014.

[zdragnar]

Does that still happen today? Anecdotally there has appeared to have been a massive funding crunch for pretty much anything that isn't virtual healthcare or AI since COVID passed, though I'll be the first to admit I'm not in the know on a lot of these things.

[ChadNauseam]

My anecdata is the opposite. I know people getting funding for non-AI projects. The most "nontraditional" one I can think of is Nautilus [0].

[0]: https://www.nautilus.quest/