By Adrianne Jeffries 3:54pm

The Third Degree

Mr. Diamond at NYTM.

Q&A With Brandon Diamond on His Plans for the New York Tech Meetup Board

Brandon Diamond is a New York Tech Meetup superuser as well as the proprietor of the blog Your Startup Sucks and an engineer at one of New York tech’s most hardcore techie companies, 10gen. The hacker has been volunteering for NYTM for two years. Last year, he ran for one of the board’s four open seats and lost; but this year he won by a landslide (just 126 votes, as the election had just a 3.68 percent participation rate, but it was more than double the second-place candidate). It’s unclear what kind of influence the community board members wield, as the meetup just incorporated as a nonprofit last year and the organization is undergoing a lot of change. Betabeat caught up with Mr. Diamond by email to ask about his hopes for the future of the mothership of all tech meetups. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 12/20/11 3:21pm

Contests

Mr. Diamond.

Hacker-Organizer Brandon Diamond Wins NYTM Board Seat with 126 Votes in Low-Turnout Election

The results are in: Brandon Diamond, two-year volunteer veteran of the New York Tech Meetup, has won the election for one of the four community seats on the nonprofit’s board with 126 of the 502 votes cast. Mr. Diamond’s initial victory tweet: “Oh my god.”

Mr. Diamond ran last year and lost to designer, consultant and proto-blogger Anil Dash and NYU professor and HackNY coordinator Evan Korth, who took the first two of the four seats in the inaugural election. This year, his platform focused on recruiting more engineers to New York and the Meetup. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 12/06/11 9:59am

Mr. Diamond.

Electioneering at New York Tech Meetup

About 60 of 200 registered attendees gathered at New Work City last night to hear two-minute speeches by the candidates for an open New York Tech Meetup board seat. Meetup and NYTM founder Scott Heiferman stood in the audience in a red hoodie, board member Esther Dyson settled on the window ledge in a #newsfoo t-shirt, and scene staple Gary Sharma wandered about with his sponsored tie (Pivotal Labs and Inkba) as 15 candidates gave their vision of what should change about the largest meetup in New York, which last year incorporated as a nonprofit 501c(6), giving it the power to lobby government, among other things. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 10/06/11 11:30am

Hack Hack Hack Hack It Apart

Brandon-Diamond

10Gen’s Brandon Diamond Tells Us Why New York City Needed a Hackers Union

At a town hall for NY Hackers this week, its founder Brandon Diamond announced the creation of the Hackers Union, a unifying non-profit resource for all engineers in New York City.

“We’re still sort of in the early stages of a self-sustaining engineering culture like you might find in San Francisco,” said Mr. Diamond, who also serves as associate director of NY Tech Meetup and a database kernel engineer at 10Gen (the company behind MongoDB). “Our goal is not to become the next big meetup. We want to consolidate all the activities into a central hub.”

The effort has already attracted a potential sponsor–a hedge fund, no less. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 8/29/11 11:19am

Come Ons

Mr. Diamond ain't nothin' to fuck with.

Sample Recruiter Response Letter, Courtesy NY Hacker Brandon Diamond

Remember when organizers accidentally leaked the entire list of 452 hackers who signed up for the TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon? The list has gotten into the hands of some of those overly aggressive, ham-fisted recruiters and non-technical co-founders who dog any engineer with a LinkedIn account. A recent example:

My company is hiring a CTO/lead developer.  We’ve been accepted into a top accelerator program (like one that actually gets written up in TC) so our company has validation and money.  Whoever we bring on would also enjoy a significant equity stake (think co-founder level).  You can read more here:
www.NextBigTechStartup.com
Cheers,
Camilo [co-founder at GeoSkipper]

In an expression of continuing frustration with pesky talent seekers, local start-up entrepreneur and lead of the developer syndicate NYHacker Brandon Diamond typed back a response that any engineer could use as a model: Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 5/04/11 1:06pm

The Start-Up Rundown

town-hall-meeting-hall

Start-Up News: Stack Overflow Backlash, XYDO Launch, and Hackers Finally Have Proper Party


What happened/is happening this week in New York tech?


COME ONE, COME ALL TO THE HACKER TOWN HALL. Want to hang with hackers outside of a grueling 48-hour hackathon? “We’re trying to do something special with the Hacker Townhall,” organizer Brandon Diamond said in an email blast asking hackers to spread the word. “We want to help hackers get to know the activities and groups available within the city (and to get to know one another, too). Think “activity fair” meets “cocktail party” meets “free beer and pizza.” See?” You can next Thursday at General Assembly. Dress code? “Tremendously casual.” Also, be a hacker or GTFO.  Read More