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Techies Fight To Save Hacker Dojo, A Popular Silicon Valley Work Space

Techies Banding Together To Save Hacker Dojo
Drew Guarini
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A computer forensic examiner looks for evidence on hard drives at the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center in Linthicum, Md., Thursday, Aug. 11, 2011. Hackers and hostile nations are launching increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks against U.S. defense contractors. And the Pentagon is extending a program to help protect its prime suppliers, while serving as a possible model for other government agencies. Pentagon analysts are investigating a growing number of cases involving the mishandling or removal of classified data from military and corporate systems. Defense officials say intrusions into defense networks are now close to 30 percent of the Pentagon's Cyber Crime Center's workload. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
A computer forensic examiner looks for evidence on hard drives at the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center in Linthicum, Md., Thursday, Aug. 11, 2011. Hackers and hostile nations are launching increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks against U.S. defense contractors. And the Pentagon is extending a program to help protect its prime suppliers, while serving as a possible model for other government agencies. Pentagon analysts are investigating a growing number of cases involving the mishandling or removal of classified data from military and corporate systems. Defense officials say intrusions into defense networks are now close to 30 percent of the Pentagon's Cyber Crime Center's workload. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Hacker Dojo is equal parts shared office, lecture hall and after-hours salon for a variety of tinkerers, software coders and entrepreneurs who intend to reinvent the future. The idea for Pinterest was cooked up here. The makers of Pebble watches used the space as their West Coast headquarters. Today, however, it is threatened with extinction. City officials in Mountain View have ordered Hacker Dojo to comply with city regulations for offices or move out.

The Hacker Dojo is part office, part school and part after-hours salon for tinkerers, coders and entrepreneurs.
And so the inhabitants of the cavernous warehouse in a city of office complexes have found themselves scrambling to raise money, not for their start-ups, but to save their start-up space. A Kickstarter campaign to raise money expires Friday. (Contribute $256 and get "a box of hacker stuff.") They have already held a charity run through Mountain View -- in their underwear. A continuing charity auction offers, among other things, sex advice and financial tips for start-ups.

Read more on The New York Times

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