Organization
The Dojo is run mostly democratically by its membership under the oversight of five elected directors. Anybody can become a member, and hardship, worktrade and family rates are available. Member votes rarely deal with specific instances, and more work with general policy on how the Dojo should run. The Dojo is primarily financed through membership dues ($125/mo), but has historically accepted 3rd party sponsorships from Microsoft,Culture
The Dojo is entirely communal space from the tools in the electronics lab to the desks. Anything left there is considered fair game for anybody to play with. Very few restrictions are placed upon people provided they do not detract from the experience of members or consume resources they do not replace. Any member may run an event, and event organizers are permitted to charge non-members for attendance to their event. Members are always permitted to go everywhere they wish, provided they do not consume somebody else's finite resources (such as an event's food).Physical Space
The Hacker Dojo was originally located at 140 South Whisman Road in Mountain View, CA. The facility started as being only 140A but the space expanded to include 140B in October 2009, and further expanded in October 2011 to lease units C and D, thus taking over the entirety of 140 S. Whisman. The expansion party was attended by several hundred individuals, including Steven Levy. Because of zoning violations, the City of Mountain View blocked the use of units C and D, and restricted the use of units A and B to events no larger than 49 occupants., 140A was formerly an industrial artistic glassworking facility, though the community has put the space through a significant series of renovations. In order to raise money to help meet building code requirements, the Dojo staged an "underwear run," on Saint Patrick's Day as a fund raiser. Construction bids to bring the 140 South Whisman space up to building code requirements came in much higher than expected, and on Monday, October 15, 2012, the Dojo signed a lease to rent a building at 599 Fairchild Drive, also in Mountain View. Move-in occurred on February 13, 2013, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on February 27, 2013 The lease on the building at 599 Fairchild Drive ran through May 31, 2016, at which time the Dojo moved to its third home, located at 3350 Thomas Road in Santa Clara. Hacker Dojo and its fourth iteration returns back to its founding city in 2022 at 855 Maude Avenue.Controversies
Distributed denial of service attack
Members at Hacker Dojo could not access the Internet during several outages occurring between June 22 and July 14, 2013. The problem was eventually traced to an amplified distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) attack. In this case, the perpetrator was sending forged Domain Name Service (DNS) requests to multiple domain name servers, causing the servers to send large amounts data records to the Hacker Dojo, thereby overloading the system and preventing legitimate use of the network. Dojo managers made several attempts to stop the attacks, but were unsuccessful. Eventually, they requested help from theEmbezzlement
In March, 2016, a local newspaper published an article saying the Dojo was facing a leadership crisis and that an employee had been accused of embezzlement. Since 2016, The organization has had a major overhaul in leadership with new Board Members bringing back some of the Founding Team of Super Happy Dev House. The organization currently holds a Platinum badge of Transparency with Guidestar. https://www.guidestar.org/profile/26-4812213Uses
The three primary uses of Hacker Dojo are for events, as a coworking space, and for social purposes.Events
The 140B building has been turned into a place where events such as Random Hacks of Kindness, Startup Weekend, and BayThreat among others have been hosted. It also has invented and run its own events such as a reverse job fair call the Hacker Fair where candidates present booths of their previous independent or open source work to company engineers who are accompanied by technical recruiters and the Startup Fair, where young companies have booths for investors to consider. Members can hold events at the Dojo free of charge, subject to approval from the Dojo events committee.Coworking
A large number of Silicon Valley startups work daily out of the Hacker Dojo as their primary location, and Founders Institute, which is located nearby, encourages its members to work out of the DojoNotable Startups With Hacker Dojo History
* Pinterest—the two founders met and built the first iteration of the product at Hacker Dojo * Word Lens—acquired by Google * Pebble Watches * Infometers.com—acquired by Validic.com * Skydera * NetworkedBlogs * Game Closure * Chivaz Socks * MicroMobs, now Wedding Party * Cirroscope (then CirroSecure), acquired by Palo Alto NetworksSocial
The Dojo does movie nights, a weekly Happy Hour, and Friday Night Socials.Dojo in 2022
Original Dojo
References
External links