SWAE no BLC

Safi Bahcall, the author of Loonshots, talks about gatherings he organized when he was living in New York City called SWAE no BLC:

Safi Bahcall: We’ll talk more about that later. So I was living in Manhattan as a single guy. The company that I was running was in Boston, so I was just commuting back and forth and I didn’t have almost any social life because so much time in the plane and then dealing with running a business. So I would set up these gatherings, some of which you came to, I remember —

Tim Ferriss: Yes. They were good.

Safi Bahcall: — in my apartment. I called them SWAE, scientists, writers, artists, and entrepreneurs, and then eventually added, mostly ’cause I was trying to exclude them and eventually I just became explicit, no BLC. No bankers, lawyers, or consultants.

Tim Ferriss: Which one should note, you used to be, at McKinsey, which is great. No bankers, lawyers, or consultants.

Safi Bahcall: Right. Self-hating consultant. So it was SWAE and no BLC. Also, ’cause I just don’t remember stuff unless I have a silly acronym or something. So I called it SWAE no BLC. As soon as I said, especially when I added the no BLC, interest skyrocketed, especially from the BLC crowd. My banker, lawyer, and consultant friends were like, “Can I come?” I’m like, “Wait. What part of no BLC? I just said no BLC.” “Yeah, yeah, but can I come? Can you make an exception?” I’m like, “That’s weird.”

And then single women in Manhattan, really interesting, intelligent, attractive women friends would be like, “I am so there. I so want to come.” I was sort of out of it, but I realized there was such frustration among really intelligent women, professional women. They were so tired of the same old, ’cause New York is full of these really ambitious bankers who are just focused on banking, and they were so curious to meet scientists. So for me, I see scientists all day long, and writers I was sort of curious about and entrepreneurs.