On Socratica

In my last semester at uWaterloo in the winter of 2022, I was up late on a weekday night, talking with my roommate and close friend, Adi.

Adi was frustrated with his undergrad experience. Despite the immense technical talent at Waterloo, everyone just wanted to work at FAANG. He felt like he wasn’t able to meet many entrepreneurial and creative people during his time at Waterloo.

I challenged him: “You can either complain about it or do something about it.”

That night, Adi stayed up until morning. By the next day, he had a plan for Socratica: a weekly co-working sessions for people to work on their creative passion projects.

He brought in Aman as his co-founder and host and organized the first session on a Sunday morning in a dingy classroom in E5. The format was simple: two one-hour work sessions, a break in the middle, and demos at the end. Fewer than ten of us were there for the inaugural event.

Tomorrow, there’s a 4,000-person symposium, with people traveling in from around the world. Socratica has grown into a global movement, with chapters across the world.

Absolutely insane to see how much it has grown.