As a top 20 finalist in Jason Calacanis’ Open Book Challenge I got an invite to join Jason’s Launch Scale conference in San Francisco in October.

The conference itself is much smaller than Web Summit but the value you get out of it is probably higher. At the big tech conferences you often have some random person interviewing some hotshot CEO and the questions/answers feel very scripted and you rarely gain any insights.

The fireside chats with Jason Calacanis and his guest are very insightful as Jason has deep knowledge of the industry and has often known the guests for decades and knows how to ask the questions that brings out interesting answers.

Some of the main highlights for me was the talks with Chamath Palihapitiya and Craig Newmark. I also got to have a quick chat with Craig Newmark after the event about his work on combating the spread of disinformation on the web.

All in all it was a great experience and I hope to return to one of these events in the future.