The Network State Podcast #23 – "Cafe Cursor"

Host: ns.com
Guest: Ben from Cursor
Date: January 12, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode dives into the recent phenomenon of "pop-up" tech community events—specifically the "Cafe Cursor" meetups organized by Cursor, an AI coding assistant platform. The conversation explores how temporary, in-person gatherings of software users are organically building local and global tech communities, bridging the digital and physical world, and even hinting at new paradigms beyond mere online interaction. The discussion ranges from the logistics of organizing such events to broader implications for startup societies, collaboration, and user engagement.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Origin and Growth of Cafe Cursor Pop-Ups

• Ben on Genesis of the Pop-Ups:
  • Started with renting out a local San Francisco cafe for a day to meet users, offer credits, and build community.
  • The event was “pretty cool,” leading to more pop-ups in NY and an explosion of interest globally.
  • “About a thousand people reached out within like a couple days of us posting about that.” (00:50–01:10)

Logistics and Community Dynamics

• Event Format:
  • Rent local neighborhood cafes for users to work, meet the team, hang out, get feedback, and build connections.
  • Some people drop in; others stay all day, sometimes hanging out after hours and forming “block parties.” (02:00–02:53)
• Breakdown of Attendees:
  • Mix of support requests, feature suggestions, and socializing among hardcore power users.
  • “I was surprised by how much folks also want to connect with each other and see what like other people are building.” (02:53)

The Challenge of Going from Pop-Up to Permanent

• Host: “I have a term for that. It’s going from pop up to permanent. … Surprisingly logistically complicated to do one of these.” (02:06)
• Ben: Cafes are not event venues and often hesitant to close doors to regulars. “Convincing the cafes that this makes sense to do.” (04:39)
• Unique Cafes as Venues:
  • Host: The appeal lies in using neighborhood spots rather than co-working/event spaces; street-level, approachable, accessible.
  • “All of those things that make it attractive as a cool pop up location make it something which is usually not optimized to be an event location.” (06:41)

Macro Trend: "Printing Out the Cloud"

• Host showcases other examples:
  • Pop-ups for Claude (another AI), AngelList’s Founders Cafe, Coinbase's developer retreat, Zcash, Ethereum (Zuzulu in Montenegro).
  • More permanent venues: Tesla Diners, Network School, Starbase, Solana Economic Zone.
• Host’s theory: “You’re tapping into an important macro trend … like this giant subterranean river and you got like this burst of energy from it.” (09:01–10:08)
• Defining the Trend:
  • "Printing out the cloud"—manifesting online communities in physical spaces.
  • “Now we’re taking the Cursor social network ... and in person that really makes sense.” (10:09–10:57)

Community Organization & Exclusivity

• Leveraging User Status:
  • Ben discusses inviting top 1% Cursor users to exclusive events; recipients are excited to meet other high-level users.
  • “First of all, people love getting that email.” (13:34)
  • “One of the things that probably draws people the most is ... this curiosity of ‘I got to meet other people who are like using Cursor this much.’” (13:42)
• Host relates to Emacs power users:
  • "Everybody would have some kung fu trick that I didn't know... Not one in a hundred people in the world would share such an interest." (14:02)
  • Suggestion: have people share their top productivity tip at meetups for knowledge transfer.

Tangible Swag & User Engagement

• Ben on giving out ‘tab keys’:
  • Sent external programmable "tab" buttons to power users as rewards/incentives.
  • “It comes in like a really nice like box and it lights up and it has the cursor logo on it.” (16:14)
• Physical/analog input experimentation:
  • Discussion about programmable keypads, past hardware experiments (Apple’s touch bar), and how hotkeys might suffice.

“Society as a Service” and Next Steps

• Host suggests a new SaaS model:
  • “You could have a waitlist in each city and if you get enough subscriptions, you add the physical part of the subscription.” (11:31)
  • “It’s a new SaaS—Society as a Service.” (11:56)
• Permanent Community Spaces:
  • AngelList’s Founders Cafe cited as transformative; gave users a space less formal than company offices but more purposeful than generic meetups.
  • "Suddenly all these investors, all these founders had an organizing place." (12:26)
• Ben: Considering more power-user focused events and fostering in-person knowledge sharing.

Expanding the Movement

• Upcoming Events & Call to Action:
  • Cursor pop-ups planned in Ghana, Mexico City, Stockholm, Riyadh, Toronto, Taipei, San Francisco, Ethiopia, and beyond. (19:25)
  • Community involvement: users can help organize pop-ups globally by signing up at cursor.com/community.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Growth:
  • “About a thousand people reached out within like a couple days of us posting about that. And now they're, they're really popping up all over the world, which has been cool to see.” — Ben (00:50–01:10)
• On Building Local Communities:
  • “It ended up just being a great place for people to just like hang out outside and kind of form these little block parties, like even after the event, people staying for four hours, which was really cool to see.” — Ben (02:53)
• On Macro Trend:
  • “You’re tapping into an important macro trend … like this giant subterranean river and you got like this burst of energy from it because you found a lot of people were actually interested.” — Host (10:02)
• On Exclusive Invitation Strategy:
  • “We'll pull a list of like our top 1% of users and invite them.” — Ben (13:08)
  • “First of all, people love getting that email. ... People come and they're like, ‘Wait, I want to meet other top 1% users.’” — Ben (13:34–13:42)
• On “Society as a Service”:
  • “It’s a new SaaS – society as a service.” — Host (11:56)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:00–01:10] — Introduction: Ben introduces Cursor pop-ups and their early success
• [02:06–03:38] — Logistics & breakdown of attendee engagement
• [04:39–06:41] — The challenge of sourcing neighborhood venues
• [07:29–10:57] — Host contextualizes with industry-wide pop-up/permanent space experiments & ‘printing out the cloud’
• [11:31–13:08] — Subscription-based physical community proposal & past case studies from AngelList
• [13:08–14:02] — Pop-up exclusivity and fostering power users
• [16:14–16:45] — Physical rewards (Tab key) for power users
• [19:25–20:05] — Call to action for upcoming events and community organization

Resources and How to Get Involved

• Interested listeners can find more information or sign up for upcoming events at cursor.com/community. (19:09)
• Users are encouraged to suggest or host their own pop-ups in cities worldwide.
  • “We want to do this together with our community ... feel free to if you're curious to learn more.” — Ben (19:39)

Tone:
Conversational, energetic, optimistic—reflecting the excitement and grassroots energy around in-person tech gatherings in the AI and startup space.