Meet Me at Web Summit in Lisbon

The Forrest Four-Cast: November 3, 2016

This weekend, I fly to Portugal for the annual Web Summit gathering. I am excited to see how this event will change and evolve its first year in Lisbon, having departed its initial home-city of Dublin for this ostensibly more user-friendly location.

This will be my second visit to the Web Summit. In 2015, the large number of attendees in a relatively small space was generally counter-productive to meaningful conversations. Moreover, the short on-stage speaking times for high-level speakers worked against in-depth discussion of the issues at hand. In fact, the entire vibe of the event seemed a bit too frantic and rushed for my tastes. Although my sense of exhaustion at last year’s event was also colored by the GamerGate issues that were happening in Austin at about the same time.

For 2016, I’m looking forward to hearing presentations from people like Bonin Bough (Cleveland Hustles), Heather Brunner (WP Engine), Nicole Glaros (TechStars), Christine Herron (Intel Capital), Ryan Hoover (ProductHunt), Dave McClure (500 Startups), Gary Vaynerchuk (VaynerMedia), Werner Vogels (Amazon), Telle Whitney (Anita Borg Foundation), and many others. A lot of these folks I want to see have served on sessions at SXSW in recent years — but, my schedule at that time of the year rarely allows me to see them talk.

I’m also looking forward to our SXSW networking event in Lisbon on the evening of Tuesday, November 8. The guest list is pretty full — but we still have a few open spots. Please email me at hugh at sxsw dot com if you would like to stop by!