Sam Talks Technology

Sam Sethi talks with James Minter about the story of his club, Adam Street in London which not been told.James is as self-effacing as he is charming, recounting with warmth the role it played in the dotcom boom.“Adam Street was absolutely amazing,” he recalls. “It was a first, unique, and I met the most wonderful bunch of people there. No one has ever directly copied it.”Now sadly defunct, the venue off The Strand – with its bar, restaurant, library, gallery, and event space – became the go-to place for London’s tech entrepreneurs as they rallied after the bubble burst.Originally established as serviced offices by James after a career in the navy, Adam Street became a magnet for dotcom start-ups with few assets and little capital. The club itself opened in 2001 in an old watering hole for actors propping up the building.What would become the first entrepreneurs’ club in London was seeded when James noted the then itinerant nature of Julie Meyer’s First Tuesday networking club.“Back in those days it was still