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A Day at Network School

By 2 min read#community#observations

Last weekend I finally got to visit Network School (NS) down south in the Malaysian peninsula. I'd always been curious about the vibe there, but what I couldn't understand was why anyone would pay RM6000 (USD 1500) a month to live there, which is what you'd pay for a luxury apartment in KL.

Here's how I ended up there. Friday night I was in Singapore for a Zutomayo concert, and Saturday morning I saw NS founder Balaji tweeted about a hackathon happening at NS. Being free the whole day, I figured why not, hopped on a bus across Tuas, and went to see for myself.

The vibe was good, with a lot of smart people around. I met a PhD candidate from Tokyo University, a medical doctor with a PhD from Germany, and plenty of others running interesting businesses. As I walked around I dropped into conversations, one about how to win over older clients for a health product, another about how to market an app. The energy was great, and everyone shared knowledge without really expecting anything in return.

Being around people like this pushes you to level up. I've been on my share of Discord servers and Twitter circles, and this felt like a much better way to network, and to get information asymmetry too. Yes, there were some rich kids larping as founders, but that's fine, at least they've got the right spirit.

The facilities were genuinely impressive. The food follows Bryan Johnson's Blueprint meal plan, so it's about as healthy as you can get. I also got to visit the iconic NS gym, which was very cold, very big, and packed with great equipment. All of it, meals, gym, coworking, is included in the monthly fee. Suddenly RM6000 didn't look as crazy as it first did. You could live a good lifestyle here.

The term "school" is a bit misleading (there's no fixed curriculum), but the vibe is there. Interesting concept.

Would I join? Probably not in the short term. But it's interesting to see this kind of social experiment running in my own motherland. Not gonna lie, this is the highest concentration of Americans I've ever seen in one spot in Malaysia. If people are willing to fly 24 hours to be here, there must be something they can't find elsewhere.