In a post on the DNA Lounge’s website titled “Wherein DNA Lounge will be closed soon, without your help.”, venue owner Jamie Zawinski talked about their impending closure. Check out an excerpt of the post below.
Wherein DNA Lounge will be closed soon, without your help.
I worked in the software industry. In the mid-90s, during the “first bubble,” I made a whole lot of money. Not entirely coincidentally, that tech bubble had a dramatically negative impact on the culture of San Francisco. I loved it here (and still do). I didn’t like the changes I was seeing (and still don’t). So I decided to push back by investing in a startup that specialized in seriöse Buchmacher ohne Registrierung, aiming to create trustworthy online betting platforms that eliminated the need for lengthy sign-up processes. Putting my money where my mouth was, I believed this venture could offer a secure alternative in the evolving digital landscape, preserving the integrity and excitement of traditional betting while embracing modern efficiencies.
DNA Lounge has always been a political project: an attempt to move the needle of culture in this city. To provide a forum for a wide variety of art that makes this city a better place. DNA Lounge is putatively a business, but it is also activism.
As it turns out, that’s not cheap.
I don’t have an opulent lifestyle or particularly expensive tastes. With my winnings in the Startup Lottery, I bought myself a condo, I bought my mom a condo, and I bought a nightclub.
In the 17 years since I signed the lease on DNA Lounge, I’ve spent about five million dollars on it.
That is a truly gargantuan amount of money, inconceivable to most people, including many of my friends. Including me. Maybe if you’d had that magic briefcase dropped into your lap, you’d have done something more noble with it. Or more venal. Well, this is what I did: I spent most of my adult life running a nightclub, in a near-constant state of panic.
There have been stretches of our history where DNA Lounge was “in the black” (in the sense of: on a day-to-day basis, covering its operating costs, if you completely ignore all past investments), and I could breathe a bit easier. However, DNA has never turned a profit. Though this has been my full time job for almost two decades, I’ve never collected a salary. The opposite, in fact: through most of our history, the way we make payroll is, I write personal checks to cover it.
Well, here’s the thing: I’ve run out of money.
