Gotta disagree with you on this one. Lots of folks in w00w00 worked together. In that sense, they did invest in each other (with time and effort, if not cash).
Also, back in the late 90s defcon days, w00w00, CdC, New Hack City, each had an entrepreneurial spirit. w00w00 perhaps more than most. I remember when CdC launched BackOriface, it was just as much a startup launch as anything.
I was there. I'm friends with several w00w00 people, and worked for 4 years with Dug. I wasn't in w00w00 because I was in a "rival" channel (by the way, it sounds weird to mix TESO and ADM up with IRC channels like #w00w00 and #!r00t and #guild).
We were all of us entrepreneurial, but being in w00w00 didn't get any any support from, say, d0b.
I'll do you one better: #!r00t'ers started a bunch of companies together. Other than WhatsApp (WHICH I ADMIT BLOWS THE CURVE), were there a lot of multiple-w00-person companies?
I wrote the article and, yes, I probably conflated TESO and ADM with w00w00 on one level, though I did a ton of research and those other hacker groups were routinely mentioned in comparison.
"Gotta disagree with you on this one. Lots of folks in w00w00 worked together. In that sense, they did invest in each other (with time and effort, if not cash)." -- that's correct and a good way of putting it.
All is a strong word. I was more #hack, but also spent time in #!r00t and the two communities overlapped a bit (tim(al), etc). I was terribly non-entrepreneurial back then. I ported the original iss.c to SunOS and Solaris but distinctly remember telling kewpie that a business around this would never fly. This is one example (of a few quite notable ones) of why people should not take business advice from me.
All that aside, yeah, this smacks of mostly post-hoc fallacy to me as well.
Frankly, I don't think you're making your point, but swang made it below in another part of the discussion:
"And surprise surprise, people who used one of the more technical communications medium back in the 90s end up being technical people when they grew up."
I think that's your actual point: Smart technical young people became smart technical adults, and the hindsight of whats app could have been any number of channels, just as many of the members were parts of many "crews" or channels. Unlike most channels though, as you point out, they met up in real life, generally in august in vegas. :-)
Also, back in the late 90s defcon days, w00w00, CdC, New Hack City, each had an entrepreneurial spirit. w00w00 perhaps more than most. I remember when CdC launched BackOriface, it was just as much a startup launch as anything.
Note: I don't claim to be a member of any.