New York City

Category: History / Places Summary: Jack’s time in and relationship with New York City Last updated: 2026-04-06

Overview

New York City appears throughout Jack’s archive as a node: the WeWork nomadic period, the WeWork nomadic period, the meeting with Eddie Lou in December 2025, the New York Hacker House 2025. It is one of the cities in active rotation alongside Boston, San Francisco, and Atlanta (Georgia Tech Era).

The City

New York is the densest major city in the United States and one of the densest in the world. Manhattan south of 96th Street has a population density higher than most cities in Asia. This density produces a specific kind of energy: everything is close, everyone is moving, the ambient stimulation level is constant.

For someone who optimizes for high-signal environments and proximity to exceptional people - Jack - New York offers a different portfolio than San Francisco:

• Finance: the largest concentration of financial capital in the world
• Media: publishing, advertising, journalism, entertainment
• Fashion and design: the most aesthetically dense industry cluster in the US
• Tech: a growing scene, particularly in fintech, media tech, and AI applications
• Founding: a different founder culture from Silicon Valley - more execution-focused, less pitch-focused, more skeptical of hype

Q House 2023

The first documented New York chapter: Qhouse 2023, the hacker house Jack co-organized in 2023. This was the crucible of the Kevin Zhang connection and the first time Jack operated in New York in a builder-density mode.

WeWork

During the nomadic period (Wework Nomadic Period), Jack lived in a WeWork for a month. Whether this WeWork was in New York, Boston, or another city is not confirmed - but New York is the most likely location given the Q House connection.

New York Hacker House 2025

Listed on jack-luo.com as one of Jack’s organizational achievements: “New York Hacker House 2025.” This is a separate event from Q House 2023 - Jack returned to New York two years later to organize another builder-density event.

Eddie Lou - December 2025

Eddie Lou (Harvard psychology, @eddie_the_lou, 143K Instagram) met Jack in New York in December 2025. They spent two weeks building Delight + Weave together. The December 2025 New York meeting is the most recent documented New York chapter.

New York in Jack’s Writing

The “city at night” aesthetic that runs through Jack’s photos and writing has a strong New York connection: the rooftop meditation photo (city lights behind him), the neon rain photo (could be NYC or another dense city), the general attraction to vertical density and night-time urban environments.

New York at night - from a rooftop, from a bridge, from a high floor - looks like what the future is supposed to feel like. This is not a coincidence for someone whose aesthetic is consistently described as “cyberpunk” or “cinematic.”

Related

• Qhouse 2023
• Wework Nomadic Period
• Eddie Lou
• City Skylines
• Boston
• Jack Luo

Photos