In August 2025, we brought Analyst Connect to Los Angeles. More than 200 people RSVP’d. We’d started with a gathering in New York, and now I was bringing it back to where I was from.
I grew up in Santa Monica. I knew LA, but I also knew that knowing a city doesn’t automatically give you people to make plans with. Interns arrive for the summer. People finish college. Friends move away or get busy.
The invitation was for interns, recent grads, and people early in their careers who wanted to meet people outside work. Some came on their own, just as they had in New York.
That part always stays with me. Someone sees an invitation, decides to give it a shot, and walks in without knowing who they’ll talk to. We need to make the next few minutes easier for them.
Getting the LA gathering together gave us another event to build from. It was still Analyst Connect then. Anchor came later, after more of those conversations about who we wanted to bring together and what we wanted the events to feel like.
I’m proud of the LA one. I’d moved across the country, started something because I wanted to meet people, and got to bring it home.
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