OUR MANIFESTO
Maxwell is building the modern social club on a corner.
The History
New York City alone used to have thousands of Fraternal orders like Rotarians, Kiwanis, Elks, Moose, American Legion, Knights of Columbus and ethnic societies like Italian American Men's Clubs, Czech American Associations.
These were spots where you'd go every week, see the same people, "your people," and enjoy a drink. They had weekly, monthly and yearly rituals and were 2nd homes, not 3rd spaces, a city campus for you to serendipitously run into old and new friends.
A real community.
For obvious reasons -- they were all racist and sexist -- these institutions haven't translated well into modern life. Our generation has realized that "your people" doesn't need to mean people who look exactly like you, and started opt-ing out.
But we haven't replaced these institutions and as a consequence human loneliness is at all time highs -- compared to 2003, the average person spends 1/3rd as much time hanging out with friends in person today.
We're missing our city campuses.
We need a new model.
And the new crop of private clubs is not the solution.
1/3
Compared to 2003, people spend one-third as much time with friends in person today
We're missing our city campuses.
The Missing Piece — Community Requires Contribution
Every true community in history has been member run. You taught Sunday school and led bible study at your church. The members planned the Italian American festival every year. Synagogue members planned shabbat dinners. College fraternities and sororities had social chairs and rush chairs.
Member's committees, a leader elected by the members, programming and rules created in true collaboration with their members were all elements of the traditional community experience.
We've lost this, as buy-ins for some clubs skyrocket into the 10's if not 100's of thousands of dollars the promise is increasingly that you don't need to do anything.
But community requires you to do something.
To lead the Bible study group or join the exec committee, to raise your hand.
Because as hokey as it sounds "you get out as much as you put in."
We're Building Something Radically Different
Maxwell is reconstructing the social club on the corner from first principals.
We're taking the best of fraternal orders, ethnic societies, religious institutions, college greek life, and foreign social club models like English social clubs and Basque Country Txokos and creating the 2nd home we believe our society needs going forward.
We require 4 interviews for every member to join, making sure that the club truly is "your people," as defined by its members.
We ask that all new members go through a 3 month cohort where we ask you to attend a bunch of dinners with the 30 other people who joined at the same time.
Our drop-in open hours are purely social hours -- Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
We've built the space radically different than a traditional hospitality venue -- our kitchens are open, beautifully decorated, and built for our members to cook together in them, similar to the Txoko eating clubs of Spain.
We've built our own rituals -- a private chef cooks pancakes and eggs every Friday for any members who want to have a social work day, and every Friday evening is an open bar happy hour for members and their friends. We host a monthly debate night and yearly traditions like the Rodeo Party.
Twice a month members cook together in the kitchen for a tradition we call Family Dinner.
And importantly this is all run by the members.
OUR RITUALS
Friday Morning
Private Chef Coworking
Friday Evening
Open Bar, Happy Hour
Monthly
Debate Night
Twice Monthly
Family Dinner
Annual
Mansion Parties
And our goal is to create an institution that can scale Maxwell around the world,
because besides the pure happiness community generates, we believe it's more core to our society past just solving the "loneliness crisis."
Community Is The Fissile Material For Creation
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and the Lord of the Rings series came out of a group of writers who would gather regularly at a pub, and a significant amount of technical innovation including the Laser can be traced back to a few years at Bell Labs.
The supporting character in every technological or cultural movement is the community -- the friend of a friend investor who backs the company when no one else would because of a prior relationship, the impressionist painter from a wealthy family who buys all his struggling fellow painter friends works to help support them.
If “politics is downstream from culture,” our culture, and its artistic and scientific innovations, is downstream from community.
Our Mission
Maxwell's mission is to make connection more frequent, deeper and beautiful.
We build clubhouses so our communities have a 2nd home.
We throw events for the special moments in life.
We launch digital products to help connect, and physical products to make connection more beautiful.
We write a magazine to connect you with the cultural leaders in our community.
We believe that we're all searching for a group of people who make you feel seen, who help you succeed and cheer you on when you do, and we're building the physical, digital and cultural infrastructure for the next generation of community.