Internet generation meets exclusively

After Industrieele Groote Club, De Kring, and Arti et Amicitiae there is now a club for the internet generation in the city: The Club Amsterdam on the Herengracht - members only.

One could register for the introductory meeting Thursday directly and digitally, of course on one of the iPads present, indispensable for a club founded by Internet entrepreneurs. They hope to have at least 100 members on their grand opening in January, stated founder Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten of The Next Web in the high white marble entrance Herengracht 450.

It takes some getting used to: the grandeur of a seventeenth-century building on the canals belt, combined with a triad of young and ambitious entrepreneurs of the internet generation. The organizers think people want to meet offline too. In London and New York there are already many more such clubs.

On the first introductory meeting, where the champagne flowed freely, publishers, lawyers, internet entrepreneurs, filmmakers, artists, and advertisers mingled. All from the network of Veldhuijzen van Zanten himself. As soon as they become members, they can in turn introduce new aspiring members.

For that purpose he appointed an eight-member ballot committee - names are confidential-  whose purpose it is to thoroughly screen aspiring members, to determine whether they are interesting and ambitious enough. The founder wants to keep this up until the club reaches  about five hundred members. A good mix between different professional groups is of course important, even though the club is not the Rotary, where each profession may delegate one member, states Veldhuizen van Zanten.