SF tech crawl gets an inside look at startups

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A large crowd of techies wandered around Downtown San Francisco Friday, some of them in strange costumes, as part of a tech crawl.[br /][br /]The group was led by a woman wearing Google Glass and a couple of guys in orange astronaut suits -- a gaggle of mainly 20- and 30-somethings that snaked its way through the streets of San Francisco. The group resembled a pub crawl and that's because it's exactly like a pub crawl. There's free popcorn and there are glasses, the safety kind, not the drinking kind.[br /][br /]Myles Weissleder is the founder of [url HREF="http://sfnewtech.com/" TARGET="" REL=""]San Francisco New Tech[/url], the monthly mixer that's like speed dating, but for startups.[br /][br /]This year, for the second time, he's took that show on the road for the New Tech Crawl. With help from the mayor's office, he's asked local tech companies to open their doors as a sort of open house for fellow techies.[br /][br /]"We have a lot of startup founders, we have a lot of engineers, we have a lot of people working for their next opportunity and a lot of people who are just curious to get behind the doors of a lot of these companies that they've heard so much about," Weissleder said. [br /][br /]From design labs to co-working spaces, the crowd got to see the creatures of tech in their natural habitat.[br /][br /]"This is one way, not just to see them present, but actually go to their place of work, which shows a lot of about a company," [url HREF="https://luxerone.com/[br /]" TARGET="" REL=""]Luxer One[/url] creative director Andres Acosta said. "And I think you learn a lot meeting their employees at their place of business, at their home."[br /][br /]The tech crawl is about learning, networking, and for the companies presenting, it can also be about recruiting.[br /][br /]There are big names involved like [url HREF="https://www.linkedin.com/" TARGET="" REL=""]LinkedIn[/url] and [url HREF="https://github.com/" TARGET="" REL=""]GitHub[/url]. For people who are new in town, it's the best way to see why San Francisco is the capital of innovation.