The Space Between
The unscripted moments that make life wonderful and memorable
2023 was the Last Burn.
There was a moment when my kids came on stage, hoping to hear one final ARRR from the crowd.
What I didn’t know was that they had prepared a short speech.
I cried. Not the dignified, composed tears of a conference organizer. The kind that surprise you - sudden, uncontrollable, real.
In that instant, more than a decade of work collapsed into a moment I couldn’t have scripted: my children, on stage, speaking from their hearts to a community that had become family.
Not because of the stage or the lights or the perfect timing. But because something unfiltered and entirely human broke through - in the space between what we planned and what arrived.
Two years later - on August 28th (so, in just two days 😱) - we're gathering for PIRATE Night.
It's not a recreation of the Summit. It's deliberate simplicity - smaller, stripped to what matters.
Over 500 people hold tickets, which humbles me more than I expected. But the number isn't the point. What we're after doesn't scale, and that's precisely why it matters.
We’re after those moments that can't be engineered. Connections that can't be manufactured. The kind of real that's becoming precious because it's becoming rare.
When everything can be perfect
We're living through the great optimization.
Your appearance can be filtered, your words polished until they lose their wrinkles. Everything smoothed away to mediocrity. Meetings happen through screens where your background is a beach you've never visited, your voice instantly translated into languages you don't speak.
It's remarkable. It's efficient. And yet, we're slowly starving for what it can't provide.
We hunger for the unscripted and imperfect. For conversations that wander down unexpected paths. For the warmth of genuine surprise when someone says exactly what they mean.
The more seamless our technology becomes, the more we crave what can't be automated: the pause before someone answers a difficult question, the laugh that breaks through nervous energy, the flash of recognition when a stranger voices what you've been thinking but couldn't say.
These aren't flaws in the human system. They're the whole point. They’re where meaning lives - in the space between.
What actually stays with you
Think about any gathering that mattered to you - conference, wedding, dinner with friends. What do you actually remember?
Rarely the keynote. Almost never the planned program.
It's the conversation that started in line for coffee and continued long after it should have ended. The moment someone's professional mask slipped and revealed the person underneath. The quiet recognition that you weren't the only one feeling uncertain, excited, alive.
These moments live in the margins, in the spaces between what we planned. They can’t be scheduled, scripted, optimized. And that’s precisely what makes them valuable.
There's no algorithm for meaning. No shortcut to connection. No way to automate the feeling of being truly seen.
The space between
With PIRATE Night the PIRATEx crew is designing for what cannot be planned. For the space between. Not despite the uncertainty, but because of it.
Yes, logistics matter. But what matters most is what we cannot control, only invite: the conversations that will surprise you, the ideas that shift how you see the world, the people who remind you why you chose this work, this life, this way of being in the world.
So we design backward from unpredictability. Not for polish, but for possibility. Not for efficiency, but for the particular magic that emerges when humans gather with curiosity and care.
We deliberately create a space for the unscripted moment, the vulnerable admission, the question that changes everything. For people to show up not as their professional brand, but as the whole person behind it - uncertain, hopeful, real.
That moment with my children on stage? It wasn't in our program. It wasn't planned or practiced or perfected.
It was beautiful because it was unrehearsed. Because it was ours. Because in a world increasingly dominated by algorithms and optimization, my children reminded me - and everyone there - why we gather: not to perform for each other, but to be human together.
That's what PIRATE Night is about. Not impressing or posing or showing off. But steering - in line with our theme #SteerTheMachine - toward curiosity, toward authenticity, toward intention. Toward the space between where meaningful connections live.
To those joining us on August 28th: come as you are, ready to discover what lives in the spaces between.
🙏
Be kind,
Manuel