[TodPunk]

Not in the slightest. Hacker spaces are an extension of just about every enthusiasts club ever, and if anything startup culture is a product of THOSE. Nobody sat down and said "you know, these startups are pretty cool, I should start a casual place to work on such a thing." Most hackerspace projects aren't even for profit, they're just things to learn on or group projects to socialize and expand the craft.

Remember that Wozniak tinkered with hardware for fun and his day job at HP. Such things were possible then, but before that there was always clubs for engineers and creatives of all kinds. We often ignore history when we create these kinds of articles, because writing things in the context of history is hard and doesn't get as many clicks if you don't put more effort into it. I find this phenomenon deeply interesting, as we'd do much better as a species if we learned historical contexts for a lot of things we think are new and powerful ideas.

tl;dr: No, startup culture is a niche extension of hackerspaces. Not the other way around.

[angersock]

I disagree further--I don't think that startup culture (especially the pseudo Ponzi stuff we see nowadays) has anything to do with hackerspaces.

"Startup culture" is purely an invention of "How do I build a business with no resources"? Hackerspaces are the continuation of HAM radio clubs and electronics clubs and engineers bullshitting at bars and people letting folks goof around with their broken television sets and kids goofing around on BBS.

None of that has anything to do with startups--to say otherwise is pretty much just astroturfing.

[seiji]

Many 1-2 person startups use hackerspaces (which have no formal definition) as co-working spaces. So there is a symbiotic relationship there, especially when some hackerspaces cost $100 to $300 per month.

Formal hackerspaces (e.g. have a building, have staff, have policies) are [potentially non-profit] startups themselves.

[TodPunk]

I very much agree, but I was only using startup culture in the context of that term's use in the article. If we want to get more general than that, you are very correct that startup culture as a separate principle is not overlapping at all with hackerspaces. The use of it as a term of starting a tech company out of your garage hobby is.