Londonmaxxing: Sarah Drinkwater on Why London Sparks Culture, Startups and Collective Optimism

Londonmaxxing: Sarah Drinkwater on Why London Sparks Culture, Startups and Collective Optimism

Editor / 13 May 2026 / Think

Image credit: #Londonmaxxing – the term coined by London entrepreneur Charlie Ward londonmaxxing.com

Sarah Drinkwater has spent the past two decades moving between journalism, technology, startups and culture – building communities long before “community” became a buzzword. Before joining Google, Sarah worked as a journalist with titles including The Guardian and The Independent, before going on to become Global Lead for Local Guides at Google, and later leading and scaling Google Campus London – the legendary Shoreditch startup space that helped shape a generation of London founders, creatives and operators. Today she runs Common Magic, an early-stage investment fund backing community-driven startups across Europe and the US.

In this sharp and funny article, Sarah reflects on the rise of #Londonmaxxing – the meme-meets-movement celebrating London as a city of possibility, culture, invention and collective energy. The phrase was coined by London entrepreneur Charlie Ward and began life online before rapidly escaping into the wider culture, eventually even making its way into Sadiq Khan’s social media bio. Charlie organised the first Londonmaxxing meet-up back in April, where Sarah was invited to speak, and the next gathering lands on 27 May.

Part civic love letter, part startup optimism manifesto, Sarah agrees that “London’s antifragile; it’s lindy” and reminds us why this buzzing city absolutely rocks. From the Barbican and Tate Modern to Somerset House, The Nickel cinema and South Bank skaters, she captures the strange electric magic of London right now.

Read the article, embrace your inner Londonmaxxer, say yes to things and get out there, people.

londonmaxxing
on how I learnt to get over the cringe of this phrase because memes + movements matter

Everything you want is on the other side of cringe.

Raise your hand, be earnest and enthusiastic, know you know nothing, follow your gut, ask for what you want.

Hold things lightly and hold your head high when something doesn’t work.

Image credit: V good image by Ash Lamb

Amazed I have to keep learning this, having been mid to high cringe all my life, but here we are. The latest is Londonmaxxing.

For those who aren’t terminally online, this started on twitter as a meme phrase. And, yeah, my cringe reflex twanged when I first saw it.

The UK’s one of the only countries in the world where being patriotic is often taken as an anti-signal about a person; down to our mixed feelings about the England flag and what it can symbolise.

But shame, even ambiguity, can keep you stuck in what you think is your place.

No thanks.

This matters right now when it feels like so much of the future – what we build, how we want to exist together, how we communicate to the world what and who we are – is up for grabs in the most exciting way.

And in the UK we have this legendary asset in London.

As Gritcult says, “London’s antifragile; it’s lindy”.

Geographic reality becomes destiny.

Islands are forced to build up their trade hubs and resilience.

The history of trade led to English as the world’s predominant language both for humans and most recently for computers. Shared interfaces speed things up.

Trading ports import and export goods, people and ideas.

For hundreds of years, London’s been a magnet for a constant flow of skills, cultures and languages. My son is British, Irish, Russian, German, Dutch, Portuguese, American, Welsh, Scottish and not a little confused at just how much heritage he has.

It’s simpler just to call him a Londoner.

And the consequences of this superdiversity – a term that got invented for London – is an unusual level of resilience.

If you think about the US; historically New York leads on finance, fashion + media, DC on policy, San Francisco on tech and LA on film.

London has all this, and more, in a hub and spoke city where we tend to live out in neighbourhoods and commute into a dense and varied centre.

The diversity of industries means when a sector wobbles or even dies, something pops up permissionlessly to take its place.

The invention of modern composable shipping containers killed London’s shipyards and the Thames as a trade route (too narrow); no problem, we built Canary Wharf in its place to become of the world’s financial hubs (It was partly built using the proceeds from a legendary gold heist because we produce world class criminals too).

When Bankside Power station shut up shop, we rebuilt it into one of the city’s best museums (all with free options; it’s confusing to me when I have to pay for museums elsewhere), Tate Modern.

My father-in-law used to play in this massive crater formed by a bomb in the Blitz; the hole it left in the City was big enough for someone to build an entire future city in my personal favourite London spot, the Barbican.

London’s timezones mean it’s one of the only places in the world you can do truly global work (one of the many excuses I used not to move in the era I managed teams in Tokyo, Sydney and San Francisco simultaneously).

And one of the most underestimated London global soft power strengths, magnetically attractive to small town kids like me since time began, is culture from skateboarders on the South Bank to fashion kids trotting out of Central St Martin’s. In the last two weeks alone, I went to:

  • an extremely glamorous ball in Chelsea’s the Saatchi Gallery
  • an enjoyable but baffling film at a 37-seat grindhouse cinema (more below)
  • States of Exception at Somerset House on arts/tech/social systems or “one of your sovereign protocol governance things” as Stuart would say
  • took my son for his regular swimming lesson in an ex Olympic pool
  • plus Flower AI’s decentralised AI summit and an agent demo night because London’s tech events are world class, too

Undeniably, there’s something electric in the air with the local tech scene right now.

But beyond the visible tweetable public successes of huge raises, exits and office expansions is the infrastructure coming underneath; a core part in a large fragmented city is places to put people together.

Charlie at Ramen Club has done this brilliantly for years and was one of the organisers of the very first Londonmaxxing event I spoke at a few weeks back.

I was late, Lime biking through the City on a very hot Thursday evening through the throngs of boozers and what I felt when I walked into the rammed space was a wall of energy. Londonmaxxing is something to rally around; a meme to call out everything good and exciting about this city, a bat-signal to find each other, a commitment to get on and fix stuff that isn’t working.

Because nothing is more “you can just do things” than launching a new city, I was panelling with Joe who is doing just that with Forest City (I love) and Josh from Plugged Founders.

So hard to sum up one of the most optimistic exciting evenings I’ve had for ages so I’ll just drop these (I can tell I care about the topic bc of the cringey levels of hand movement).

One of my most strongly held theories is that San Francisco’s tech scene is a collective wealth project; a small dense scene where capital and talent flows as people invest in their friends, give customer contracts to friends and buy friends companies. The capital then gets reinvested and the merry-go-round starts again.

We need more of this in Europe. No company succeeds alone; its success puts money in the pockets of founder, early team, investors and through taxes, to better streets, hospitals and education systems. I’m into it.

Important things you need to know;

a) the photographer was wearing these amazing Bottega Veneta boots with bright green soles that I have been chasing around secondhand sites. It’s not a competition because many scenes can and do thrive, but even the photographers at tech events in London are better dressed than 99% of West Coasters.

b) as a thank you, the team gave me this iconic book of British crisp packet designs after my strong enthusiasm for the blind crisp tasting. Excellent design inspiration and a reminder of one final underrated London asset; humour.

The next morning I woke up to a new group chat with hundreds of members.

I’m excited to see what Londonmaxxing does in the next phase of the scene but, honestly, the main beneficiary of all this cringey enthusiasm to me; it’s not really about London, or even Europe, but about the sheer energetic choice and fun of collectively building a better future.

Last month has been a TIME (in a good way). I started writing this newsletter sitting in an Athens bookshop / cafe called Free Thinking Zone in March. Now it’s May. Shruggy emoji. Here’s everything I learnt and loved since then:

  • The Nickel, a grindhouse cinema in Clerkenwell that shows the most lovingly curated selection of “the most subversive, fearless, sublime, psychedelic cinematic treasures” = such good vibes. 37 seats, always booked out, staff straight out of central casting; when I walked in, the bored’n’beehived receptionist had her platform boots up on the desk and was popping gum. I saw 1967’s Privilege about a manufactured pop star used as a tool of political & religious control, shot as a documentary. The lead role’s played by Manfred Man’s singer Paul Jones then at the height of his fame; it’s Taylor Swift starring in an Adam Curtis take on Trump’s America.

Image credit: The Nickel Cinema. thenickel.co.uk

  • god tier nerdsnipe marketing from p0 with the Museum of the Human Web. As we shift to human-machine collabs for the next web, this IRL pop-up in San Francisco and online gallery celebrates pure human creation. Enter online to win one of these (see pic below) – all donations benefit the Internet Archive + Computer History Museum.
  • Now I’m a few investments deep into agent infrastructure I’ve been on a deep dive into brand + discovery for headless products. It’s just so very early; frontends exist only for trust + show don’t tell. This is the most modern resource piece I found so far; reply if you’ve got examples/inspiration for me!
  • Dazzled by this (see the video below). Watch it all the way through with the sound down (song is so-so).

Film credit: STORM, starring Swedish rapper Yung Lean, Directed by Romain Gavras and Choreographed by Damien Jalet. @yunglean2001 @romaingavras @damienjalet damienjalet.com

  • Ellipsus asked 5,000 people how they felt about AI in the context of writing + reading. Love to be a daily user + builder of tools to automate boring things but automating non-task related emails? Entire posts? This survey made me realise we seek out human-made stuff because it’s a conversation; I feel this too. Let’s talk.

Image credit: Elipses. ellipsus.com

  • but also; so dumb. I love it (see Ben’s Tweet below)

Til next time,
Sarah

Find Sarah Drinkwater at commonmagic.xyz

This article is published with permission from Sarah Drinkwater and originally ran on Wednesday 6 May 2026 → @sarahdrinkwater

The next LONDONMAXXING meet-up is on Wednesday, May 27th, 18:00-21:00 → luma.com

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