There aren't enough ways for the Bay Area software crowd to insulate itself from people with regular jobs: and so, The Battery exists. But what's going on behind the $2,400 doors of the startup clubhouse? The New York Times took a look, and it's just so, so boring.

The Battery's founders, armed with money from selling a terrible company to AOL years ago, wanted the joint to be a sort of Californian salon—a bunch of twee 21st century Voltaires talking about apps and bright socks, or whatever. Walk inside the Financial District hangout, and you might stumble upon a scene of mutual edification like this:

The game was called "describe your superpower." Five men and women, who had met two hours earlier, lounged on shiny gold couches and boasted about their hidden talents.

"I can take abstract ideas and synthesize them into something other people can relate to," said David Clay, a filmmaker, 47, who wore a natty blazer.

To his left, Brian Trent, 42, an entrepreneur with Ankh Marketing, an event production company, offered: "I can read people really well."

San Francisco, or Renaissance Italy? Hard to tell. With top-level socializing like this going on, you can understand why The Battery doesn't want any snooping:

For its always-wired members, the toughest rule may be its ban on posting anything club-related on Instagram, Facebook and other social networks

So much for that! People are boldly posting away:

Cool wallpaper—très sexy.

The decor perfectly captures the "let's give really young people a shit-ton of money for no reason and see what happens" Silicon Valley aesthetic.

That guy's superpower is boot cut jeans.

The Stanford dropout kiddos will feel at home.

A lot of the photos, spread across verboten social media, look like this—empty and not entirely sexy. But this kind of socialite fun isn't for everyone:

"This is the secret card room," [a Battery visitor] said in a professorial tone, explaining to his guests that new entrants were supposed to mingle with those currently hanging out and perhaps offer to buy them drinks.

The women glanced at the gold couches, smiled tightly, and spun on their heels to leave. The older man followed.

Oh well. There's always a trip to a mountain cult.

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