Conferences are rarely just about the talks, even though that’s how they’re marketed. The real experience usually starts much earlier, with flights booked at strange hours because that was the only fare left, hotels creeping farther away from the venue with each delay, calendars squeezed so tightly that one more meeting feels like it might snap something important. Anyone who’s spent a few years in tech knows this rhythm all too well, the slow buildup of fatigue that comes not from learning too much, but from moving too fast for too long.