Some schools have alumni clubs. Harvard has a whole chain of them. Here's the New York City branch.[1] It's modeled after classic English clubs. It's still thriving. But the Princeton Club went broke and the Yale Club is in trouble.
Stanford never got into this. Stanford's alumni association is mostly a front for the "development office", the alumni donation extraction operation.
Silicon Valley had the Capital Club in San Jose (closed). There's something called the Alexandria in San Carlos, which has a restaurant and a gym.[2] Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park is a hangout of sorts, and it's next to the British Bankers Club, which used to be a pub but upgraded to a fancy restaurant.
There's happy hour at the Sand Hill Sundeck, at 3000 Sand Hill Road.[3]
There's Hacker Dojo [4] But after two moves and COVID, it's a shadow of what it once was.
Those are places you go to make deals, or at least talk to people who do deals.
[2] https://www.invitedclubs.com/clubs/the-alexandria-san-carlos...