Or, you know, they could have just made sure the building was up to code first, like every other business, organization, and individual.

Being a startup does not give them carte blanche to ignore basic laws of society, especially not laws which address actual safety concerns. [Of relevance to Hacker Dojo: see pretty much every mass casualty club/nightclub tragedy of the past decade, in which dozens died in each instance due to code violations.]

More importantly: if someone had gotten hurt or died in Hacker Dojo as a result of a code violation, all of their officers would be facing criminal negligence charges.