The AGI House, a $68 million mansion in Hillsborough, California, is quickly becoming a hub for the Bay Area’s booming artificial intelligence (AI) scene. The residence, which was formerly known as NeoGenesis, was started as a tech collective by OpenAI researcher and former Tesla Senior Director of AI, Andrej Karpathy. While the house was initially more of a party house than a hacker house, it has since become a well-respected community hub for AI founders and researchers. The AGI House also hosts events, including dinners, hackathons, and fireside chats, for local founders, researchers, and venture capitalists.
The residence, featuring an impressive 18,000 square feet of living space, includes a pool, koi pond, and movie theater. Depending on the day, between eight and ten AI researchers and founders, including one from OpenAI, live in the house.
The focus of the AGI House is on building a community-based platform for discussion and conversation about artificial intelligence. The AGI House’s leaders organize invite-only dinner parties and fireside chats covering topics such as AI’s effects on consumers and vertical software.
Unlike other hacker houses, the AGI House is not just centered around its own residents. Instead, the community is also focused on external dialogue and building the AI community in the Bay Area.
The AGI House has become a valuable resource for resident startups, providing access to engineering talent and other founders to exchange fundraising and product development stories. The house’s monthly hackathons have attracted nearly 200 in-person participants, while a recent fireside chat on AI applications, hosted by Foundation Capital, was also well-attended.
While potential residents are not required to give up a portion of their startup to live in the house, they must pay rent ranging from $2,000 to $10,000 depending on the room.
The AGI House’s founders hope to democratize access to AI technology and bring a sense of measured optimism to the AI community. While the possibility of the AGI House becoming a formal incubator or accelerator in the future has not been ruled out, for now, the house’s leaders will remain focused on supporting founders in these frothy times.
