What is “cerebral valley”? The most ordinary new area in San Francisco

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The techies are back in business – only this time they’re not looking for kombucha on tap or Patagonia vests, but complex “hacker houses” in Hayes Valley.

AI workers are currently forming co-living and co-working communities where like-minded people and developers can eat, sleep and breathe their work. These communities are often run by historic Victorians near the Alamo Square, just around the corner from Suvla and the Cotopaxi outlet.

In recent months, the hack house craze has grown rapidly, so much so that some in the industry are now referring to the area around them as “cerebral valley.” (For the record, we at The Standard think the techies missed a big opportunity by renaming it “Hayes Valley”).

With catchy community names like Genesis House (or its Hillsborough iteration, Neogenesis House) and an idea that promises to streamline the experience through play, these communities might sound like just another Silicon Valley fad.

However, hacker houses are a nostalgic return to the roots of the tech world, reminding us of the Palo Alto startup houses known as accelerators or incubators that once spawned tech giants like Facebook. And as the generative technology industry becomes an increasingly popular and lucrative industry in the Bay Area, these hacker communities represent more than just another iteration of the easy lifestyle of technology—they are seen as the hubs of the future of AI.

The hottest hacker spot in town is said to be Genesis House, a 21-bedroom collective founded in March 2021 and operating from a bright blue Victorian building in the Hayes Valley. The founders of Genesis say the space aims to provide members of their community with “all the resources” they need to build a company: community, workspace and, according to Google, entertainment.

While Genesis House may seem like a glorified babysitting service for tech brothers, some in the business say these sorts of hyper-communal, hybrid work-life spaces are just what the industry needs, especially after months of office cuts. and mass layoffs. .

READ MORE: Surreal moment: Downtown San Francisco office hasn’t been touched since the pandemic ended

“A lot of people who have been saying in the last few months that sci-fi is dead now feel like it’s really stupid if you don’t do sci-fi and don’t work on AI,” said Amber Young, an investor at Bloomberg Beta. “The quality and level of AI startups in communities outside of science fiction is simply incomparable.”

Yang says former employees of big tech companies, including those who lost their jobs during the recent market downturn, are now seeking to join those AI communities and hacker houses instead, having become disillusioned with big tech’s corporate offerings and seeking a community of like-minded founders. . they are eager to launch new products.

“Compared to Covid, when there were restrictions everywhere and there were no events, now the speed is much faster and more interesting,” said Sofia Shvets, CEO of Claid.AI, who once lived in the founder’s house of eight. “We’re seeing more and more hacker houses popping up, things are starting up again and people are coming back to town because they want to be part of the community again.”

The growing popularity of hacker houses is not just a departure from traditional office life or solely a product of the pandemic; he revived a distinct grind culture reminiscent of the start-up days in the tech industry in the early 2000s.

“The whole idea, especially when you’re building something new, is that you’re working on it 24/7,” Schwetz said. “It’s not the same when you go to the office because you have to leave at some point – it’s 24/7 access where you can work together with someone until 4 in the morning, you discuss something, and that’s how ideas are born. “.

Sounds strong, because it is. The growth of these communities reflects growing demand for newer, faster AI solutions, but is also an implicit challenge to trends in the workforce, such as last year’s silent layoffs movement, in which employees sought a better work-life balance by refusing to push the envelope. their jobs.

“People are excited to move fast again,” Yang said. “When you work remotely, especially if you’re like a five-person startup, you just don’t have a lot of responsibility. A lot of my friends who work for AI companies in Hayes Valley live in their offices, they just work all the time – which I think is very interesting. If you live and work with your team throughout the day, then you have more incentive to work constantly.”

Some industry veterans are excited about the prospects of these hacker houses, mostly because they see them as the best way to keep up with the rapid growth and pace of today’s generative technology industry.

Artificial intelligence is booming both in the business world and now in popular culture as apps like ChatGPT grow in popularity, local businesses turn to the art of AI in their marketing campaigns, and San Francisco serves as its unofficial headquarters.

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The recent resounding success of companies like Open AI is pushing machine intelligence research to accelerate. Before OpenAI came on the scene, machine learning research was Indeed so difficult that a few years ago only people with PhDs could effectively create new AI models or applications.

“OpenAI has almost democratized and made it easier for these small companies to start,” Yang said. “People want to move fast and there is a lot of competition. Whoever gets to market faster wins, and who gets to market faster will be determined by team culture, dynamics and personal presence.”

It’s a cycle that feeds on itself: the popularity of programs like OpenAI is now the basis for dozens of new projects and applications in machine intelligence, and tech workers are looking forward to the latest innovations. Result? A lifestyle that blurs the lines between what counts as work and play, but streamlines both in a hack house ad.

The latest grind culture created by the SF AI community is a far cry from the pandemic-era conditions, when labor movements grew in popularity and work-life balance became easier during remote work.

And it’s not just life situations that have changed as a result of AI’s success – a growing “neighborhood” movement is looking to turn more commercial and residential spaces into informal AI hubs as founders seek community in the absence of an office.

Many in the AI ​​space have been looking for third spaces like The Commons SF or The Neighborhood, where Young says founders and self-proclaimed effective altruists connect with each other. While these centers are rarely ever overtly tech-focused, their position in the heart of Hayes Valley and their popularity in AI circles has made them an unofficial watering hole for the founders.

Ultimately, Cerebral Valley is a term coined by the founders and hackers behind the latest trends in generative technologies, but it could just lead to a moment of rebranding and lifestyle change in the tech world, an industry that once prided itself on its comfortable balance between work and personal life. .

And the growing popularity of a more residential, neighborhood model of work life may have wider ramifications in San Francisco, a city that has historically battled tech gentrification and now has millions of square feet of office space vacant in downtown San Francisco.

However, the rise of these hacker houses is in many ways reminiscent of a return to the Wild West era, when patchwork startups sought to change the world from the garage of a house in Palo Alto – or, in this case, a Victorian house in Alamo Square.

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