Step inside one of SF's oldest hacker houses, where founders have slept in tents and closets while raising $2 billion in VC funding

• Mission Control was founded by a group of former Thiel fellows in 2013.
• Far from making hacker houses like this one obsolete, COVID has made them more in demand than ever.
• Mission Control recently expanded, opening a "Satellite." It is also launching a venture fund.

As other San Francisco hacker houses lure young founders with promises of glitzy megamansions and catered food, one of the city's oldest houses, Mission Control, remains proudly no-frills.

"It is not the Four Seasons," resident Conor Brennan-Burke said. "We select for people who have grit."

Brennan-Burke was giving me a tour of Mission Control on a recent afternoon. When I first heard the name, I pictured something sleek and futuristic. That was quickly dispelled when my Uber dropped me off on a noisy street in the Mission District and I walked up to an entrance sandwiched between an abandoned storefront and a graffiti mural.

"Peer-to-peer, generation-to-generation"

When I walked inside and slipped off my shoes, as everyone is required to do, I met Lisa Shmulyan, who has lived here since 2020. As frequently happens, all 10 bedrooms were occupied, but Shmulyan was so eager for a spot that she lived in a tent in the living room for a month before a room opened up.

"There was someone living in the closet, someone else on the patio in a shed," she said. "But it didn't matter. You're surrounded by people doing incredible things. That energy is hard to find anywhere else."

Mission Control was founded by a group of former Thiel fellows in 2013. Since then, other houses like Chez JJ and Negev have disbanded as newer entrants offering far more accoutrements, like AGI House and HFO Residency, have soaked up more buzz.

Mission Control endures, in spite of or perhaps because it operates as a commune. Everything from the furniture to the event schedule is decided by vote.

"It's lasted 12 years without a board and without a manager," Brennan-Burke said. "It's been passed down peer-to-peer, generation to generation."

He estimates that during that time, residents have raised over $2 billion and created companies worth more than $200 billion.

Alums include Kashish Gupta, Tejas Manohar, and Josh Curl, the cofounders of Hightouch, an AI marketing company which recently raised $80 million at a $1.2 billion valuation. They all met in the house.

"Josh lived in the closet for six months, and now he's the CEO of a unicorn," Brennan-Burke said.

Marty Kausus, cofounder and CEO of a16z and General Catalyst-backed b2b support platform Pylon, also lived here, along with ScaleAI co-founder and Passes CEO Lucy Guo.

Mission Control recently expanded, opening a "Satellite" on the same block for shorter-term stays that can also serve as a trial period to determine if someone is a good fit.

Residents of the main house are raising their own venture fund, Mission Street Capital, to back other residents and alums, and VCs from famous firms like Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz recently paid visits.

Cost is certainly part of the appeal; rent for one of the 10 bedrooms is around $1600, around half of what it would typically cost to rent a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. But many residents have chosen to stay even after raising their Series A funding round.

"I think ultimately the reason that people stay, even though maybe they could live in a nicer place, is just a really strong community," said Shmulyan. "This is a house where people are doing their life's work, and doing it side by side with each other."

When I walked upstairs, a dozen current and former residents were bunched together in the living room, sipping Diet Cokes and coding on their MacBooks.

COVID proved people can work from anywhere, but far from making hacker houses like this one obsolete, the residents here said the pandemic made them more in demand than ever, especially as the outside world has become more unstable.

"It's a natural human instinct to find connections when there's confusion and crisis," said Chase Changhee Seon, who came to Mission Control from Seoul to start an events and community platform. "Even in this world of tech and AI, you cannot replace human connections."

At first glance, the 6400-square-foot interior somewhat resembles a frat house, with a random bench press no one seems to use in the hallway and mismatched furniture that has seen better days.

But there are key differences. There are no TVs, and everything from the kitchen to the bathrooms is immaculately clean thanks to cleaners who come every week. And almost no one in the house drinks any alcohol.

"It's not a party house," Brennan-Burke said. "We drink tea, build stuff, and hang out."

No influencers, please

There is no cold application to get into Mission Control. You have to know someone in the house who is willing to advocate for you, and even then, the odds are long, with less than 3% of prospects making it through the extensive interview process.

When I met residents, I was surprised to learn how many are not currently working on any startup, and the interview criteria reflect that. Who you are and whether you seem like you will vibe with the other inhabitants matter much more than the particulars of what you are building.

"People have moved here with nothing," Brennan-Burke said. "They had no idea, no cofounder. Just ambition. That's what we select for."

One thing that gets a major red flag: Being an influencer.

"People don't come here for clout," Schulyan said. "They come here to build. It only works when you filter for authenticity."

Before I left, I met Jessica Gerwin, who was selected to move into Mission Control last year after becoming known in San Francisco's startup scene for hosting lively dinner parties. She is now building Socrates Lab, an AI agent startup. She says such a massive understanding would have seemed fanciful in the Los Angeles apartment she was living in before, but now she is putting in 80-hour workdays at Mission Control to see it come to fruition.

"You have to be somewhat delusional to want to change the world in the ways that founders do, and so there's something special about surrounding yourself with other people who don't bat an eye when you're trying to do the same thing," Gerwin said. "Everyone here will be at my wedding and my IPO."