Inside the oldest San Francisco pirate house

While other San Francisco pirate houses attract young founders with promises of sumptuous megamans and food with trafficking, one of the oldest houses in the city, control of the mission, remains proudly without frills.

“It’s not the four seasons,” said Conor Brennan-Burke, the resident. “We select for people who have grain.”

Brennan-Burke made a visit to the mission control a recent afternoon. When I heard the name for the first time, I imagined something elegant and futuristic. It was quickly dissipated when my Uber dropped me off on a noisy street in the mission district and I headed for an entrance taken into sandwich between an abandoned showcase and a fresco of graffiti.

“Peer-to-Peer, generation to generation”

When I entered inside and I slipped from my shoes, as everyone has to do, I met Lisa Shmulyan, who has lived here since 2020. As often happened, the 10 rooms were busy, but Shmulyan was so impatient for a place where she lived in a tent in the living room for a month before a room opened.

“There was someone living in the closet, someone else on the patio in a hangar,” she said. “But that didn’t matter. You are surrounded by people who do incredible things. This energy is difficult to find elsewhere.”

Mission Control was founded by a group of former Thiel comrades in 2013. Since then, other houses like at JJ and Negev have dissolved while the new entrants offering many more accessories, such as the AGA House and HFO residence, have absorbed more buzz.

Control of the mission lasts, despite or perhaps because it works like a municipality. Everything, from furniture to the event calendar, is decided by vote.

“It lasted 12 years without a board of directors and without manager,” said Brennan-Burke. “It was transmitted between peers, generation to generation.”

He believes that during this period, residents collected more than $ 2 billion and created companies worth $ 200 billion.

The elders include Kashish Gupta, Tejas Manohar and Josh Curl, the co -founders of Hightouch, an AI marketing company which recently collected $ 80 million to an evaluation of $ 1.2 billion. They all met in the house.

“Josh lived in the closet for six months, and now he is the CEO of a unicorn,” said Brennan-Burke.

Marty Kausus, co-founder and CEO of A16Z and B2B support platform supported by General Catalyst Pylon, also lived here, with the co-founder of Scaleai and CEO of Pass Lucy Guo.

Mission Control has recently extended, opening a “satellite” on the same block for short -term stays which can also serve as a trial period to determine if someone is well suited.

Residents of the main chamber collects their own venture capital funds, Street Capital Mission, to support other residents and former, and VC of famous companies like Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz have recently made visits.

The cost is certainly part of the call; The rent for one of the 10 rooms is around $ 1,600, about half of what would generally cost it to rent an apartment in a room in San Francisco. But many residents have chosen to stay even after having increased their series of financing in the A series.

“I think in the end, the reason why people remain, even if they could live in a more pleasant place, is only a really strong community,” said Shmulyan. “It is a house where people do the work of their lives and do it side by side with each other.”

When I went upstairs, a dozen current and old residents were together in the living room, sipping the diet cokes and coding on their MacBook.

People proven at the forefront of people can work from anywhere, but far from making pirate houses like this obsolete, residents here said that the pandemic made them more requested than ever, especially since the outside world has become more unstable.

“It is a natural human instinct to find links in the event of confusion and crisis,” said Chase Changhee Seon, who came to the mission control of Seoul to start a platform for events and community. “Even in this world of technology and AI, you cannot replace human connections.”

At first glance, the interior of 6,400 square feet somewhat resembles a fraternity house, with a random -laying developed that no one seems to use in the corridor and mismatched furniture that have experienced better days.

But there are key differences. There are no televisions, and all from the kitchen to the bathrooms is impeccably clean thanks to the cleaners that come every week. And almost no one in the house drinks alcohol.

“It’s not a party house,” said Brennan-Burke. “We are drinking tea, build things and hanging out.”

No influencers, please

There is no cold application to access the mission. You must know someone in the house that is willing to defend for you, and even then, the chances are long, with less than 3% of the prospects that go to the process of in -depth interview.

When I met residents, I was surprised to learn how much work on any startup is currently working, and the interview criteria reflect this. Who you are and if you seem that you will live with the other inhabitants much more than the details of what you build.

“People have moved here with nothing,” said Brennan-Burke. “They had no idea, no co -founder. Just the ambition. That’s why we select.”

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

“People are not coming here to influence,” said Schulyan. “They come here to build. It only works when you filter authenticity.”

Before leaving, I met Jessica Gerwin, who was selected to go to Mission Control last year after being known on the San Francisco startups for organizing animated dinners. She now builds Socrates Lab, an AI agent startup. She says that such a massive understanding would have seemed whimsical in the apartment of Los Angeles in which she lived before, but now she puts days of 80 -hour work to see him to see him materialize.

“You must be somewhat delusional to want to change the world in the way the founders do, and therefore there is something special to surround you with other people who are not fighting when you try to do the same thing,” said Gerwin. “Everyone here will be at my wedding and my IPO.”