BOOMTOWN, USA

Two weeks in San Francisco with AI founders, VC bucks, and the beginning of the future.

All photos by author.

I have a friend who we’ll call Brock. Earlier this year, Brock moved to San Francisco and raised $200,000 for an AI agriculture company that he founded. The “company” was more of a name he came up with, and the “idea” was more of a theoretical concoction he whipped up one day while tweaking on coffee. He was just 23 then, had less than a year of work experience, and virtually zero connections on the west coast. But he certainly knows how to work a room. After bouncing around a few networking events in the city, he met a junior partner at a respected venture capital firm. They were around the same age and hit it off, especially once Brock mentioned that his idea incorporated AI. After a few meetings, the firm wired $200k directly into his bank account. He quit his job at a name-brand tech company that same day. The first thing he was advised to do as a new founder? Raise more money.

One of my first memories of Brock is from the seventh grade. He had the body of a giraffe–long, gangly, aloof–and the face of a baby. Inside, he was mostly rhino: wholly destructive no matter the setting. In the gym locker room, I remember him nude save for whitey-tighties, obnoxiously rapping along to Kendrick Lamar’s “Backseat Freestyle” as it blasted from his iPod Touch. The part about the Eiffel Tower stuck out most to me. Is it possible, I thought, for it to really get that big? Another time, during a freestyle rap battle, he spat a verse from Tyler, The Creator’s “Yonkers” as if it was his own, and his opponent took the loss with mouth agape.

He was a nuisance in every classroom, and as much as I’d like to say he was simply a misunderstood genius, that wasn’t the case. He was a wrecking ball on all cylinders. A “problem child” to the max. Before graduating high school, he faced multiple suspensions, a stint in military school, and an arrest. The point is: you, nor I, nor anyone who knew him back then, would have expected him to be at the table for this great big game of AI roulette.

Brock found his purpose through football. In high school, when he filled his lengthy 6’3” frame with muscle, a psychotic work ethic he inherited from his father began to kick in. He became a defensive anchor, setting a hard-edge on off-tackle runs and slinging quarterbacks into the dirt. By his senior year, he was fielding D-1 offers and had (mostly) shed his delinquent reputation. In a community founded on the 3 Fs (Faith, Family, Football), he was something of a golden boy. And still, when he told me that one day he wanted to become an engineer and start his own company, my eyebrows raised. This was the same guy who was nearly crushed to death by stampeding hooves after trying to bareback a horse at two in the morning.