In this interview‑style excerpt, a speaker from HF Zero (led by Dave) explains how the residency program sifts through massive applicant volumes to select ten high‑potential startups each batch. Since moving to San Francisco in early 2023, HF Zero has received roughly 35,000 applications, conducts 500‑700 Zoom interviews and over 1,000 internal board calls, then flies the top ~100 teams for in‑person final rounds. A key breakthrough was the adoption of an AI interview bot called Bordi, which performs first‑pass interviews and has outperformed human reviewers, surfacing hidden “diamonds in the rough.” The speaker emphasizes the residency’s curated living environment—private rooms, chef‑prepared meals, health‑focused amenities—as an “Olympic training center” that accelerates founder focus and product development. The result is unusually rapid growth: multiple batch companies reach $2‑3 M ARR within weeks of Demo Day, a speed the speaker likens to “insanity.” The narrative weaves personal reflection (meditation in Bhutan) with operational details, underscoring a hypothesis that the combination of rigorous selection, AI‑augmented screening, and an intensive residency creates a self‑reinforcing engine for startup success.
Chapters
I talked to a couple of the founders who are here today at HFC. I was like, what should I ask Dave? And they were like, how does he get to those 10 teams? Because there are so many people that apply. They wanted to know how you got to 10 teams. So we use AI. How do you do that? Tell me more. Tell me the process. Like application, like what is that process? How long is that process? Tell us everything because they're very curious about it. Yeah. Oh man. Start zero. I mean, it's, it's a constantly shifting process. This is I mean, pretty much what we realized is the most important thing that we do, the most important thing that we do is select the right teams. Yeah. Right. Like if we select the right teams, the batch is way easier to run. Right. Like, yeah. And, and if we, you know, it's, it's this interesting thing where the stronger the teams are, the, for us at least, the less work and the more fun it is. Yeah, everything's from that. Yeah. And so we spent a ton of time attracting the best teams in the world to HF Zero. And so since we moved to SF, which I really consider the kind of moment that this version of HF Zero started— 2023, right? Is that when? The first batch, January 2023. 2023 or 2022? Yeah, 2023. You're right. Wow. So recent. 2 years. That's crazy. I know. I hadn't had time to stop and reflect on it until this New Year's when I went and meditated in Bhutan. And it was crazy to finally have 10 days where I was just completely offline, reflecting. And I was like, oh, whoa, the residency works. Holy shit, it works very well. I was sitting in meditation in Bhutan over a mountain. I was like, holy shit, this works. This hypothesis that we had that we didn't know if it— we knew we were a little crazy. We knew we were kind of onto something. Oh, whoa, the data is clear now. This works and it's going to continue working. Okay, what does that mean? And I still don't fully understand why it works. I have a hypothesis on it, but, but I do have clarity. It works. I mean, it's just every single batch we're getting these results. Like, you shouldn't be able to pick this well. Yeah. You should not be able to pick this well. Like the, the, the, the, the magnitude of which startups break out in HF Zero and the speed at which they do so doesn't make sense. Like Sequoia is amazing at picking and I would, I would never venture to say that we're better at picking than Sequoia. We're really good at picking, like, and I'll get to your question on how we pick. and everything. We're really good at picking, but like, we're not better than the best firm in the world. But like, the speed at which startups break out when we back them, like, I don't think anyone comes close. Yeah. Like, I was just— we just posted our Demo Day recap video, and like, if you watch this Demo Day, all of a sudden, like, $0 to $3 mil ARR no longer even like hits that hard. It's kind of like insanity. But like, I've been investing for 6 years. I've been in startups for like 12. Like 0 to 3 mil, like takeoff in like less than a year. Like that's like, that's fucking legit. Yeah. Like, yeah, there's every once in a while there's a startup that takes off even faster than that. But like we're consistently doing that. It's like a third or like half of the batch, like, like this batch, last batch, like 4 of the 10 teams broke 2 mil ARR by demo day. This batch, like, like 4 of them broke like 3 mil, you know, like it's like it's just happening every single batch. Like, but I still don't fully understand why, but, but I do know it's, it's working. Yeah, I do know the residency works and it's gonna keep working. And yeah, I have a hypothesis on that, but we'll go into that later. I wanna keep that, I wanna keep, keep the audience hanging. You gotta keep listening for the hypothesis. We'll round that back, back out at the end. But the question you were asking is how do we pick? Yes. So since we moved to SF, we've had about 35,000 teams start applications for HF Zero. Which is crazy. Like most founders have never even heard of a residency, right? Because this like didn't really exist before HF Zero. Now, of course, you know, Facebook, when they started, they kind of had a residency of their own. They had a house, you know, Apple started in like a garage. Devin, Cognition, they had their own residency. So like individual startups have done this, but it hasn't ever been cracked intentionally in this way where it actually works. Like pretty much for like all the companies, right? And, and so it's, it blows my mind that this many founders now both know about HF Zero and even know that residencies exist and like want to do them or at least have some interest. They like start applying, have some interest in doing them because it's kind of a pretty crazy concept. Like you're going to like Like, lean out of the place that you live in and move into this house with other founders. Now look, everyone has their own bedroom, bathroom, and workspace. Like, this isn't like a hacker house. This isn't like a bunch of bunk beds and smelling of this. Like, we have like chefs who cook every meal. It's dialed in to your dietary preferences, super healthy food. Like, this place is dialed in. It's the most like, it's like the Olympic training center for like top founders. And like, your life is more dialed in than you can get. anyway yourself. Yeah. But now we still have such a small team. We're having so many teams apply. And it was funny, like a year ago we were like, we have all these startups and they're like these AI-driven startups and we think about AI all the time. We're constantly playing with these tools and Evan and I are both technical, but we're not really using it that much. And then Andrew D'Souza, the founder of Bordi, If y'all have heard of Bordi, this shit's crazy. If you have not spoken to Bordi, you're like missing out on life. Bordi is this like AI being where if you talk to Bordi for 7 minutes, Bordi will constantly think of you every single day for the rest of Bordi's life. And based on what you told Bordi you want more of in your life, Bordi will suggest people that you should meet as it meets them and what they're looking for aligns with what you're looking for. And Bordi is on a mission to meet every person in the world. And it's like growing like crazy. And so Andrew hit us up. Andrew was in the batch like a year ago. He was the founder of a company called ClearBank that at its height was like $2 or $3 billion valuation. And he's one of the most visionary people I know in AI. And he called me one day and he was like, Dave, why don't y'all use Boredy for your applications? He's like, and I was like, oh dude, the AI is not there. Like maybe when GPT-7 rolls around. And he was like, no, no, no, no, it's there. You haven't tried it recently. And I love when I hear that from AI. Yeah. I love when you're like, you tried something and you're like, no, no, no, nothing worked. And then someone who you trust calls you and is like, yo, it's there now. And we keep having these moments like Christmas every time, but I still don't believe him. So I was like, okay, let me try it out. And he was like, before you try it out, let me tell you, y'all are on the cutting edge of this stuff. You should be the first to implement this. within 2 years, every venture firm is going to have an AI on their front end. Because think about it, they like turn down so many first meetings and so many of the best founders are non-obvious. Yeah. At the outset. And actually, like, why turn down the first meeting rather than like have AI do the first meeting? And then this is the crazy thing. So we like tried it and we're like, oh wow, it is pretty good right now. But we still weren't sure, you know, we still like, we're, we're, we're more skeptical than anyone on this stuff, even though we're like constantly playing with it, playing like Evan's, Evan knows every audio model. He knows every weird, like he's constantly playing with every weird model. So we like love it and we're skeptical. We have like that, that healthy dose. Yeah. And so we said, look, you know what? Here are the, the set of applicants that we were gonna turn down. What if we give them a chance to talk to Bordy first? And we're gonna give you, so we, so, so, so, so taking a step back, Actually, and we're going to give you 6 of the 100 final round interview slots, and you can just pick, let Bordy pick, and we'll just see. And in our heads, we're like, you know, we went through the applications, like we're really good at reviewing the applications. We have 2 people look at every single application. We've like figured out most of the stuff that looks good. You know, like 6 interviews would probably be a waste of time, but like no big deal. We ended up backing 3 of those 6 teams. We only backed 10 teams. Borty outperformed every human interviewer on our team by far, and with the applications that weren't otherwise even making it. Oh, what? And that was the moment we realized, we're like, whoa, AI is actually better than humans at, at least doing like a first pass interview. And I think this is true almost across the board now. And we didn't realize until later why that's the case. And we're still trying to dial it in and figure it out. But I think part of it is that a lot of the best founders are actually humble. And when they're talking to a human or when they're writing an application, yes, you can train people to get better at writing applications and we should coach people on how to frontload their best stuff and everything. When you're talking to AI, it's fine to brag to an AI. Yeah, both a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And so actually, like, this set of founders who are probably our favorite founders to back, who are incredibly competent, who crush it, who grind like no one's business, but who are humble, start shining through. You find these diamonds in the rough. And, and so Bordy does a lot of our first-pass interviews now. And actually, like, it might be the best way to get a final-round interview is to like actually talk to Bordy. It's like you can write a good application and get an interview and everything, but like you can also just like have a 7-minute conversation, blow Bordy away. And then also if you want to let Bordy know that he can, like he also now he can help you with other stuff too. It's great. And so that's a big part of it. So pretty much, you know, we go from thousands and thousands of applications to probably about 500 to 700 Zoom interviews. And even more board calls, you know, 1,000+ teams. And then we fly out the best 100 teams to meet them here in person, because we think in person is so important. We get so much signal from meeting the teams in person. And I think it's really important for them to, like, they're going to live here for 12 weeks. They better come check it out. And when they come in the house, It's crazy. There's so many teams who are like, oh, we don't really know if we, you know, like 60% of the teams we back have kids now. It's like anyone who tries to tell me like, oh, I don't know if I can like live in a residency. I'm like, 60% of the teams we back have kids. If they, and they love the residency more than anyone else. If it's a good fit for them, it's probably a good fit for you. You probably just haven't experienced anything like this. Yeah. So they come to the house, 100 final round interviews, and then we pick 10.
