Allegations of sexual harassment and rape at Bay Area AI party houses
Bay Area tech has long had hacker houses where fledgling founders share rent and resources while coding in hopes of building the next million-dollar startup. But in the high-stakes AI boom, the old nerd-filled, frat-like house is giving way in some cases to something more excessive, glamorous, and at times dark, according to a recent New York Times report.
The NYT report focused on AGI House, a combination hacker house and party pad in upscale Hillsborough. It has hosted lavish parties, including one where a “car flew through the air” and another titled “Midnight in Paris” where guests arrived in horse-drawn carriages to a replica Eiffel Tower. Google co-founder Sergey Brin reportedly gave talks there, and singer-songwriter Grimes, former partner to Elon Musk, has performed.
The report also describes darker scenes at some Bay Area hacker houses: psychedelic drug use, sharing of sexual partners, and allegations of sexual harassment and even rape. At AGI House — named for artificial general intelligence, a hypothetical AI that matches or surpasses human capability — police have reportedly logged 37 incidents since 2022, at least 17 of them related to complaints about large parties and events on the grounds. In one incident, a woman called police and said a male resident pressured her to have sex, told her she was old and “would be alone forever,” and she wound up climbing over a gate to escape. In 2025, police were reportedly called at least four times to perform mental health-related welfare checks at the house.
Other houses named in the report include The Residency, an SF hacker house advised by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Genesis, reportedly cofounded by former Google researcher Jeremy Nixon. According to the NYT, a 30-year-old female tech worker who has lived in four tech houses filed a police report accusing a former Genesis house member of rape and assault; the case remains under investigation, and the accused resident has left the house and cannot be located. At another hacker house, residents reportedly threw lavish AI parties so often that the owner claimed more than $200,000 in damages, including for a rodent infestation. AGI House is still hosting events and has spawned an apparent imitator, AGI House SF, though its website states, “There is ONLY one official AGI House located exclusively in Hillsborough.”