Rocky Yu: Inside AGI House, Talent Density & Why AI Is Built by Communities – E661

Rocky Yu, Founder and CEO of AGI House, joins Jeremy Au to unpack how early curiosity in computer graphics led him from engineering and startups to building one of the world’s most influential AI communities. They explore why talent density matters more than scale, how AGI House emerged during the pandemic as a mission-first experiment, and what it takes to turn deep technical conversations into real companies. The conversation covers Rocky’s journey from academia to entrepreneurship, how dinners and hackathons sparked breakout AI startups, and why AGI should be understood as a system of applied intelligence rather than a single god-like model. Rocky also shares his views on resilience, uncertainty, and how young people and parents should think about work, purpose, and opportunity in an AI-shaped future.

02:00 Early fascination with computer graphics shaped Rocky’s path: Curiosity about how computers generate realistic images pulled him into computer science long before AI was mainstream.

06:06 The pandemic triggered a mission reset: Isolation and deep conversations about purpose and intelligence sparked the idea that later became AGI House.

08:12 Talent density became the core design choice: AGI House prioritized curating elite researchers and founders over scaling a broad, open community.

12:32 Invite-only dinners and open hackathons worked together: Private discussions built depth while hackathons surfaced raw, unproven talent who later broke out.

15:29 Resilience comes from knowing why you build: Rocky explains that founders who love status quit early, while those driven by curiosity endure hardship.

17:21 AGI is a system, not a single god model: Intelligence emerges from many specialized agents improving through real-world deployment.

29:02 Learning to live with uncertainty builds founders: Traveling the world with no money trained the mindset Rocky later relied on as an entrepreneur.

Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/rocky-yu-building-agi-together

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