Dave Fontenot - The Monastery of Code - [Invest Like the Best, EP.365]

My guest today is Dave Fontenot, founder of HF0. Born out of Dave’s experiences in monasteries across the world, HF0 is a twelve-week residency for repeat founders to supercharge their next venture. For 12 weeks, 10 teams of engineers relocate to HF0’s house in San Francisco. During the residency, everything is taken care of so their sole focus is coding and building. It’s one of the most interesting incubators I have come across and we discuss the model and its monastic origins in detail. Please enjoy this conversation with Dave Fontenot.

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Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.

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Show Notes:

(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best

(00:04:05) First Question - Dave’s Journey to Meditation and Monastic Life

(00:07:25) From Monastery to Coding: Finding Flow in Programming

(00:08:32) Creating Spaces for Uninterrupted Creativity: The Birth of HF0

(00:20:24) A Day in the Life at HF0

(00:25:15) Why 12 Weeks? The Philosophy Behind the Duration

(00:27:14) Selecting the Brilliant Minds for HF0

(00:31:43) The Thin Line Between Visionary and Crazy

(00:34:39) Creating Space to Meditate 

(00:37:24) The Economic Model Behind HF0

(00:41:36) Building Successful Residencies

(00:44:48) Expanding the Residency Model to Universities

(00:52:52) Understanding Engineers and Hackers

(01:02:01) The Kindest Thing Anyone’s Ever Done For Dave