There are very few people out there like Nantte and Ernesti. University dropouts, wise beyond their (young) years, and building one of the most exciting things in technology right now - that could well be a model for where higher education goes in the AI era.
For the uninitiated, FR8 has separately been described as a hacker hotel, a finishing school for precocious young builders, Hogwarts for hyper ambitious young people, and a place where you can find your personal religion - it’s a mercurial beast, but one that deserves attention for supercharging the ambition of young builders from across the world.
What is clear however is the cult-like status is has picked up in an incredibly brief period, the incredible work done by the cohorts (building across BCIs, rocket fuel, novel chip architectures, robotics & more), the intense passion the two founders bring to the table, and the unbelievable talent magnet it has become.
As such, we could think of no better two people for our second outing as Unreasonable. We spent an hour with the guys in the magnificent board room of their Helsinki palace (no joke) talking manifestation, purpose, reframing ambition and what the future of education could look like. Marvellous fun all round and we hope an equally enjoyable listen or watch.
We covered:
Almost getting killed by presidential bodyguards at Davos
Negotiating a 12,000 square metre palace in central Helsinki for a fraction of what anyone reasonable would have paid
Why “the best people don’t need help” - and what that means for how they run cohorts
The asymmetry that makes unreasonable bets rational - why the odds don’t change but the outcomes do
Why manifestation isn’t some mystical idea - and more a rigorous observation about how ambition actually moves resources
How to Americanise Europeans (on sales) while keeping the values and integrity
Creating community and meaning and how this enables people to do their best work
Timestamps:
00:00 Cold open: who are Nantte & Ernesti?
03:18 What is FR8? Hogwarts for the hyper-ambitious
04:29 Why Nantte said yes: visiting the stars
06:57 A new model for education in the AI era
09:29 Walking into fundraising rooms with no track record
11:23 Turning crazy vision into daily action
15:25 Speed-running ambition: can you skip the levels?
18:07 Inside a FR8 cohort: 30 people, 3 months, no rules
21:05 Selecting a FR8 Maverick
23:39 A home for outcasts
26:34 Why FR8 only takes the young
32:48 Unbundling the university
35:11 From mansion to hotel to 12,000m² palace
38:46 What manifestation actually means
41:24 When belief breaks: the dark days
43:23 "You can always send me an email"
44:26 Owing it to humanity
45:52 European bureaucracy and getting through walls
47:09 The Davos story
51:34 Why build in Finland
54:29 The European emigration question
58:43 Quickfire
