Department of English

Nob Hill is part one of a novel about Gen Z startup founders in San Francisco. These boys, all younger than twenty-two, left school during the pandemic to chase their dreams of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg. Max, Diego, Arnav, Kevin, Gallagher, and Bryce rent the third floor of an old house in Nob Hill, a neighborhood that they wish had been further gentrified before their arrival. Max is the founder of an enterprise software company, and Diego and Arnav are his engineers. Arnav’s recent embrace of a cult-like mentality he calls “Radical Openness” puts a strain on both their friendships and their company. Kevin and Gallagher are co-founders of a failing personal assistant app; an AI is supposed to do the assisting, but they haven’t actually programmed it, so they secretly carry out all the tasks themselves. Bryce is a seventeen-year-old prodigy with a small fortune in cryptocurrency who Max and Diego are “raising” despite being just four years older. During the early days of the pandemic, the boys were riding high, easily raising venture capital money for half-baked ideas and unfinished apps. But in the spring of 2022, the market crashes and investors start tightening their belts. Nob Hill begins in the early days of this crash, as the group contends with their new reality, and explores the delusion, exploitation, obsession with youth, and misogyny that run rampant in Silicon Valley.