AI is in its earliest innings, and the most interesting work is being done by people who think like mad scientists. We built a place for them.
The Greeks had a word for the highest state of human flourishing: eudaimonia. It described a person who lived in the world so fully, through work, through excellence, through community, that they became more of who they were meant to be. Founders know a version of this. They flourish when they build something the world truly needs.
Ferris & Co is a club for founders in the heart of Chicago, designed for exactly this kind of flourishing. The space is built to minimize distractions, optimized for focus, health, and connection. AI is built into the physical space and acts as an accelerant, so founders can skip the repetitive work and focus on achieving at scale.
What we believe
We believe the greatest entrepreneurs are missionaries. Missionaries are true believers, lit from within by the conviction that what they are building can change society for the better. They aren't building for someone else, or for short-term rewards. They carry that flame everywhere.
We believe this is the era of the 100x operator. The AI models available today are remarkable. What most people are still missing is the layer that makes them actually yours: one that learns your priorities, your voice, your rhythms, and acts on your behalf. The operators who figure that out will consistently outperform the ones who don't.
There has never been a better time for a small team to do something consequential.
And we believe great work is easier next to other great work. Growth compounds through proximity. Ambition sustains itself when it is shared.
Who this is for
Ferris is for the missionary-minded founder. You come here because you see AI as an opportunity to reshape your work: more freedom to do your very best work. You come here to protect your time, embrace a healthy lifestyle, and build warm relationships with other missionary-minded builders.
You don't need a finished company. You don't need funding. You have conviction, curiosity, and the sense that this is the moment to build something that matters.
How the Ferris helps
01 · Ferris AI. The Ferris is more than a building. Every member is paired with a personal instance of Ferris AI, so it does the adapting, not you. It handles the repetitive work, the follow-ups, the research, the calendar Tetris, the drafts you'd otherwise labor over, so you can focus on the core of your company. Over time it starts to anticipate you, surfacing what you need before you ask.
02 · Design for wellness. Building as a missionary demands that your body and mind keep up. Most companies take five to ten years to go from chaos to owning market share, and the entrepreneur who takes care of both gains an enormous advantage. The Ferris was drawn by workplace and hospitality architects to keep improving the space for you. Growth is a product of stress followed by appropriate recovery, and every detail, light, acoustics, amenities, reinforces it. The building is a eudaimonia machine.
03 · Community. The missionaries who come here choose to be surrounded by others whose ambition matches their own. Shared conviction sharpens the pace, and the ordinary loneliness of building becomes something else entirely. And because every founder's path is unique, the Ferris hosts an inner circle of operators, researchers, and builders who have shipped real things in AI, available for the harder, more bespoke questions about where it fits in your journey.
What we owe you back
We hold ourselves accountable to three outcomes for each member of our community, and we commit to reporting back regularly and openly on the following performance indicators:
- Time Returned: The hours Ferris frees up for you.
- System Quality: We measure and improve on how well Ferris learns from you, and evaluate how we can improve.
- Member Wellness: The usage and ways we can make our members happier and healthier.
If you're a missionary for what you're building, we want to meet you. Applications take about ten minutes. We read every one.
