EVERY SPOKEN WORD
40 min read · 8,125 words- 0:00 – 1:05
Intro
- BHBen Horowitz
This should be the greatest time in the history of humanity to be young. This is like Thomas Edison's time-
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah
- BHBen Horowitz
... or Henry Ford's time or so forth. But the challenge that we have is everything that we've built to train you was built for a world that is soon to no longer exist.
- ETErik Torenberg
Mark and I just commissioned this research report on Gen Z, and one of the findings was that it's the generation that has the highest variance and fragmentation-
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm
- ETErik Torenberg
... across the board.
- GBGagan Biyani
It's critical for young people who don't have that billion-dollar idea to not settle for the million-dollar idea and instead go and explore more. We're building a new school for the AI era, and that means redesigning everything.
- BHBen Horowitz
Let's go pursue it all, and let's get an output on that.
- ETErik Torenberg
Picture HAA five years from now. What do you hope that we've achieved? How would you determine if we're being successful?
- BHBen Horowitz
My hope is-
- ETErik Torenberg
Well, Ben, Gagan, we have a big announcement today.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yes.
- ETErik Torenberg
We are announcing Horowitz and Andreessen Academy.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yes, we are, and we're very excited about that.
- 1:05 – 15:26
Introducing Horowitz Andreessen Academy
- GBGagan Biyani
Super pumped.
- ETErik Torenberg
So let's get into the story of how, how this came to be and, and let's talk about what it is. Ben, ever since I joined, you know-
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm
- ETErik Torenberg
... a year and a half ago, we've been w- you know, working on bringing this to life. We found the, the perfect, uh, co- CEO and co-- uh, you know, founder in, in Gagan. But you've been thinking about this, uh, f- at, at a16z for years before. So talk about what was the impetus for why we wanted to, to make, make this happen.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah, we kinda came out at, at it from a couple different directions. So the, the kind of first thing was, you know, for... Well, one of the things we noticed is, like, for young people, um, kind of college works really, really well if you, uh, wanna be a scholar or, uh, kind of, um, you know, a professor or that kind of thing. But it's a little bit of a weird proposition if you just wanna get a job [chuckles] or you have an idea to start a company. It's a very large financial investment and a very big time investment, and most of the stuff, uh, that happens in college isn't around that. It's around other kinds of things, and there's, you know, being a well-rounded person, this and that and the other. But if you ask an 18-year-old why do they go to college, it's to get a job usually, and that kind of doesn't always translate. So that was kind of one thing we're like, "You know, I wonder if, you know, we got a lot of jobs. Maybe we can help with that." And then on our side from a hiring standpoint, I think that, um, you know, college really evolved a lot, uh, in the last, I would say, four or five years in terms of, uh, kind of the kind of students they're looking for and then what, uh, skills they have. And, you know, in our world, the skillsets needed are evolving so fast, uh, that it, it was just very hard for a kind of big system like that to keep up. So, you know, we still think college is great for, you know, probably most kids. Uh, but there is a certain kind of kid that wants to build something that already knows they wanna go in, you know, specifically currently into technology. And we have access to all the jobs. We know exactly what you need to learn. We know exactly the skills that you have to have. And so we thought, "Gee, you know, like, that would be a great thing for us to add to the mix and provide."
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah. And, you know, we've been individually been thinking about this for, you know, over a decade. You, you and your many businesses, you know, having co-founded U- Udemy, uh, you know, Maven m- most recently. Um, that was, you know, we did a search for who, who was the right CEO, and it just through the process became obvious that Gagan has, one, been thinking about this for- forever.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah.
- ETErik Torenberg
But then, two, uh, is one of the most just impressive entrepreneurs i, in, in the entire space o- over the past, you know, d- decade plus. Is there anything else you wanna say about the, the, the search and all that kind of-
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah, like it was, it, it, it was, uh, [chuckles] kind of one of those things where y- you go, like, "We have this idea," and then we meet a guy, he's like, "You know, I've had that idea for much longer than you've had that idea."
- ETErik Torenberg
[laughs]
- BHBen Horowitz
"And not only that, I've, like, spent a lot of time trying to work and make it happen, um, but without necessarily the gigantic resource that you guys have, which is you're invested in 1,600 companies, um, and you have a fairly large, uh, place of employment yourself and so forth. So, you know, if you put those things together, um, then you have the potential for, like, something really, really special."
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah. And I, I, I think also, you know, we as a firm have also backed many, you know, things in this space. There's a lot of people who've tried to do something in this space, and it hasn't really cut through. There's some interesting experiments. There's some interesting outcomes, but nothing has really, you know, t- taken, um, sort of a crack at it. And I'm, I'm curious why you guys think that that is. I'll, I'll take a stab by saying I think they, they focus a little bit too narrow. You know, college is, of course, a bundle. It's a bundle of dozens of things, including-
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm
- ETErik Torenberg
... like sports leagues and hedge funds.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yes.
- ETErik Torenberg
You don't have to do the whole bundle, but you have to do, uh, not just you sort of, um, training people for the job world but also, um, or not just education but also, uh, status and credential and brand.
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm.
- ETErik Torenberg
It has to be an indication that, oh, you know, you went here, thus I wanna hire you. I, I wanna work with you. Um, and it also has to be fun. Um, it has to be-
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm
- ETErik Torenberg
... something that people actually want to do. And I think t- too many players just focus may- either just on the learning thing or, or just on some other hybrid and don't create the, the, the bundle that is the, the value prop that is truly, truly competitive.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah. So I think that, you know, we're kind of starting out, um, a little more specific and then we'll, you know, and really ace that. Um, but, you know, the idea, the, the, the core idea of it is, like, it's for people who wanna build something and do something and make an impact, um, kind of in the world outside of, you know, like I said, being a scholar. And- To do that, uh, you know, be it in technology or in music or in any field, you kind of wanna learn how to do it, [chuckles] uh, as opposed to just study about it. And so if you think of something like, you know, uh, like music, uh, appreciation or art appreciation or so forth, that-that's great, but l-like we won't do that kind of thing. We would do the kind of thing where it's like, "Oh, you wanna major in music? Like, you know, let's write some songs. Let's, let's do some things, you know, let's, let's understand that process and, and do that." And the same thing with technology, which is, "Oh, you wanna be a technologist? Like, let's learn how to build a system."
- GBGagan Biyani
Yeah.
- BHBen Horowitz
Uh, and, you know, I think that's just ends up being very different. The other thing that, you know-- Th-the other reason that now is actually the correct time to do it is if you look at the university system, you know, it started out as this, a religious institution with the Jesuits and so forth. Um, and then the Industrial Revolution came, and then all of a sudden everybody needed kind of a higher level-
- GBGagan Biyani
Yeah
- BHBen Horowitz
... of the ability to learn things, the ability to, you know, being literate, et cetera, et cetera. And so the university system just exploded in the US and, and the universities got much bigger, and there became many more of them and so forth. And that was really necessary to train the population to kind of enter the corporate world. There was, like, [chuckles] fe- it-it's hard for people to understand now, but like, you know, in 1700 there was no corporate world. Like that, there was like a farm world that, you know, and then all of a sudden we get these companies and all this kind of thing. And, um, to exist in that environment, you've got to be able to y- you know, read and write and do math and this and that and the third. And so, like things really changed from an educational standpoint in this country, which became a huge advantage. And, you know, to a large extent, the America that we have was built on the backs of our great universities. But we're hitting [chuckles] the AI revolution now, which is going to be, you know, in our estimation, as transformational, uh, in terms of jobs, the way jobs are done, the kinds of jobs that are available, and so forth, as the Industrial Revolution was to the agricultural, uh, kind of society that, that came before it. And the idea that the training for the Industrial Revolution is going to map into the AI revolution, probably not perfectly. So there kind of needs to be a pioneer that shows the way, like how do you train somebody into the new world? Uh, and, you know, there's many things that are different, so... And we've got all this technology as well. So, you know, rather than being in lectures for five hours a day or eight hours a day, depending on your curriculum, you know, maybe it's better to have, uh, kind of more contained instruction and, you know, more time with the tools, more time learning on an individual pace with AI and those kinds of things. And then also more structured social things. So not [chuckles] like the social things, not necessarily let's get rip-roaring drunk, uh-
- GBGagan Biyani
[laughs]
- BHBen Horowitz
... and go, although maybe some of that'll occur too. But, you know, kind of more structured social things 'cause we'll have the time, 'cause we won't have so much time, you know, sitting in the classroom listening to somebody talk. Uh, and so, you know, all these new ideas can come into play now, uh, and the timing is... You know, as I-- you know, for, for a young person now, that's the world they're gonna live in.
- GBGagan Biyani
Yeah, I, I completely agree. We're building a new school for the AI era, and that means redesigning everything. And I think that actually the other efforts, I agree with you, some of them don't go big enough. In order to truly deliver a, you know, college comparable experience, obviously this is not college, it's not degree granting, but a college comparable experience that's good for a high school student, you have to have interpersonal social dynamics. You need to have it residential in San Francisco. You need to make sure that it's connected to the employers who employ the best people. Um, and so there's a bundle that's required that you have to deliver. And there's probably only two or three people who have ever even tried to deliver that bundle in the last, you know, let's say fifty years. Um, and the other thing, though, that those companies or, or, or efforts I think missed is, you know, it's a classic startup thing. Like what do you do when you start a startup?
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah.
- GBGagan Biyani
You need a very, very unique, specific customer who has a burning desire for your product. And like, Ben, when we first met-
- 15:26 – 23:18
Why Experience Still Matters When It's So Easy to Build
- ETErik Torenberg
Talk about how even though it's so easy to build, um, you still wanna have experience, relationships, connections, spend some time at some of these iconic companies, right?
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm.
- ETErik Torenberg
Uh, 'cause when you're just a, a kid, you might think, "Oh, I wanna start a dating app idea or pizza idea."
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah.
- ETErik Torenberg
But if you work at Databricks for a bit or as an example, talk a little about that.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah. So I, I think that, um, y-you know, the, if, if you're young and you see something that you go, "Oh my God, I think I'm the only one who really understands this, and it's compelling me to build a company," then that's, you know, that's phenomenal. That's Mark Zuckerberg. That's, you know, that's a kind of a unbelievable opportunity, uh, but also a rare one. And then I think, you know, most people who are young or kind of the majority would love to kind of understand that thing. Um, and a- by the way, all Z-Zuck's roommates, um, from Harvard who didn't go to Facebook with him really regretted that [chuckles] 'cause he kind of invited them all to be employees or, you know, many of them, and, and some of them didn't do it, and they're like, "Dagnabbit, that would've been so exciting." Uh, and so I think that, you know, there's just a great opportunity to kind of join up with people who have done that kind of thing, either, you know, at something that's further along, depending on, you know, if you really wanna kind of learn and develop your skills and so forth, or, uh, you know, maybe, you know, one of your classmates is doing something really exciting, like, you know, in the case of, uh, Facebook at the time. So, uh, you know, I, I think there are many... Y-you know, there's plenty of opportunities depending on, um, how m- how powerful your new ideas are at that time and, you know, sometimes they're not that powerful. I didn't have a great idea when I was 18, so it's, it's not, uh, it's not that common. [chuckles] Um, it took me a while to learn, you know. I'm not as quick as others on that, I guess. Uh, but if you get in, you know, the great thing for me is I got in at a company, Silicon Graphics, which had all kinds of innovation, and I saw what that was and how you can really change things and so forth, and that kind of built a foundation for the rest of my career.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah. We always talk about builder skills, but also people skills.
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm.
- ETErik Torenberg
You've written a couple books on it. You, you, you, um, talk about it all the time in-internally. Is that something you knew, uh, when you were 18 or in college-
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah
- ETErik Torenberg
... or how do you, how do you learn people skills?
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah.
- ETErik Torenberg
How should we, um, you know, t-teach it to our students, et cetera?
- BHBen Horowitz
Well, look, I think the main thing, uh, is to be around people, and, and it, it's... You know, people of-often talk about, you know, particularly the millennial generation has this kind of loneliness epidemic, uh, because they're so locked into their screens and so forth. I think one of the things that AI has the potential is just, like, get us off of the screen, right? Like- We're not that far away from, "I'm gonna talk to my AI and have him do the work and deal with the dang computer." You know, like, and so that's gonna free me up to really deal with people where there's gonna be just tremendous value, um, being able to kind of know my peers, motivate them, kinda, uh, get the best out of each other, do something larger than our- ourselves, and try and kind of move the future forward and make the world a better place. And so kind of getting experience in that environment where you're kind of working with others and, and learning, "Hey, you know..." Yeah, I mean, I-- And, you know, college, by the way, has, has been great for this over the years where you're like, "Oh, you come from Nebraska? I, I never knew anybody from Nebraska. Like, what is it like there? What's it just cornfields and shit? Like, what's going on?" And, and, you know, you kinda get to know people. And, you know, probably one of the skills that I see missing the most, uh, which I try and kind of impart in people on the farm is like, let's just start with who the person you're talking to is. Like, rather than just talking to somebody, "Hey, Eric, how are you doing? Da, da, da, da." Like, "Where'd you grow up? Where are you from?" Like, "Oh, that's interesting. You've got, you know, this, uh, parent from this place, this other parent from the other place. You know, uh, that, that's really good. What was that like? Y- you know, how did they get along?" So forth. And then you start to kind of understand people and, and that opportunity in a business context isn't as obvious, you know, if you haven't, but you always do that when you get with a group of kids your age. Like, that's the first thing you ask them, you wanna know. Um, you know, "Do you get along with your parents? Do you hate your parents?" You know, that, that kind of thing.
- GBGagan Biyani
Yeah, I think one of the-- I mean, absolutely one of the most important things we want is to develop people skills.
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm.
- GBGagan Biyani
And, uh, one of the core tenets of developing a skill like that is osmosis. You need to immerse the student in the envi- social environment in which these, which the humans are. [chuckles] And specifically, I think it's a challenge if you go off to college, you only interact with people your same year. You know, you finally maybe have a friend who's, like, one or two years above you or below you. One of the things I think the academy will do is we obviously want there to be deep social networks amongst your peers. We also are gonna try and cohabitate you, like especially in the office, with other companies and individuals and projects and co-ops and internships that are with the, quote-unquote, "adult world," so that you can force yourself to... Y- you're sort of-- You can have no choice. Like, if you're trying to accomplish, let's say you're trying to build a new type of robot dog, and the only way to do it is to get a specific type of chip, and you don't know how to write a cold email. You're gonna have to learn, right? And you're gonna have all these people around you who are experts at this, so they're gonna be like, "Oh, you should do that, and you should do that," et cetera. And so I think that the combination of the osmosis of Silicon Valley, a peer network that's supportive, and a, the project-based curriculum combined will dramatically accelerate people skill development over something like, "Let me sit in an, a lecture talking about negotiations." Like, that's not how you develop people skills. You develop people skills because you're doing something you really care about, and you need to get everyone on board.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah, 100%. Re- related, Mark and I just commissioned this research report on Gen Z, and, and one of the findings was that it's the generation that has the highest variance and fragmentation-
- GBGagan Biyani
Mm-hmm
- ETErik Torenberg
... across the board. And so any sort of subculture, um, or your pers-- They're, they're the most extreme at it.
- GBGagan Biyani
Hmm.
- ETErik Torenberg
And so, for example, like, there are so many... Like, b- back when we were in college, it was rare to have an 18-year-old who was already b- building startups, immersed in the startup world, um, you know, obsessed with sort of, you know, uh, th- this kind of thing, and now there, there are a bunch of them, and we're gonna harness them. B- but to your point, Ben, it's important about the people you surround yourself with. And so now it's higher variance than ever to, to find your people, people who are builder, people who are resilient, people who are entrepreneurial, um, being able to aggregate in the same places is just huge.
- GBGagan Biyani
Yeah, we're really excited. I, I've been so impressed by the talent that we've had a chance to meet. I mean, I didn't know a single person who was doing anything entrepreneurial when I was a child, uh, and I started my first venture at 13. So the idea that we're gonna collect, you know, 50, uh, in, at least in the Founding Class Fellowship, 50 students who are all, like, actually builders, and they're gonna be different kinds of builders.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah.
- GBGagan Biyani
Like, like, I wanna be clear that this is gonna be quite a broad definition of the word building, but all in one place, and for them to meet each other and spend a bunch of time riffing off each other, I'm very excited about it.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah.
- 23:18 – 26:44
Why California: The Cultural & Intellectual Bastion
- ETErik Torenberg
The-- Let's talk about the importance of this being in California, right? In the-
- GBGagan Biyani
Mm-hmm
- ETErik Torenberg
... extended Bay Area. You know, B- Ben, you grew up in, in, in, in Berkeley. Um-
- BHBen Horowitz
Yes
- ETErik Torenberg
... and so-
- BHBen Horowitz
People's Republic. Absolutely.
- ETErik Torenberg
[chuckles] Yes, exactly. Um-
- BHBen Horowitz
Which at the time was, like, 10,000 miles from Silicon Valley, even though it was only-
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah
- BHBen Horowitz
... like, a half-hour drive. [chuckles]
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah. And I, I think it's so interesting 'cause you grew up in, in California, so you know that it's not just sort of a, a technical, you know, b- bastion, but also-
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah
- ETErik Torenberg
... you know, a cultural bastion, intellectual bastion. And it's so interesting because, and, and we're focused, you know, uh, largely on the, on the builder, um, element first, but people say, you know, college is for building a career, but also becoming an, you know-
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm
- ETErik Torenberg
... pursuing knowledge and bec- becoming a better person. And w- talk about why California is just s-- and San Francisco is just such an important place for, uh, for, for this to be. What is the opportunity here?
- BHBen Horowitz
Well, I think the big thing is it's where most [chuckles] companies, great companies in America get started, and then America is one of kind of two places in the world where, like, a giant number of companies get started. And so everybody who has done that and knows how to do that and all the people who have worked at places like that, um, just a huge majority are here in California. So the- You know, if you wanna learn how to do that or if you want to, um, go work with people who do that, then it's just, like, the most obvious place to put it. Uh, and, and look, you know, I, I went to college in New York, and most of the people who came out of that career went into financial services. Like, that was kind of the main employer, that was the main recruiter there and so forth. And I think, uh, for a program like this, you know, we're connected to so many companies, but probably, you know, well over 80% of them are, like, right in this area. [chuckles] And so it just makes it very, very convenient to you come here, you learn the area, and guess what? You can start your career right in that place.
- GBGagan Biyani
Yeah. Yeah. Sa- San Francisco is your campus, right? The campus is not just the walls-
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm
- GBGagan Biyani
... within the school, but it's the entire city and, and I think that's very important. And the other thing I'll add is that, uh, if, if San Francisco is the campus, the cultural values of San Francisco, um, that many people don't talk about. You know, San Francisco is one of the places that embraces failure. If things don't work out, we'll still fund your next company. You know, it's Silicon Valley's one of the places that's positive sum. Everyone believes that if I help someone, I don't need to get anything in return. I'm gonna pay it forward, and I know it's gonna come back to me because that's the culture we live in. It's a super high trust culture. So I think that it's gonna create a really, really calm, safe and positive environment for students that is also super ambitious. It's a rare combination. It's very hard to get right, and I think Silicon Valley and San Francisco in particular really has figured that out.
- ETErik Torenberg
And I, I think another way of also phrasing it is, like, if you want a stake in the future in this or help, help determine it, help, help argue it, help build it, a lot of it happens in San Francisco, whether it's the future of ar- AI, whether it's the future of money, whether it's the, the future of, uh, biotech. Uh, so many of these technologies, but also the conversations surrounding those technologies, um, are litigated here or started here and then, and then expanded outward.
- BHBen Horowitz
[chuckles] And litigated here.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yes. [laughing]
- 26:44 – 28:45
Why Make Academy a Separate Company
- ETErik Torenberg
Yes. Both metaphorically and, and literally. Ben, talk about the de- decision to make this a separate company. We went back and forth on this for, for a while, of why Harvard's Andreessen Academy, we wanted it to both be separate but also connected.
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm.
- ETErik Torenberg
And that's why we kept the brand the same, and also it has to be a strong brand that signals to students. But t- talk about that decision a little bit and how you see it, uh, interfacing with, with the firm and, you know, at large.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah. So I think the thing that the firm brings that's extremely unique is we are comprehensively connected to basically every opportunity in tech. Um, there's-- And, and, you know, by the way, you know, we're working to make those partnerships kind of explicit around the graduates of the academy. If you go through this program, if you do well, there are opportun- like, you know, many opportunities for you. And so that, that was the, the real strength that we brought, I thought. Um, but you know, this is its own idea. Like, we're an investment firm. This is not an investment idea. This-- I mean, it's an investment in the future of the country, but it's, uh, you know, it's, it's an academy, uh, which we're not, and so it really needed to be separate and have its own life. In addition, I don't think that this idea is limited to technology. Like, as I said, I think it's very interesting for music. It may be interesting for medicine. It could be interesting for a variety of things 'cause every profession is undergoing a massive change. And so we wanted it to be able to grow and expand, um, you know, as we got it working and so forth. So it didn't make sense to be kind of a kind of piece of the firm. Uh-
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah
- BHBen Horowitz
... or that would've limited its ambition, uh, quite a bit and, you know, we're, we're not about limiting ambition around here.
- 28:45 – 31:01
Why It Had to Be For-Profit: Making the Student the Customer
- ETErik Torenberg
Totally. And talk about why it had to be a for-profit or, or put differently, another thing we, we said in previous conversations is the customer's gotta be the student. And right now, sometimes in, in certain institutions, there's kind of they try to serve too many customers and, and it kind of be- ends up being this disjointed product.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah. So look, I mean, the, the whole thing is if you're young, it kind of goes back to our earlier conversation. If you're young, this should be the greatest time in the history of humanity to be young.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah.
- BHBen Horowitz
Uh, but the challenge that we have is everything that we've built to train you was built for a world that is soon to no longer exist. And so y- you know, we have to-- somebody's gotta super serve that client. And, um, and look, I think my hope is that as we kind of show this model, as we build this model, as we create it, we're not the only ones that will have it. Like, this isn't an idea where we're going, "Okay, we're gonna create a monopoly [chuckles] on this thing." It's like, "No, please copy us. Please, Harvard, copy us. Please, everybody, copy us," because, you know, somebody's gotta do the innovative work to get the breakthrough. Um, but then that's gonna change the world for, you know, every young person, uh, in this country and, you know, maybe, maybe beyond. So that's the idea. That we don't, you know, we don't care about, um, serving the alumni or serving the donors or serving the, you know, the parent. Like, this is about the young people.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah.
- BHBen Horowitz
Uh, and, you know, what do they need and what's gonna create the best life for them? And so that simplifies the equation quite a bit.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah.
- GBGagan Biyani
Yeah. The, the profit motive forces us to deliver to the customer, and our job-
- BHBen Horowitz
At the end of the day is to make sure that young people who attend the institution go off and do great things, because that creates the brand, that creates the flywheel that allows us to continue to stay in business. And I think that's very unique in education, um, that we have such incentive alignment. Uh, and I think it's, it's a core tenet actually of the academy.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah.
- 31:01 – 35:15
Curiosity as the Core: From Push to Pull Learning
- ETErik Torenberg
S- similarly, o- one of the core tenets of the academy is, is, uh, curiosity. And, and, you know, there's this quote, uh, "Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire."
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm.
- ETErik Torenberg
And, um, you know, we're moving from this, like, kinda, like, push model to, you know, these grades and all, all this stuff you have to cram to this pull model, which is, like, what are you naturally curious about and what can you go build or pursue in that space? And it may not be obvious that, uh, all, all the time of what it will lead to. Like we were talking about how Steve Jobs had this interest in calligraphy.
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm.
- ETErik Torenberg
And that didn't seem like that would, you know, obvious of what it would lead to, but in fact it, it, of course, led, led to quite a lot.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yes.
- ETErik Torenberg
And similarly, Ben, you've always been interested in rap music.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yes.
- ETErik Torenberg
[chuckles] And you, you were-
- BHBen Horowitz
Yes
- ETErik Torenberg
... pursuing your interest, uh, at, at a very young age.
- BHBen Horowitz
Still am, yeah.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah, [chuckles] exactly.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah.
- ETErik Torenberg
And, um, it, it maybe wasn't obvious at the time how that might lead to, uh, something, but it's, it's made you much more authentic and interesting as a, as a businessperson and made your life, you know, certainly-
- BHBen Horowitz
Well, I'm a better storyteller, which is a key part of what I do. Um-
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah
- BHBen Horowitz
... and so yeah. No, I, I... And that's definitely kind of important in the context of the academy and what we're trying to do in, in terms of, yeah, like, let's go pursue it all. Um, but then let's, uh, y- you know, and but let, let's get an output on that.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah.
- BHBen Horowitz
So not... You know, it's much more orient-- We wanna be more oriented around, "Oh, did you build something interesting?" Um, than, "Oh, could you, like, memorize these questions?" Because, look, we do have tools that can answer those questions very well now. Uh, it's fun- funny, I was talking to Dan Boneh, um, who is a great professor of, uh, computer science at Stanford, cryptography, and his take on AI, uh, was you kind of have two choices, right? You can ban it, [chuckles] and by the way, that won't work, uh, or you can make the problem so hard that you can't solve them without AI. And I think that's, um, you know, his orientation is amazing there, and what he's seeing is, "Oh, I've got students solving things that no student in history could have ever solved, like that I can't even-- like I could never solve myself." Uh, and but that's what's possible, right? And so you wanna kind of have that orientation where it's like, well, what can you solve with the tools? And what can you do, um, you know, what can you do that's, like, breakthrough? 'Cause now everybody's got an opportunity to create a breakthrough, and that's, um, that's super exciting 'cause, you know, then you're, then you're a main character, not an NPC, right? Like, that, that, that's kind of what the academy is about, is like, "Hey, do you wanna be a main character? If you wanna be a main character, like, we help you do that. Um, if you wanna be a cog in a machine, then this is not gonna be the best place for you." But, uh, [chuckles] you know, there are many places that can serve that.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah.
- BHBen Horowitz
And I think it's important that the builder mentality apply to, uh, interests that are not obviously about AI or building. So take calligraphy, for example. You know, it's one thing to say, "Hey, why don't you go study calligraphy and respond," like, and, and, and sort of answer questions on a test about how to, you know, I know nothing about cal- calligraphy, but, like-
- ETErik Torenberg
Mm
- BHBen Horowitz
... how, how, how to draw, you know, beautiful letters. And it's another thing to say, like, "Hey, why don't you learn enough calligraphy to write a Islamic poem," you know, beautifully displayed in the academy. And so for every pursuit that we, you know, Ben, you earlier talked about music. For every pursuit of knowledge that our students have, we are gonna reframe that into how do you do something with it, create a challenge, a project, anything that's fun and interesting that allows you to go pursue it? And I think that is-- that ethos will allow them to learn skills that are not relevant to jobs, obviously. Like even, you know, horticulture or, you know, learning how to kitesurf, whatever it is, but it allows them to do it in a way that ensures that they actually learn the skill. It's very, very hard to learn most skills if all you're doing is cramming for a test.
- 35:15 – 37:29
People Skills: The Underrated Advantage in the AI Era
- ETErik Torenberg
On the people skills, there's a few different dimensions, right? Like some people make the analogy, you know, founder is like, uh, you know, being a movie director. Like you've gotta, you know, sort of, you know, create script, bring all the, you know, pr- get, get all the actors involved, and then, and then make it happen. Other, other people, you know, compare it to like a nightclub promoter. Like you have to get people excited about the thing, you have to bring them in, you have to sell, you have to sort of negotiate, et cetera. At the same time, there are people who are ch- charismatic but also, uh, crash out. Um, you know, um, and Ben, you talk a lot about the inner game of managing your own psychology of, you know, uh, you know, you, you've worked with a lot of, uh, you still work with a lot of, like, very idiosyncratic, uh, people, and so how do you as a kid learn, uh, th- this? Um, what, what, what might you say there?
- BHBen Horowitz
Well, I think, look, look, I think that's, um, again, difficult to teach in a classroom, right? Uh, and here is the, the thing that I always tell CEOs, um, is, you know, and look, a lot of them read my book, so I don't wanna, you know. But that book doesn't teach you how to be a CEO in the sense that, you know, you can read every book ever written on how to play football, but, like, if you get into an NFL game and you're playing quarterback, like nothing in a book is gonna teach you to deal with like somebody, some three hundred pound monster rushing at you while you're trying to like figure out who to throw the ball to. Like you actually have to do that in order to learn it. And I think that, um, you know, you kind of have to Do it to learn it. And so a lot of what we're gonna orient the Academy about is like, okay, can you put a team together? Can you do it? Um, and that's, uh, you know, there'll be less on the line. It'll be more like a practice than the game. Uh, but, you know, that's, that's the way you learn that. You, you kind of learn those decision-making... You know, what does it cost you if you hesitate on the decision? Like, what does it, what does it mean to not resolve a conflict? Like, what are the consequences? Um, and you can't-- You can read about that.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah.
- BHBen Horowitz
Um, and I can tell you about that. But until you know that feeling, you know, that, [chuckles] that, that horrible feeling, um, you're not really gonna learn it to the level that you need to do it to, like-
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah
- BHBen Horowitz
... run a company
- 37:29 – 40:34
What's Actually Worth Working On When You're 18 Today
- BHBen Horowitz
or that kind of thing.
- ETErik Torenberg
To that end, because of the tools are so good, our resources are so good-
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm
- ETErik Torenberg
... it's easier than ever to do something, um, once you know what you wanna do. And so the constraint often comes on what's worth working on.
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm.
- ETErik Torenberg
How do you spend your time? If, if, if you were, uh, 18 today, 'cause there's, you know, there's so many different trade-offs, h-how would you think about it?
- BHBen Horowitz
Well, I think, you know, a lot of it comes down to, um, you know, s- what you're interested in, what your kind of skill set matches, and, you know, what are, what's some problem that you know about, uh, that you can solve? And there are... You know, there, there's, there's so many diseases that are so destructive. There's, um, you know, all kinds of, uh, challenges with the environment. There's real challenges in the integrity of our election system and so forth. Like, is there a technological answer to that? Um, you know, and, and so on and so forth. Or is there just a systems answer? Uh, and, you know, depending on what problem, you're like, "Dang, we need to fix that." And then, by the way, what always happens with entrepreneurs is it's kind of like scientific discovery. You go to fix, you're like, [chuckles] "We're gonna go get to, like, a cure for, uh, you know, pancreatic cancer." But along the way, you find, oh, no, like, we can solve this other thing, uh, that's also important 'cause we discovered something there or, or whatever. You know, most kind of scientific discoveries and entrepreneurial ideas end up being accidental in some way in that you're going to solve a hard problem, and you find some other hard problem that's in the way of you solving that hard problem that ends up, you know, being the thing that-
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah
- BHBen Horowitz
... that becomes the, the idea.
- GBGagan Biyani
And that, that's why I believe it's critical for young people who don't have that billion-dollar idea to not settle for the million-dollar idea and instead go and explore more.
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah.
- GBGagan Biyani
You know, a lot of young people are not yet exposed to anything beyond what a teenage life inc-includes, and one of the real core values of the Academy is we're gonna expose you to a, a, a much wider range of what happens in the real world.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah, and look, to try and fail at a really hard problem, the value is in the learning. So, you know, people say, "Oh, Silicon Valley, uh, embraces failure." Well, not all kinds of failure, [chuckles] right? The failure where you learn a tremendous amount, and then you know you, you've earned a secret-
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah
- BHBen Horowitz
... by going out there trying to solve a hard problem and not being able... Now you know why that problem's so hard to solve. Okay, so then what are the sub-problems? And, you know, what are the related problems, and can you solve one of those? And that knowledge that you earned by failing is what we value here, and that's the same kind of thing that we would value at the Academy is, like, what did you learn by doing?
- ETErik Torenberg
Yeah.
- 40:34 – 42:27
Five Years From Now: What Success Looks Like for Academy
- ETErik Torenberg
Picture HAA five years from now. What do you hope that we've achieved? How would you determine if, if we're being successful? Ta-talk about what you envision.
- BHBen Horowitz
Well, I think that, you know, in five years, th-th-there's many things that would make a success. One is that, you know, we have graduates, um, who have great careers that they love, um, and have built, like, or have started really interesting companies. You know, maybe they probably wouldn't be successful in that timeframe or, you know, whatever you consider a success. Uh, and that, you know, we've learned, um, as the Academy to, uh, like, what really works, and can we kind of extend that and expand that so we can get more different kinds of students in? You know, maybe not just, okay, technology is interesting to you, but you're really interested in these other things, and get people who can solve all the problems of the world or, you know, become, uh, incredible creatives. And then, you know, the creative world is changing too. Now, you know, when I talk to my creative friends, they're like, "It's amazing 'cause I have an idea about, like, a feeling that I wanna convey, and I can absolutely do it in every medium now. I don't-- I'm not just restricted to my thing. I can make a full-length feature film. I can make a movie. I can, I can make a song. I can make a song. I can score a movie." [chuckles] Uh, and so now, like, everything is possible. And so I think, you know, it's, uh, just a wonderful time to be able to manifest, um, your ideas and get your ideas out in, in every kind of medium, and we wanna facilitate that across the board, not just, you know, kind of in our traditional, uh, lanes.
- ETErik Torenberg
Well, it's gonna be incredible to, to build that future out with both of you and all the students-
- BHBen Horowitz
Mm-hmm
- ETErik Torenberg
... who join us.
- BHBen Horowitz
All right.
- GBGagan Biyani
So excited.
- BHBen Horowitz
Thank you.
- GBGagan Biyani
Thank you.
- BHBen Horowitz
Yeah, very excited. Thank you.
Episode duration: 42:41
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