a16z Just Launched a School With OpenAI, NVIDIA & Anthropic

1. 0:00 – 1:01

   Gagan Biyani, Founder & CEO of Horowitz Andreessen Academy

   1. GBGagan Biyani0:00

      Instead of raising for 18 months, we raised for a few years. This was very intentional because there's a big difference between starting a school and starting a AI app. [laughs] One of the simple reasons for raising $40 million, we'll have crypto founders, and we'll have robotics founders, and we'll have AI apps, and classic SaaS, and we'll have different people coming in. And the promise that I think we can make is that you will learn how to be an AI-native builder with super high agency, with the people skills to understand the culture of Silicon Valley. And if we can accomplish those three things, I believe this will be the most valuable educational experience that anyone could ever have.

   2. MOMolly O'Shea0:35

      You have all these amazing partners like Anthropic, Anduril, Coinbase, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Palantir, Replit, Stripe, and so many more. These students will have direct access to what it takes to build a company. Have you thought about buying Alcatraz and putting this there?

   3. GBGagan Biyani0:49

      [laughs]

   4. MOMolly O'Shea0:50

      [gentle music] Gagan

2. 1:01 – 4:44

   Why this Academy is different from college

   1. MOMolly O'Shea1:01

      Biyani, welcome to Sourcery.

   2. GBGagan Biyani1:04

      Thanks for having me, Molly.

   3. MOMolly O'Shea1:05

      Well, we're here at the a16z office.

   4. GBGagan Biyani1:07

      We are.

   5. MOMolly O'Shea1:08

      We were talking beforehand how Horowitz Andreessen Academy is the reverse order of that. So congratulations on the big announcement. What happened?

   6. GBGagan Biyani1:18

      Well, uh, today we are announcing the launch of Horowitz Andreessen Academy. It's a new, uh, post-high school program, uh, residential in San Francisco for young builders who wanna get, uh, jobs or, uh, start companies in the technology space. Um, and personally, I just think it's, like, kind of a dream. I think it's a dream for the students because it's a completely new take on what you could do post college in... or post, post-high school in the AI era. Um, I think it's a huge opportunity for the world because we're gonna design a new type of institution that is gonna show a positive and optimistic, uh, frame on what, uh, college could look like if it adopted some of the principles of, uh, an AI-native education.

   7. MOMolly O'Shea2:10

      And so how is it structurally different?

   8. GBGagan Biyani2:13

      Yeah, I mean, there's a ton of differences between what the school will offer and what a typical college will. I'll give you a couple examples. Um, first of all, it's completely unaccredited. So we don't have to follow the same accreditation rules of a typical college. Uh, we do have to get regulatory approval before we launch our paid programs. Um, but it's, it's very different. So the, the differences are, first, this program is highly experiential. So instead of focusing all of your time around class, and the sort of top-down structure of a university is fundamentally how many credits you take per semester, this is a project-based experience. Because in the AI era, you can learn whatever you need to learn on the job. Therefore, it's much more effective for students to go and just build things. And so they'll get to do projects that they desire. And I have three different categories of projects. I think they'll have research projects, learning projects, and building projects, or entrepreneurial projects. And so, like, you can imagine a research project where someone is trying to learn everything they can about the restaurant industry, or about robotics, or about hard manufacturing. You know, they'll go and literally travel to the big manufacturing facilities around the country or maybe even in the world, and they will deeply try to understand how it works, while simultaneously, you know, maybe studying robotics, the technical side of robotics, you know, via both, um, self-driven learning but also via online courseware or courses that we offer at the academy. And then you can also imagine that they then decide, "Hey, I wanna go and try and build, like, a new type of, uh, robotic vacuum," or, uh, "I wanna play with the new hugging face duck," right? [laughs] And so, uh, you can imagine a world in which this student is visiting factories in Shenzhen, or maybe they're visiting factories in Austin or LA. And simultaneously, they are studying online, um, you know, and through our, uh, sort of diverse network of faculty, uh, robotics, and they're also building an actual robot from scratch. And this is the type of experience that we wanna create for the student who comes to Horowitz Andreessen Academy.

3. 4:44 – 8:30

   Started his first company at age 13

   1. MOMolly O'Shea4:44

      So how does your career in education, building companies, result to partnering with Mark and Eric on this?

   2. GBGagan Biyani4:53

      Yeah, I mean, I think this is just a, a, a, a big part of my life's work, is to rebuild the education system for the future, you know? Uh, when I start-- My first company, I was 13 years old. I didn't even know it was a company. Technically, it wasn't, actually.

   3. MOMolly O'Shea5:13

      [laughs] Was it legal? [laughs]

   4. GBGagan Biyani5:14

      It was legal. It was a, it was a, it was a nonprofit-

   5. MOMolly O'Shea5:16

      Mm

   6. GBGagan Biyani5:16

      ... actually. But it made revenue, and it had a, it had a profit. It's kinda like the modern nonprofits that have, um, that, you know, actually have a, uh, more revenue than their costs. So it was a nonprofit because all the proceeds went to my high school. And so I didn't make the revenue. But in all intents and purposes, it was actually a business. Um, I didn't have anyone telling me that this is a valuable endeavor. The school was mostly trying to shut it down the entire time. Uh, my mother is probably the only person in my entire life who was like, "Gagan, you should keep doing this." I didn't have a single adult-- I lived-- grew up in Silicon Valley. I didn't have a single adult saying, "Hey, like, you're 13 and you're making, like, $10,000 over the summer?" That's amazing. You should do more of that. Here's how you could do that. Here's how you could turn that into a career." And so instead, what ended up happening was I still went to college, and I didn't go to college for entrepreneurship, and I didn't know you could start startups at that time, you know? I went to college, I got a degree in economics [chuckles] . And I think that ever since then, that experience of being a precocious young teen who was attempting to build things but didn't have the support structure or sort of social, uh, culture that supported me, I've always been super, super passionate about how you could create a support structure for, uh, the young teenager or, you know, early 20-something who wants to go and build things and has that itch that I had when I was younger. And so when I was first approached about Horowitz Andreessen Academy, I, uh, immediately, like within seconds, I knew I wanted to do it. And the next six months was just me doing whatever I could to try to showcase what I had, uh, and, and to build the infrastructure necessary to get this off the ground. And so I worked with, um, Eric Tornberg, uh, Marc Andreessen, and Ben Horowitz over multiple months to figure out how we were going to, uh, fund the academy, what the vision was gonna be, ensure that we were on the same page around the potential. Um, we of course, decided to make it a startup, so it's, it's a for-profit venture, uh, that we hope will, um, uh, be, you know, successful and has, you know, investors, et cetera. And I... For me, this entire time has just been reliving what I wish I had when I was, you know, 13. And, and you know, candidly, when I was 18, graduating and finishing up my time in high school and thinking, I had no idea that that could be a career, and I'm here to tell the world, like one of the main goals of Horowitz Andreessen Academy is to say, "Not only can this be a career, but it could be the most impactful and rewarding career you could possibly have."

4. 8:30 – 11:55

   Building a school for Silicon Valley

   1. MOMolly O'Shea8:30

      And so through the structure, do you have some incredible partnerships already? How did those tie into them, and what are they?

   2. GBGagan Biyani8:37

      Yeah. One of the first things that, um, I talked about with, uh, Marc, Ben, and Eric was that, uh, we felt like this needed to be Silicon Valley's school. It's not enough to just have Andreessen Horowitz. Uh, it was critical to us to bring in partners from every part of the tech ecosystem. And so from day one, the first thing that I did after we sort of kicked this project off was I reached out to, uh, you know, some of the top companies in tech. Uh, that's Anthropic, it's Coinbase, it's Meta, you know, uh, Replit. And we reached out to them and said, "Hey, like we wanna start this company with your support." And so obviously, that took a few months. We had to build relationships with the right people, and we were very fortunate that a bunch of these companies have decided to become founding partners. And so that means that these companies are going to help us by providing, uh, curricular support. You know, we have an advisory group with them so we can frequently get feedback on what types of, um, young-- what, what types of talent, uh, they're seeing in the market, as well as what they want young people to learn, so that everything we do in the curriculum has a, uh, eye towards either starting a company-

   3. MOMolly O'Shea10:04

      Mm

   4. GBGagan Biyani10:04

      ... or joining, uh, one of these companies. Um, and, uh, we're also, you know, obviously providing compute credit, which is really important. One of the, one of the most interesting things, right, today as a young person is that you have access to build things that none of us could when we were in our generation. And that access comes at a cost. It, it costs a lot of money to build things. And so one of the main things Horowitz Andreessen Academy's gonna try and do is open the doors to ensure that you can get the money you need to, you know, do a science or research project. Um, and the access, not just financial, but also access to network. You know, if you really wanna learn what's going on at the latest, uh, you know, in the latest models, uh, what better place than the academy which has a direct relationship with the people creating those models, right? NVIDIA is a core partner of ours. Uh, you know, we plan to ensure that these students, uh, get access to whatever the latest knowledge and information is that NVIDIA has around, uh, how these, uh, h- h- you know, around the future of AI. And so if you're gonna build an AI-forward school, of course you need the leading companies in the space. It's also interesting that the leading researchers in AI are no longer at university campuses. They are at these companies. And so the other benefit of this type of partnership is that hopefully, and of course, like each partner, we're still working with them. We're still figuring out what their contributions are gonna be, right? But our belief is by setting the foundation of them being as founding partners, we will, uh, enable us to have front row seats to whatever's happening at the leading, uh, AI companies.

5. 11:55 – 14:06

   Raising $40M for a School

   1. MOMolly O'Shea11:55

      With $40 million in funding, you raised from some really amazing investors and angel investors like Adam D'Angelo, Tobi Lütke, Tony Xu, Fidji Simo, Shyam Sankar from Palantir. What does that funding go towards?

   2. GBGagan Biyani12:13

      Yeah. That's a great question. Um, I think that, uh, f- f- first, just to be clear, uh, instead of raising for 18 months, we raised for a few years. This was very intentional because there's a big difference between starting a school and starting a, uh, you know, AI app. And one of the biggest differences is you need longevity, right? Um, and so as a student, you have to know that this school isn't gonna run out of money. So one of the simple reasons for raising $40 million is to say, "Hey, we have enough money to operate. In fact, we have enough money, we think, to get to profitability on the school."

   3. MOMolly O'Shea12:50

      How do you get to profitability on a school?

   4. GBGagan Biyani12:53

      Well, yeah, it's, you know, this is a big spiky point of view, but we believe this school is gonna be so valuable that we're gonna charge for it. Um, and so I think that there's a, uh, there's a, you know, there's multiple revenue streams for, uh, Horowitz and Andreessen Academy. One is tuition. Uh, we think that's gonna be the bulk of the revenue. Um, on top of that, we also have these corporate partnerships. And so as we grow those, hopefully that will become a significant revenue stream, uh, because these companies want access to the best students on the planet, and we think that the academy is gonna attract the best students. Uh, and then finally, uh, I think over time, these students will create amazing businesses. Whether they will join businesses or start businesses, uh, we hope to leverage the school's, uh, you know, the fact that the school's helped them along this way to monetize through, you know, equity in businesses, e- et cetera. And so we think that this can be a successful, uh, financial endeavor as well as a successful, you know, good for the world.

6. 14:06 – 19:08

   "You Did What?" - Proof of work over grades

   1. MOMolly O'Shea14:06

      And so even though it is for profit, you're looking to make a profit on it, you're really thinking multi-generational and longevity for the long term. So with that, like you mentioned a couple of the outcomes for the students. What, what do they exactly like buy into? What are they applying for?

   2. GBGagan Biyani14:24

      Yeah. So just to be clear, today we're announcing the Founding Class Fellowship. So it's kind of a unique thing. It's a one-year program, and it does not have tuition. So the first program, starting in September 2027, that you can apply for today is actually, um, this one-year Founding Class, uh, Fellowship, and this, this program is going to be, uh, a sort of a, a version of the eventual two-year program that we'll launch. Uh, but it'll have some key differences, one of which is being one year. When a student signs up for this program, they're signing up to spend a year deeply immersed in Silicon Valley, immersed in the principles of Silicon Valley, the builder-first mentality, high agency, and interpersonal skills that we feel like are critical to being successful in the Valley. The second thing they're buying into is they're moving to San Francisco, and they're going to be amongst a peer set of students who are the best builders on the planet. Like, the big difference between going to the academy and going to college is we are not gonna prioritize your grades. We're gonna pr- prioritize proof of work. So you know as a student here that everyone who shows up has built something, and we have this funny phrase that we've been using recently. It's like, "You did what?" And like, I love this "you did what" phrase 'cause it's-- When I was meeting these young builders, you know, and doing research for this company, I was like, "What did you do?" Like, there's this kid, his name's Darsh. He's in Tennessee. He's, uh, built a LLM for biology that is beating some of the leading models in-- He, he, he's 16. He was 16 years old when he started this, right? Uh, he might be 17 today, but like 16 years old, he's building an LLM to design molecules. And now, by the way, they've pivoted into designing proteins, right, because he's realized that's the market he wants to go after. Uh, we have another student, Elle. Elle, uh, built a massive TikTok following as a, as a, you know, as a teenager. Um, has also been, uh, super involved in, uh, building Alpha School and helping Alpha School turn into what today is, is a huge, um, extremely valuable school for young builders. You know, kind of a, a similar vibe. Um, and so these students are doing incredible things, and what this school is, is you're gonna be around other students who are as incredible as you are and get inspired and see the benefits of the network effect on your motivation and on your thinking that occurs when you're around these students. And then, of course, there's access to the network. You know, there's a reason I didn't start this on my own. There's a reason this is not Gagan University. It's Horowitz and Andreessen Academy. And one of the things, you know, I was listening to a, to a podcast that Ben Horowitz said-- did 11 years ago, right? And from the beginning, they had the vision that Andreessen Horowitz would create a network. And let me tell you, like, I have seen now from the inside how powerful it is. We've gone to all these great founding partners. They're at the door in part because they believe in Andreessen Horowitz and what they bring to the table, and as investors, a16z has just been phenomenal. And so our goal with the Horowitz Andreessen Academy is to create our own network, right? And create our own network of mentors and faculty and podcast hosts and, uh, various, uh, you know, comm- Both young people, we, we need, we need some of them to be under 25, right? So we're gonna find the best under 25-year-old, and we're gonna have them come around the school. And then we're also gonna have the luminaries and people with more ex- more, you know, more experience or gray hair, like I do. And between that group, our goal is to immerse these students amongst the, uh, leading minds of our generation. Um, and so those are the types of things that these students are buying into, and the promise that I think we can make is that you will learn how to be an AI-native builder with super high agency, with the people skills to understand the culture of Silicon Valley. And if we can accomplish those three things, I believe this will be the most valuable educational experience that anyone could ever have, one that most of these mentors are gonna be jealous of. And candidly, like, I'm envious of the kids who get to go and do this program.

7. 19:08 – 22:37

   Should young builders really start companies?

   1. MOMolly O'Shea19:08

      I wanna talk about the state of education, but before we get to that, I feel like the biggest difficulty you're gonna have is retention, because people are gonna immediately start-

   2. GBGagan Biyani19:17

      [laughs]

   3. MOMolly O'Shea19:18

      From the quality of the students you were just mentioning.

   4. GBGagan Biyani19:21

      Yeah.

   5. MOMolly O'Shea19:21

      All these VCs are gonna be flocking around, trying to grab-

   6. GBGagan Biyani19:24

      Yeah

   7. MOMolly O'Shea19:24

      ... these founders or builders or whatever they wanna be, and just fund them with money. So how do you keep them focused?

   8. GBGagan Biyani19:32

      Yeah. Yeah, actually, you know, this points to a real challenge that these types of young builders have today, right? These builders are getting access to VC dollars very early, and they're sort of debating between two, I think, very awkward options. You know, one option is the traditional four-year university route, where the culture and the sort of environment is not designed for building. It's not designed for, you know, career readiness. It's not designed for being immersed in Silicon Valley. And then on the other hand, you have, you know, angel investors or VCs that are giving out 150, 250K checks on a flyer, hoping that this is the next, you know, Michael Trul or something, right? Um, who's the founder of Cursor. And personally, uh, I believe that only a very, very, very small percentage of these builders should be starting companies right away. Like, there's something quite magical that happens in sort of your, quote-unquote, "freshman and sophomore year," the first one to two years after high school, which is that you go from, like, a super structured environment where every hour of your day, right, is completely scheduled, and you have parents driving you to and from. Maybe you've got your own car now, but for the most part you're still super scheduled. You've got homework, you've got tests, et cetera, and you're hanging out only with teens primarily, right? Um, and so yeah, some of these young builders are on the internet, and they're experiencing the digital world through adults' lens. But in the physical world, they haven't yet really experienced it. And so we believe that, you know, eventually it'll be two years. The first program's gonna be one year. But we believe that one to two years is a really good amount of time to sort of go and explore the world before you start a company. And so our advice is, "Look, if you have an incredible idea, we're gonna support you. We're gonna help fund it. We're gonna help find investors for you. Like, we will support you, and go. Leave. You can leave in two months, three months. I don't care." However, for the vast majority of students, it's gonna be valuable to spend one to two years deciding what you're gonna do for the next decade, you know? It doesn't make... It's, it's not, it's not actually the right thing to go after the first decent idea you have. It's... You know, startups are a 10-year slog, and most of them don't work out. So when you go after it, you gotta be sure. And so you shouldn't just take money just 'cause it's there.

   9. MOMolly O'Shea22:09

      Mm.

   10. GBGagan Biyani22:10

       And that's what the academy... That's one of the core tenets of the academy, is actually that it's not about just investing you in from day one. Some of these people should go on and, and join companies, some of them should start companies, and some of them should take two or three years in industry and then start a company. And we're very supportive of all paths, rather than just going after the traditional four-year path and/or, like, raise a bunch of money and start and, you know, who knows if you really care that much about the idea

8. 22:37 – 27:35

   Why this is different from YC and fellowships

   1. GBGagan Biyani22:37

      you're working on.

   2. MOMolly O'Shea22:38

      I kind of wanna discount the four-year path for a little bit, because I think this is, just fits much squarely closer to a 16Z Speedrun or a-

   3. GBGagan Biyani22:48

      Sure

   4. MOMolly O'Shea22:48

      ... Thiel Fellowship or YC or even the Palantir Fellowship. So, like, why, why the trade-off between those and this?

   5. GBGagan Biyani22:56

      Yeah, I mean, you know, those are all amazing programs. Uh, the ones that require you to start a company, and for the vast majority now of Thiel Fellows, you're now in a very, very... Like, most of them are basically starting a company. That's why they're getting the Thiel Fellowship. Um, and that's also true for a16z Speedrun, for example, which of course is going to be a partner of ours, and, uh, we will, we will help, uh, students get into that when they're ready, or YCs, um, you know, uh, the, the, the sort of normal YC program. In most of these cases, they're about starting a company, and we still believe in the exploratory nature of a post-high school aca- academic experience.

   6. MOMolly O'Shea23:37

      Mm.

   7. GBGagan Biyani23:37

      Like, I still think it's valuable to have a set of peers who are your age, uh [laughs] , that you can hang out with and get to know and that you can build lifelong relationships with. Uh, you know, we're gonna be physically in San Francisco. The students are hopefully gonna choose housing options that are co-located with each other. And as a result, you know, I very much hope that they build lifelong friendships. I think that time to explore is super valuable, so a lot of these programs do not really provide that. You know, you're supposed to just know what you're gonna do and go forward. And by the way, that's awesome. Like, there are some 16, 17-year-olds who know what they wanna do, and they're gonna go and start that specific company. That's great. It's way less than the number who are currently raising rounds. I mean, raising capital for these kids is gonna be easy. They should come into the academy thinking- I can raise capital whenever I want. I better ... If I'm gonna take someone's money, I better do it for the right reasons. And I think that's really what makes us different. And then finally, like, there's a difference between a structured program and no structure whatsoever. Like, you know, in a situation where all you get is, you know, $150,000 or $100,000 and you just go and explore on your own, it's hard to ... There's a lot of challenges. There's a lot of amazing ... I, I'm honestly just such a fan of that, [laughs] that like, uh, if you, if that's your option, like, we'll talk one-on-one and we'll figure out what the better option is because it's not... It's gonna be different for different people, right? Um, but I will say that I think there are a lot of students for which the camaraderie of a cohort, as well as the fact that they get two years where they're, have all these mentors coming in that are coming and explaining how their industry works, right? We'll have crypto founders, and we'll have robotics founders, and we'll have, uh, you know, AI apps, and, and classic SaaS, and we'll have different people coming in. I think that exposure and the structure we're gonna provide is still gonna be far more, um, enriching than, for most students, than two years on their own.

   8. MOMolly O'Shea25:42

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9. 27:35 – 31:33

   The Academy is for young builders

   1. MOMolly O'Shea27:35

      about this before we started recording, but we both kind of have a similar archetype where, like, find university very uncomfortable, just kinda wanna graduate, just start, wanna start building, working, that kind of thing.

   2. GBGagan Biyani27:47

      Yeah.

   3. MOMolly O'Shea27:47

      I-

   4. GBGagan Biyani27:47

      You graduated early, right?

   5. MOMolly O'Shea27:48

      I graduated early, and I was telling you, like, I'm pretty sure I took Udemy courses when I was in college 'cause I was, like, maxing out my credits. I was trying to get out of there as fast as possible. Um, one, because I wanted to, like, start a business ASAP. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Also, I just f- I was uncomfortable in college. I was like, "I just wanna start life."

   6. GBGagan Biyani28:07

      Yeah.

   7. MOMolly O'Shea28:07

      Um, and I think this is, you know, the most part what these types of people and students will want to do. But, like, what is the archetype that encompasses this?

   8. GBGagan Biyani28:18

      Yeah. I feel like we use the word build way too much, but it's, it's young builders, right? It's, it's young people who are constantly feeling the itch to go and produce things, and that could be producing a podcast. It could be, uh, producing a website, right? Creating a, a, a new service for people. It could be selling shoes, uh, secondhand, which is, like, a huge, you know, business for-

   9. MOMolly O'Shea28:43

      [laughs]

   10. GBGagan Biyani28:43

       ... for young teens. Um-

   11. MOMolly O'Shea28:44

       It's always a good starting career for teenagers. [laughs]

   12. GBGagan Biyani28:46

       It's a great... Yeah, exactly. Somehow, like, the, um, drop shipping and reselling is a good start. Now, for some people, they find drop shipping and reselling, and they wanna stay in it. That's not for pe- those people are not gonna be at the Horowitz Andreessen Academy. We're gonna, we're gonna encourage you to go big, go bigger, right? You know, it's one thing to build a, uh, you know, people call them a lifestyle business. I think a lifestyle business is fantastic, right? I'm a huge fan of people doing whatever's the right fit for them. But the goal of the academy very much is for moonshots, right? So we're gonna teach and provide a curriculum that's gonna help someone who's been building, you know, maybe they made half a million dollars over their high school career, and there are actually a lot of students who do this now, which is crazy. But, like, let's say they made half a million dollars. Well, we're gonna show them that sometimes you gotta go slow to go fast. And, like, why don't you spend a couple of years thinking of an idea that has the potential to hit a billion in revenue, right? But may not make any, any revenue for the first three to five years. And so these are the types of students. Uh, and honestly, like, it's really interesting because, uh, one... I was talking to a student earlier who was explaining why she was really excited about the academy and what we're doing. And one of her core statements to me, which you and I would just think this is normal, but, you know, 'cause she, she spends lots of time, uh, interacting with, um, adults, uh, in, in her, i- in her career, uh, like, her, in her early career. And so one of the things she said to me is like, "You actually talk to the students." [laughs] Yeah, you're laughing. Like, like, yeah, that's, like, literally the definition of customer development, right? That's, like, one of the first things we're gonna do, make sure every academy student does. Yeah, you need to talk to your customer, right? And as I've been talking to the customer- I'll tell you, these kids know who they are, right? I was talking to a kid at Illinois Math and Science Academy, right? Um, and by the way, a lot of these kids do go to top schools, right? They go to top high schools. They have the credentials. They'll probably get into a top-tier, you know, uh, elite university. And so I'm talking to him and I'm like, "Hey, you know, you seem, like, super entrepreneurial. What are your fellow students like?" And he's like, "Almost all my fellow students are doing extracurriculars solely for the purpose of getting into college."

   13. MOMolly O'Shea31:05

       Yeah. Mm-hmm.

   14. GBGagan Biyani31:05

       "And I do extracurriculars because I enjoy it."

   15. MOMolly O'Shea31:08

       Mm-hmm.

   16. GBGagan Biyani31:09

       It's a subtle difference, right? Like, the, the difference between those two types of students is not obvious on a piece of paper, but luckily, the academy has the resources to interview all of our students, uh, to actually dig into what they've built. And so as a result, we plan on recruiting the students who are doing it because they love it, and that's really important.

   17. MOMolly O'Shea31:32

       So, but

10. 31:33 – 37:18

    Why schools need to embrace AI

    1. MOMolly O'Shea31:33

       okay, so here's, here's some friction. Like, this generation apparently hates AI. Commencement ceremonies, they're booing AI. When they're starting their new year, like even the school year, I heard from a friend, like, her daughter just joined Columbia. The moment AI was brought up, they all booed. So there's so much negativity towards it. How do you then build a school around that, and do you expect backlash on that?

    2. GBGagan Biyani32:01

       Yeah, I mean, I, I think that the ... I, I, I'll take those as two completely different questions, actually. Uh, uh, on the first one, um, a school that embraces AI is a school that embraces reality and the future. Like, AI is here and it's coming, and, uh, like, like it's, it's, it's coming even stronger than it is today. And so I believe that most students who dislike AI are not gonna be a fit for the academy, right? Because, you know ... And by the way, most people, most students are not gonna be a fit for the academy. I mean, we're only taking 50 students in our founding class fellowship, right? Maybe eventually we'll get to 500. Maybe we'll be 1,000. I don't know. But there's only a small set of students who need to be a fit for this thing to actually work, and so it doesn't matter that most of their peers are AI doomers. We want the AI boomers. We want the folks who are looking for an AI optimistic future, and we wanna show the world that there is an AI optimistic future, right? We're not just about the 50 kids that show up to our school. We're gonna try and be out there talking about how this can be a force for good in education. So what does that look like? What does AI in a positive way look like in education? Well, first of all, you have to let kids use it to build things, right? The world is-

    3. MOMolly O'Shea33:25

       Really? You're not gonna ban it like New York? [laughs]

    4. GBGagan Biyani33:28

       [laughs] You know, we can talk about New York in a second-

    5. MOMolly O'Shea33:31

       [laughs]

    6. GBGagan Biyani33:31

       ... 'cause, 'cause there's good and bad with that decision, actually. But, um, yes, we are definitely not gonna ban it. We are gonna completely embrace it. In fact, not only are we gonna embrace it, we're gonna, like, give them more credits and money so that they can go and, and build with AI, right? And of course, there'll be limitations on that, and they'll have to do it within ... They can't just token max the moon. But, you know, we're gonna teach them how to leverage AI in a way that is positive for cr- creating things, because that's what AI allows you to do. It changes the dynamics at work. It used to be that it was really valuable to be a middle manager who is communicating with the executives and then orchestrating a group of humans to move in a certain direction, and now we have the rise of the super IC, right? You know, my, my company, Maven-

    7. MOMolly O'Shea34:19

       Mm

    8. GBGagan Biyani34:19

       ... is entirely built on this, right? Well, all we do at Maven is teach people how to become super ICs, because they're middle managers right now, and they need to shift. And so we're just using that same philosophy now for, for a post high school. So you should come in and learn how to orchestrate 30 agents at a time, 50 agents, I don't know. Orchestrate agents that are orchestrating agents that are orchestrating agents, right? Building that architecture is hard, it's complicated, and you need to come to a school that's actually gonna teach you that so that you can be in the top 1%. We don't just wanna get you a job at one of these companies. We want you to be one of the highest performers at these companies.

    9. MOMolly O'Shea34:55

       Yeah.

    10. GBGagan Biyani34:55

        Right? So the other parts of AI doomerism, some of it's real, right? Like, there are challenges if you just allow students unfettered access to AI. The average student, and this is where we'll talk about New York, right? The average student who gets access to Instagram or TikTok as a child may not be using it in the correct way, right? Like, like, these things are just tools, right? However, um, uh, well, actually, let me, let me continue on that. So I personally, for example, have a rule that if you're writing a document, the first draft should be written by you. You sit down, you write it. I don't think we're gonna make that rule at the school. The school's gonna be much more open. It's gonna be much more, you know, results-oriented. But within my company, that's how, that's how I run the company. And the reason is because I still want you to think through the problems that you're dealing with. And then, of course, everything I write now, I, I plug it into my, you know, AI companion, and I have it help me think through the problem more. And, and sometimes it, it helps, and sometimes it doesn't. But, uh, well, it always helps a little bit. It's just whether or not I use everything it says. So I'm not not using AI. AI is a critical part of every workflow, but I'm using it in a way that makes sense, right? Like, I have access to a calculator today, right? It's the, the easiest example. I know it's very, very trite, but, like, I have access to a calculator today. But if I'm looking at a spreadsheet that my employee shows that's the projections for their new product initiative, if I cannot immediately identify how this is gonna affect the bottom line of our business because I don't have an intimate understanding of our P&L and how this, you know, 5% improvement in conversion rate is gonna affect our growth rate in two years- I have no business being CEO of this company. And it's the same thing with AI. If you are going to have the AI do a bunch of things for you or with you, you need to understand what it's doing. And so a co- like, creating a cohabitation with AI is critical for that, and that's what we're gonna try and create. And hopefully we'll show other universities how they can, instead of having, like, an AI war at their university, they can have an AI harmony.

    11. MOMolly O'Shea37:17

        Yeah.

11. 37:18 – 44:17

    How AI is changing education

    1. MOMolly O'Shea37:18

       Well, I think the problem, and maybe this is- this is obviously speculation, but I think the problem with most universities is they sit so far away from where their students get jobs or where their career progresses. And so if you're at a university and you have no partnership, no real connection but job fairs and, like, five points of removal from the students and where they go next, I think that creates a lot of bifurcation, a lot of friction and confusion for these students because they're not hearing it from their future employers. They're not hearing it from, like, what company they could build next because they're just so far away and dislocated. It was interesting 'cause I was, I was recently walking around for the first time, I was walking around Stanford.

    2. GBGagan Biyani38:01

       I know. I can't believe it took you that long.

    3. MOMolly O'Shea38:03

       [laughs] And I was like, "Shit, this school is beautiful."

    4. GBGagan Biyani38:06

       Yeah.

    5. MOMolly O'Shea38:06

       If I had-- No offense, if I had no agency, I would totally go here. If I didn't know everything I knew about the world and, like, could actually focus and, and sit and have a formal education, I would absolutely go here. But sitting in a classroom and being in a time-bound thing makes me very uncomfortable. I just want to go build things and do things and discover and that kind of thing.

    6. GBGagan Biyani38:26

       Yeah.

    7. MOMolly O'Shea38:26

       Um, but walking around I saw this, this classroom teaching coding, and we were kind of joking 'cause I, I think coding and, and kind of like software engineering now is, is a history class because we have these tools with AI.

    8. GBGagan Biyani38:37

       Yeah.

    9. MOMolly O'Shea38:37

       But, you know, the difference is, like, I absolutely believe we still need education. People should go to college. They should get formal, um, you know, degrees to some extent. Uh, a lot of people should. Um, education should still exist. I don't think we should delete college-

    10. GBGagan Biyani38:53

        Totally

    11. MOMolly O'Shea38:53

        ... at all. Um, but there needs to be some sort of narrative change in what the after effect happens. It's like just because you get an education, like AI is not gonna remove your job. AI is just a tool at work. Like, the jobs will change, but, like, you'll need to learn the tools on the job and, like, learn how it can help you study more. And so, you know, I'm going on this little bit of a tangent because, like, I think it's really, it's really awesome how close you sit to the future job growth, like, to using AI in a functional nature and, like, also kind of to your point of, like, being a case study for future universities, right? It's like you have all these, like, amazing partners. Um, you have all these amazing partners like Anthropic, Anduril, Coinbase, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Palantir, Replit, Stripe, and so many more. And, like, these students will have direct access to what it takes to build a company, what goes on in the inner workings of those companies, and then, like, direct access to, you know, having a job. And so if you build an academy around AI and your output is jobs, that kind of negates the whole AI takes away jobs narrative that is flooding the market and creating all the scare tactics-

    12. GBGagan Biyani40:07

        That's right

    13. MOMolly O'Shea40:07

        ... around AI.

    14. GBGagan Biyani40:08

        Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I, I just don't think we're seeing it. I mean, a-at least right now, and I'm not saying that I can predict the future. Um, what I can say is even if the future is a, a doomer future, you better be in the top 1% 'cause that's gonna be the people who-- And that's, you know, the, the people who graduate from the academy are gonna be in the top 1%. And, uh, you better be in the top 1% because those are the people who are gonna be the most needed. And so if you do believe in doomerism, you know, even more of a reason to, to consider this. But I don't believe in the doomerism narrative. I agree with you. Uh, and we're not seeing it. I mean, my friends at the leading AI companies are all working as hard as ever. Um, and you know, I, uh, personally have, have been working as hard as ever. Uh, I believe that the-- A-and by the way, they're all hiring, right? Like, go, go to their jobs page. They're all-

    15. MOMolly O'Shea41:00

        Oh, yeah. I mean, we cover all these companies. They're all hiring relentlessly and trying to find the talent that is native.

    16. GBGagan Biyani41:05

        And the talent war is raging in Silicon Valley. So I think the other thing that's really unique is, like, there is this, uh, economic phenomenon that has occurred over the last couple decades where, you know, Marc Andreessen wrote the famous essay, "Silicon Valley Is Eating the World." And, like, I do believe-- Sorry, "Software Is Eating the World," um, not Silicon Valley, uh, because software exists everywhere, but software is eating the world, and what I think is true about that, AI will do the same. AI will, will eat the world. And as AI eats the world, um, that doesn't mean the world is not gonna exist. It's, it's an incorrect interpretation. What actually will happen is that we'll just redesign things for AI. So I'm sure you, uh, through-- I know, I know you live in LA, like you might have friends who are either influencers, and sorry to stereotype, I'm just-

    17. MOMolly O'Shea41:58

        [laughs]

    18. GBGagan Biyani41:59

        ... just, like, giving you, giving you some L- I love going to LA, and this is, this is why, 'cause it's a different culture. But, like, you have-- you might have friends who do dropshipping or influencers running lifestyle businesses, uh, in, you know, CPG or whatever. Uh, um, and maybe you, you also I'm sure know lots of tech folks. But my point there is, uh, that those businesses have been completely changed by, by AI, and they were completely changed by the internet-

    19. MOMolly O'Shea42:23

        Yeah

    20. GBGagan Biyani42:23

        ... right? Um, one of our hiring partners, so we have founding partners who are helping us build the curriculum, and then we have like 30-plus hiring partners. One of them is Shopify, and, um, obviously Tobi and, uh, my friend Archie, who, who I worked with at Udemy and is now at, uh, Shopify, are both investors in the academy. And, you know, uh, you cannot start a CPG company today without using Shopify essentially, right? And, uh, so they're using software. Software ate CPG. But CPG still exists. Like, we're still using, like, what is this? Cascade Mountain from Butte Falls, Oregon. Like, like-

    21. MOMolly O'Shea42:59

        [laughs] Not an ad.

    22. GBGagan Biyani43:00

        Yeah. [laughs] Not, they're not sponsoring this at all, but like, you know, this still exists. Like, this is a new brand that's-

    23. MOMolly O'Shea43:07

        Yeah

    24. GBGagan Biyani43:07

        ... that's, uh, you know, based on the new world order of direct-to-consumer the internet has reshaped. And I believe AI will do the same thing to the rest of the world. And so if that happens, like, that doesn't mean the rest of the world's going away. What it means is the rest of the world's changing. And, you know, I hope that more schools, and there are some, right? There's Vanderbilt and Northeastern and ASU that are innovating like crazy, and they're embracing the future, and I hope more schools do that. And as those schools do it, hopefully the academy will sort of be the beacon, like, the example. That's one of our goals with this thing, to show what embracing AI can mean for education.

    25. MOMolly O'Shea43:49

        It's funny, whenever you say academy, I'm just, like, imagining, like, a very royal-looking, like, brick building and people in, you know, uniforms.

    26. GBGagan Biyani43:57

        [laughs]

    27. MOMolly O'Shea43:58

        But I'm sure this is gonna be Silicon Valley version of that. [laughs]

    28. GBGagan Biyani44:01

        It will be.

    29. MOMolly O'Shea44:01

        It's not gonna be anything-

    30. GBGagan Biyani44:02

        Yes
12. 44:17 – 48:51

    What an AI-native curriculum looks like

    1. MOMolly O'Shea44:17

       like, how do you envision that?

    2. GBGagan Biyani44:19

       Yeah. The curriculum is, like, one of the most fun parts, I will tell you. Because when you redesign something from scratch thinking about the AI future, it kind of, like, blows ... It blew my mind, like, the things that we decided to do. So one of the most important things that you wanna preserve, you know, 75 to 80% time for students to do work on projects and build things. And so instead of having a curriculum where you have, you know, required number of classes every, every, um, every semester or every quarter, and you have to do problem sets for those classes and take tests and do a bunch of homework and a bunch of reading, et cetera, our classes, it's the reverse. So we are definitely still gonna have classes on topics like product sense, AI architecture, you know, negotiating, uh, interpersonal skills, et cetera, but those classes are going to be, um, didactic only.

    3. MOMolly O'Shea45:22

       Mm-hmm.

    4. GBGagan Biyani45:22

       So you will come to class, you'll learn what you learn, and then you will go build your projects. And so your projects will be applied versions of what you learned in school, but they will not be direct. And the reason that they need to be indirect is because if you ever, you know, in college, you ever get, like, a assigned project. It's like, um, you know, in, in accounting, uh, l- let's do, like, b- like, in, in business 101 class. You know, it'd be like, "Write a business plan," and it's like they will give you a direct parameter of all the things that you need in the business plan, and they will give you a list of businesses that you can create, and by the end of this, there's no creativity and there's no building. There's no agency. So one of the most important things we need to do is design a school that creates and encourages high agency. To create high agency, you have to let students make their own decisions. This is a critical component. So how do you let students make their own decisions, but still provide some scaffolding so people don't just, you know, do nothing, or so that people just go completely off the rails and do things that, you know, might be illegal or, or inappropriate, et cetera? And, like, we certainly don't want that either. And so what you have to do is you create a regular check-in structure. You create a mentor structure, and then you have a class schedule that works around the idea that you're creating an environment where students feel like they always have to be doing, building great things. And so every week, you know, and we might do this multiple times a week, uh, we're gonna test things out with the founding class and work with them to figure it out. But essentially, every week you're going to go in front of your entire ... Your, your sort of pod, right? Imagine you have a group of eight students, and you're gonna tell them what you did the last week and what you're gonna do the next week. And so that's on top of having class, you know, a couple days a week, maybe half the day. And so then, you know, you're, you're gonna have spent the rest of your time doing all these different challenges. You're gonna tell people what challenge you're gonna take on, and then you're gonna refer back to everyone, "Here's what happened with that challenge." And so it's one of the most powerful things in the world is ... And by the way, once you enter the real world, that's how the whole real world works. There is nobody telling you you have to do anything, right? You have to decide if you wanna go apply to that job. You have to decide whether or not you're gonna show up to work every day. And if you don't, there are consequences, but that's it. It's, like, very, very simple, right? And so we are designing this to both provide enough structure so that students are learning and able to apply themselves, and also that they're building a lot.

    5. MOMolly O'Shea47:57

       Mm-hmm.

    6. GBGagan Biyani47:57

       Um, and I think this sort of peer feedback with a mentor present to ensure that we're constantly pushing students is gonna be a really interesting modality that will create ... And, and by the way, like, just to be clear, this is not new, right? This modality. Like, Oxford still to this day essentially operates under this modality, right? Um, and there are many other schools around the world that have started to operate in this way, and of course YC and Speedrun and these other programs have similar modalities. So we're taking, um, inspiration from those. We're taking inspiration from Alpha School, which is probably one of the, the best high schools in, in the country. Um, we're taking inspiration from Montessori, and we're creating a, um, builder-focused curriculum that encourages students to work on their own projects and learn the skills they need to to be effective on the job.

    7. MOMolly O'Shea48:50

       So funny, before

13. 48:51 – 53:12

    Why high-agency students struggle in college

    1. MOMolly O'Shea48:51

       we were talking, Chris and Katie and I, we were, we were discussing Alpha School, and we're like, "Well, where did those kids go after-

    2. GBGagan Biyani48:57

       Yeah

    3. MOMolly O'Shea48:57

       ... they graduate high school?" They're gonna be, they're gonna, they're gonna get bored by college. Where do they go?

    4. GBGagan Biyani49:03

       Yeah. Um, I don't know if it's the first class, but a, but a, but a big class of alpha students who I've, I've now become friends with are, um, you know, going to college right now. Uh, and I know, I know one at UC Berkeley and one at Stanford, and they have, they've just started. So I am gonna be tracking this like a hawk. Like, I'm gonna be meeting with them and, you know, understanding what's going on. Mm. Because I agree, I think it's going to be very difficult to go from an environment where you had high agency, where you were building. For me, it was really hard. I, I found college to be... Look, I, I was a, um, just to set the context, like, I think I got a 1490 on my SATs, right? I got 800s on almost all of my, um, SAT2s. I was a fi- I got 5s on every single AP. I think I might've had one 4, but I think it was 5s on almost all my APs. I was a 3 point, you know, 7 unweighted student. I went to one of the top public high schools in the country, right? Like, I was a good student, right? Like, at the end of the day. Um, but throughout high school, I started to focus more of my time on building, which is why I didn't get a 4.0, right? And by the way, like, to get a 4.0 today at the top high schools, you have to give up building things, because you have to spend all your time in books and all your time studying and doing all this inane homework and stuff. And so the smartest kids are questioning this, and they're not doing that. So these builder kids, the specific type of kids that we're talking about, they don't always get into the top schools, right? Like, I got rejected from all, every single school I applied to except for the University of California system. And so I went to UC Berkeley, and it was stifling. It was very difficult for me. I realized quickly that I just had to completely design my own path, but I was doing it listlessly. I was doing it without direction or any peers even. I didn't know anyone who was doing the same thing. I had seven jobs in three years, okay? Like, I mostly had jobs overlapping with class. So I, because I could get an A, I, and I got As on those classes, right? Like, I, I, and, but I knew no one doing it, so I did it poorly. And so I agree, these alpha students, they're gonna come out of high school having this level of agency, having this understanding of self-directed learning, knowing that they can learn things way faster than the average, you know, and save time and create, you know, spend two or three hours a day if you're in honors track, and then spend the rest of your time building things. And they're gonna realize quickly that there's not a lot of people in college that are doing that. And that's why I think they're gonna come to the Horowitz Andreessen Academy or try to get into it. Um, and hopefully we can scale enough to accommodate all of them, because I think the first class is gonna be really hard to get into. Um, but our goal obviously is to scale it enough that, that we can make this available to more people. And then, uh, maybe other academies will open too, who knows, uh, you know, inspired by this. Um, and I hope that we can collectively build a sort of post-alpha, you know, operation, uh, o- opportunity. Um, but I also think that it's not just alpha school kids. There's kids all over the country who are operating the same way, who have just figured it out and they're misfits at their schools, and we want them to come to a place that embraces what they're doing. And we want their parents to, uh, uh, to be supportive of them, because honestly, and I think they are, I think a lot of these parents understand this. I think a lot of these parents understand that their kid actually has such incredible upside potential, and that it's very difficult to achieve that upside potential if you go to an environment that's stifling. And so our goal is to create this sort of enough structure that they can feel confident that their kid has a good, you know, has a good chance at a good future, a brand that, that people will recognize in the industry, um, and yet simultaneously something that embraces who they are and what they want.

    5. MOMolly O'Shea53:10

       Wow. I mean, I,

14. 53:12 – 1:02:19

    Why the best builders zigzag

    1. MOMolly O'Shea53:12

       I know we talked about this too, but, like, I resonate with your story so much because I experienced the same thing in college.

    2. GBGagan Biyani53:17

       Yeah.

    3. MOMolly O'Shea53:17

       I was, like, maxing out my credits. I was like, "How do I get out of here and start life as soon as possible?" Because I just feel like everyone else wasn't doing the same thing. Like, I was maxing out my credits. I had an internship at Google's incubator. I started a company. I was doing freelance on top of that. Like, my entire day was blocked out and scheduled, and I just like, I really wanted to start. And so I'm curious for, like, super high agency autodidacts such as yourself, how should people know they should apply? Like, what, what would that look like for them?

    4. GBGagan Biyani53:52

       Well, can we, can we talk about something real quick?

    5. MOMolly O'Shea53:55

       Sure.

    6. GBGagan Biyani53:55

       So, like, many people listening to this podcast may think that you and I are, like, unique. And, uh, certainly, you know, you're one of a kind. Uh, I would like to think that I have, I have my own unique traits. But I think that one thing I'm curious for you to talk about a little bit is when you entered the adult world, I'm curious how many other people like you you found. And as you interview some of the top, you know, CEOs and, um, experts in, uh, their field, um, you know, I would love for you to share a little bit about what you've learned about this culture and group of people. And, you know, do the most successful people look like the straight A valedictorian who went to, you know, a top Ivy school, or do they look like, uh, you and me or somewhere in between? I'm curious what, what you've seen.

    7. MOMolly O'Shea54:44

       I mean, there's no cookie cutter answer for that at all.

    8. GBGagan Biyani54:47

       Well, w- when you entered the adult world, now you're really well connected, you know tons of amazing people, like, I guess the thing that I'm asking you to talk about is we're not the only people-

    9. MOMolly O'Shea54:58

       Okay. Yeah, yeah

    10. GBGagan Biyani54:58

        ... who are like this.

    11. MOMolly O'Shea54:59

        Yeah.

    12. GBGagan Biyani54:59

        Like, this is a, this, like, the adult world is full of people like us.

    13. MOMolly O'Shea55:04

        So I will say, like- It was really hard for me to find people in college that were like me, that had the same mentality. I was taking graduate classes, like-

    14. GBGagan Biyani55:14

        Yeah

    15. MOMolly O'Shea55:14

        ... w- as a sophomore. Like, I just got into those classes. It was cool. People were opening doors for me. I was extremely ambitious, very curious. Um, and I had a great time. Like, I went to NYU, I got in for art, but, like, I wanted to get into college, like, for that, and then I shifted to entrepreneurship immediately and focused on business, took a ton of business classes, took Coursera finance classes, like, because they wouldn't allow me... Like, I did all this stuff and worked way, like, to get ahead, and then I entered the adult world very quickly. I was in New York, so it's like I was already there.

    16. GBGagan Biyani55:45

        Yeah.

    17. MOMolly O'Shea55:45

        But, like, my peer group, you know, they were all doing similar stuff, but, like, kind of more the cookie cutter, get the banking internship, do this, get in line, start the climb in the professional world. I did not think that was gonna be for me. I'm, like, much more of, like, a zigzag and, like, figure it out. I wanted to try as many things as possible to figure out what I ultimately wanted to do. But, like, once I really entered the adult world, it was, it was hard for me to find those peers. Like, I ended up having more friends that were older than me-

    18. GBGagan Biyani56:17

        Mm. Yeah

    19. MOMolly O'Shea56:18

        ... because they experienced stuff later on.

    20. GBGagan Biyani56:19

        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    21. MOMolly O'Shea56:20

        I had a lot of founder friends. Like, and so, like, I, I had, uh, much... had a much better time, like, finding friends that were founders. And then as I've interviewed some of the top founders in the world, like, you know-

    22. GBGagan Biyani56:32

        So many of them

    23. MOMolly O'Shea56:32

        ... so many of them. Alex Karp, dyslexic. Like, you know, a lot of these people didn't graduate college. Some of them changed their careers, like, you know, halfway through. Some of them started their billion-dollar company when they were 30, 40, whatever. Um, and some of them started, like, in grad- or dropped out of school. Like, so there was no... There's, like, no main archetype for, like, a cookie cutter example of any of these founders.

    24. GBGagan Biyani56:55

        Yeah.

    25. MOMolly O'Shea56:55

        Uh, the only thing is, like, high agency ambition, like, perseverance, relentless curiosity. And, you know, the... It's just you, you will meet a founder and their brain will open up because they've thought of everything. They've, like, they've taken every course, uh, that they can. They've talked to as many people as possible. But there's just, like, a totally different level, and, like, you'll feel it and you'll see it. Uh, but I think to your point early on is, like, the humanness of this is, is much different because you also need to know what you don't know, and you not, should not be so naive about it. Uh, I think the issue with a lot of, like, early founders or, like, younger people is, you know, they think the one idea is the billion-dollar idea, and they just wanna go after that. They kind of block out the world. But in order for a lot of these people to be who they are, they were sponges. They were like-

    26. GBGagan Biyani57:54

        Yes

    27. MOMolly O'Shea57:54

        ... no ego sponges of information. I think you get this a lot from, like, Marc Andreessen and how he speaks and, and Ben Horowitz too, not to pump their own book, but, like, you know, read their books, they're great. They're really great.

    28. GBGagan Biyani58:05

        Yeah.

    29. MOMolly O'Shea58:05

        But, like, it's like that real sponge kind of mentality.

    30. GBGagan Biyani58:09

        Yeah. Yeah, I, I completely agree. I think one thing that I'm struck by is that the people who have the most job security are those who zigzag. The people who I find to be, who I've seen most successful are those who do that because they are... These high agency individuals, um, you know, and we're, we're surrounded by them, you know, in our social circles. These high agency individuals do not rely on a track. The tracks are getting blown up all the time, right? And when a track gets blown up, the problem that occurs is that you have no control and no ability to figure out what's next. And so learning the skills of high agency actually, and learning the skills of being an AI-native builder actually make you kind of bulletproof. And so to me, when I got to the Valley, you know, and, and started... And by the way, I grew up technically in Silicon Valley in Fremont, California, but I had no idea what the Valley was. And so when I say I got to the Valley, that's like when I moved to Palo Alto and San Francisco, eventually San Francisco, and I really started meeting people like this, and now I've had, you know, 15 plus years of watching people's careers. I'm amazed at how much more secure their lives are than the lives of the people I know who decided to follow the classic consulting iBanking tracks actually. And the reason is because Silicon Valley as a magnet for good people always has work for good, smart, hardworking people who are AI-native builders. You might change companies three or four times over 15 years. You might change 10 times over 15 years. But if you have high agency and you can build, you're essentially bulletproof. And if in s- And so that is actually something that I think is underappreciated about the Valley, is how many different ways there are to be successful here. Um, that was kind of what I was getting at.
15. 1:02:19 – 1:04:36

    Why you should apply even if you don't get in

    1. MOMolly O'Shea1:02:19

       Yeah.

    2. GBGagan Biyani1:02:19

       Like, um, we're absolutely gonna focus on high IQ, high EQ, and so w- we plan on doing, like, IQ testing, personality testing, and writing testing as part of the second half of the interview. The first part of the interview... The first part of the application's a lot easier. It's just submit a portfolio and submit, you know, your information, kind of similar to college. But after that... And then we'll have an in-person interview. Um, uh, and so the, the point I'm making is that I think that if you're a young person today, and any of what we're saying today resonates, if you're even curious, I think you should apply [laughs] . Uh, and you should follow along, um, because what we're doing is at least going to bleed into, uh, your life in some positive way.

    3. MOMolly O'Shea1:03:04

       Today's episode is sponsored by VCX by Fundrise, the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. Learn more at getvcx.com. Some of you may not have heard this yet, but our sponsor Public just launched something called Generated Assets, and it brings AI into investing in a way I've honestly never seen before. Here's how it works: You type in an idea like AI-powered supply chain companies with positive free cash flow or defense tech companies growing revenue over 25% year over year. Public's AI then dispatches a swarm of agents that scan every single US stock, evaluates them, and instantly builds a custom index around your thesis. What really stands out is how clearly it explains why each stock is included, and before you invest, you can even back test your idea against the S&P 500, so you're making decisions with real context, not just guessing. And beyond Generated Assets, Public lets you invest in stocks, bonds, options, crypto all in one place. They'll even give you an uncapped 1% match when you transfer your investments over from another platform. If you wanna build a portfolio that actually reflects your thesis, visit public.com/sourcery. Paid for by Public Investing. Full disclosures in the description. Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit deel.com/sourcery. That's D-E-E-L .com/sourcery. I know we have a

16. 1:04:36 – 1:08:54

    Building a supportive environment for young builders

    1. MOMolly O'Shea1:04:36

       few minutes left, but a large component about this and the founder builder journey, journey too is failure. So how are you going to be teaching the students about failure?

    2. GBGagan Biyani1:04:48

       You know, I, I, uh, I don't have kids myself. I have lots of friends with kids, and I've been watching how, uh, what happens when a kid falls and hurts themselves for the first time or, you know, the third time or the hundredth time. And, you know, one of the things that's really, really great about Silicon Valley... So I failed, right? I, like, I, I have big failures, right? Like, um, at Udemy, like, my co-founder and I had a falling out, so I left the company. And then... And by the way, the company, he ended up leaving, so the company ended up being run by other people, and we just sort of watched it on the sidelines. Um, and we're very proud of that, uh, of, of, of that story, but also it was hard. And then I started Sprig, which raised a ton of money and, and didn't work out, and now Maven, which is obviously a success and is, is, um, we're, we're now promoting my VP of product to be CEO of that company. And, and now, of course, I'm still raising money for Horowitz and Andreessen Academy. One of the greatest lessons of the Valley is that it's not about your failure. It's about your success. And so when students fall, proverbially, like the child, the toddler who falls on their face, you know, trips over something, or when they fail at a project, like, we are going to congratulate them and help them learn from it. We're... I don't believe in this, like, um, this, like, mentality of, like, making failure cool. Like, failure is not cool. Failure sucks.

    3. MOMolly O'Shea1:06:18

       Yeah.

    4. GBGagan Biyani1:06:18

       Right?

    5. MOMolly O'Shea1:06:18

       [laughs]

    6. GBGagan Biyani1:06:19

       Failure sucks. Like, you should do everything you possibly can to not fail, and yet if you fail, it's okay. Get up and try again. Let's go. What's next, you know? And the it's okay part's also important. We need to create a positive sum supportive environment. You know, there have been multiple people who have invested in my companies. They've lost money on Sprig. They're still investing in Maven. They still invested in Horowitz and Andreessen Academy, right? That's one of the things that's amazing about the Valley. It's not a... It's not worried about times you fail. Um, it's worried about what you've done right. And just to put a cap on that-

    7. MOMolly O'Shea1:07:01

       Mm-hmm

    8. GBGagan Biyani1:07:02

       ... culture is a critical part of schooling It's not talked about a lot. You will not see it on most of the, most of the college websites. You won't see it even on our website. It's gonna be hard to explain this in written word. So here in a podcast, I can kinda share. Silicon Valley has an extremely powerful culture. I've traveled all over the world. I've been to refugee camps. I've volunteered in Cartagena. I've been to Palestine. I've been to, you know, all over Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as, you know, parts of, uh, s- southern, you know, all, all over the world, basically. Asia, India, um, Bangladesh, et cetera. And I will say that some of the best humans I've ever met in my life live here in San Francisco, in Silicon Valley. And the reason is because the culture is about people helping each other. And we plan on creating an extremely ... We call it positive-sum culture. We plan on creating a very positive-sum culture in the Academy, where if you're on top today, you may not be on top tomorrow, so you better be nice to everybody. And if you're on top tomorrow, you think you're gonna be on top eventually, you gotta be nice to the people who are on top today. Don't take them down through envy or ego fights or anything else. So positive sum is a critical part of the value. It's one of the reasons I love being here, like as someone who cares about the philosopher side of school, not just the builder side, right? We wanna create philosopher-builders that have that positive-sum mentality, and the culture of Silicon Valley is part of that.

    9. MOMolly O'Shea1:08:45

       I'm curious, uh ... Well, I guess before that, um, is there anything we didn't talk about that you wanna touch upon?

    10. GBGagan Biyani1:08:52

        Um, I think one thing is that, so

17. 1:08:54 – 1:10:44

    What the Academy program looks like

    1. GBGagan Biyani1:08:54

       we're, we're launching on, in, uh, the Founding Class Fellowship, and it's gonna start in September 2027. It's one year, and it's ... There's no tuition. And then in 2028 ... Well, just to be clear, there's no tuition, but you will have to pay for your, your room and board, right? We, we don't offer that. So we will have a bunch of partners that we think are great options, and we found some really good options that are more affordable in San Francisco. Uh, but there is still a cost there. And then, of course, um, you know, when you, uh, in 2028, pending regulatory approval, we are hoping to launch the two-year program. Um, and the two-year program will have a tuition that is equal or more than the top-tier public u- you know, private, elite private universities. And so I think it's important for us to clarify that this goal, the goal of this program is to build a high-value institution, not a, a, a, an elite institution, um, that delivers so much value that the students think it's absolutely worth that tuition. And I think that's really important to share, you know, as, as clarity for this announcement. And then the other thing is, um, that the Academy is going to be a living and breathing thing. It's going to adapt with AI. And so as AI changes and evolves, I think one of the core tenets of Silicon Valley is that companies are adaptable. We expect the comp- the Academy to adapt. And so yeah, we're putting our name on this. We're gonna make it the greatest educational experience of all time if we, if we can. We're gonna do our best. And, um, in doing so, we are also going to adapt and evolve. And so expect this to be a situation that is, um, evolving with the times.

    2. MOMolly O'Shea1:10:43

       Have you thought about

18. 1:10:44 – 1:11:19

    Why the Academy is in San Francisco

    1. MOMolly O'Shea1:10:44

       buying Alcatraz and putting this there?

    2. GBGagan Biyani1:10:46

       [laughs] I'm not sure I wanna ... We have like the exact opposite motif, right?

    3. MOMolly O'Shea1:10:52

       [laughs]

    4. GBGagan Biyani1:10:53

       Like, a lotta, a lotta, like-

    5. MOMolly O'Shea1:10:55

       Great real estate. [laughs]

    6. GBGagan Biyani1:10:56

       [laughs] Um, uh, maybe, maybe Treasure Island.

    7. MOMolly O'Shea1:11:00

       [laughs]

    8. GBGagan Biyani1:11:00

       You know, I've seen all these, uh, memes on, on, uh, X about, like, what if you built Treasure Island into this amazing place? Uh, no, this has to be in San Francisco. This is gonna be in the heart of San Francisco. I think that's really important. We want the students to be exposed to the city itself.

    9. MOMolly O'Shea1:11:17

       Uh, as we close out,

19. 1:11:19 – 1:14:41

    The people who shaped Gagan

    1. MOMolly O'Shea1:11:19

       I have to ask you, um, as you've been building throughout the years, I do think performance is a measure of who you surround yourself with, and this is definitely a testament to the school, the Academy. But who were those people for you that kept you motivated, and what were the biggest lessons you learned from them?

    2. GBGagan Biyani1:11:36

       Yeah. Look, I, I was super unique. I grew up in Fremont, California. I went to Mission San Jose High School. Anyone who knows high schools knows this school. It's like one of the top in the country. But it's weird, because it's, it's in the top, but the teachers and the administration were kind of at war with the students. And so, uh, the, it was not a good school. Like, from a school standpoint, academically speaking, the school did not provide a good education, and it did not have a very effective administration, I think. And so it was a really unique experience, and through that, I met some of my best friends that are still my friends to this day. And so my peer group started in the third grade. And I live, like, 15-minute walk from my best friends from high school. Um, that will not be the case for the majority of the Academy. But for me, my friends Neeraj and Vivek and, you know, a bunch of friends I met in speech and debate along the way, and I've obviously met a bunch of entrepreneur friends. Uh, I remember being on Sand Hill Road where Marco and Jonathan at Thumbtack, and Logan and John, who eventually started Lyft, uh, were going around, and we were pitching at the same competitions. And so there have been a bunch of people over my life, but the greatest gift I had is that I had a solid base of people who were my ride or die since I was young. And one of the goals of the Academy is to make sure that if you don't already have that, you can get that at the Academy, or you can get a second wind of it. So if you're like me, and you already have it, you can get a second group at the Academy that are like you. And so I think that's a g- I love that question, because personally, for me, it's been so valuable to be rooted with a group of friends who believe in me and care about what I, what I, who I am and what I do, no matter what. Whether I've had a, a great year in the business world or whether it's been a terrible year for me, and I've had both, um, they've kinda been there for me that whole time. And so, um, yeah, shout-out to my, my MSJ crew. Uh, it rolls really deep, but, uh- I'm, I'm sort of one of those guys, I don't know if you've ever, if you watch, uh, the NFL at all. Um, you watch-

    3. MOMolly O'Shea1:13:42

       I used to

    4. GBGagan Biyani1:13:42

       ... football? Okay. So in the beginning of the NFL's, uh, of, of like most, uh, you know, public broadcasts, uh, you'll see the, um, the football player name their college or high school. They get to choose what they say. And I'm one of those kids who will always stand for my high school, Mission San Jose High School, as opposed to my college. Um, because obviously as I've said, I, and I do, I did appreciate what I got from Berkeley, but I just didn't think it was, it was up to snuff. My high school was the place where I grinded, where I had the best friends, where I made the deepest connections that built me and who I am today, and I wanna provide that for, uh, people in college. Um, or, or, uh, I wanna provide that version for people who instead of college go to the Horowitz Andreessen Academy.

    5. MOMolly O'Shea1:14:38

       Incredible. Great answer.

    6. GBGagan Biyani1:14:39

       Thank you.

    7. MOMolly O'Shea1:14:40

       I forgot to ask

20. 1:14:41 – 1:18:46

    Favorite book on AI and climate change

    1. MOMolly O'Shea1:14:41

       you, what are your favorite books?

    2. GBGagan Biyani1:14:42

       [laughs] Yeah.

    3. MOMolly O'Shea1:14:43

       We were geeking out about books too.

    4. GBGagan Biyani1:14:45

       We were. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    5. MOMolly O'Shea1:14:45

       And we're in this gorgeous library.

    6. GBGagan Biyani1:14:48

       You know, talking about AI doomerism-

    7. MOMolly O'Shea1:14:50

       Yeah. [laughs]

    8. GBGagan Biyani1:14:51

       ... I've been an anti-doomer from day one, right? So one of my favorite books that is not very, uh, well, well-known is this book called Not the End of the World. Uh, I found it through Bill Gates actually, so, so, so it, it did, it has gotten some press. Um, it's started by this researcher based from Oxford by the way, who now runs a, an institute, I think it's in London, maybe it's, it's both co-lo- it's in both locations, but her name's Hannah Richie, and, um, she wrote this absolute banger of a book that talks about climate change. And it says two things, and this is why the book did not become popular. Because being nuanced is not, does not go viral, and it sucks 'cause as you can tell in this conversation, I'm very nuanced. Like, I'm actually pro college, right? Like, I, I believe in it. I believe in institution. I talked about colleges that I love, and at the same time I also believe in innovation. I believe AI's gonna change the world, and I also think that that can be a good thing, you know? And so this book is, climate change is a very serious problem, and we are actually on track to it not ending the world. To hold those two truths together is very hard for people, but it's true. Do you remember when we had the ozone crisis when we were kids? We'd get these pamphlets about how Australia's gonna burn off because the ozone layer is, like, disappearing. You don't hear about that anymore. You ever heard about the ozone in the last, like, 15 years? You know why? 'Cause we solved it. We fixed the ozone layer, Molly. Like, we fixed the ozone layer, like, it's crazy, right? Pollution in China is going down, right? Like, we have fixed so many of the world's problems because we make a big deal about it. We do the documentaries as a society. We talk about how it's going crazy. We'll do that with AI, and then we will figure out how to integrate it into society. And so the great thing about this book, Not the End of the World, is it is both a book of realistic facing the reality of, of the problems, which is we were pretty close with climate change. We are pretty close. Like, actually even today, if we don't keep going on our trajectory, there could be major problems. And at the same time, if you follow the parabola of how societies go from no development to strong development, which, and then the peak climate sort of negative, uh, uh, you know, the, the peak carbon emissions, and then you see almost every major Western society is now on a per capita basis and on an absolute basis reducing its global carbon emissions. America is actually polluting way less today than it did, you know, 10 to 15 years ago. And Hannah goes through all of this and says that China and India will go through the same evolution, and I believe the same thing will be true for AI. So I believe in an optimistic future. It's why a lot of my favorite books talk about the realities of the problem and then embrace them, rather than just the world's gonna end. Um, and so yeah, Not the End of the World by Hannah Richie's a great book.

    9. MOMolly O'Shea1:18:11

       Fantastic. I'm so glad I asked that question. [laughs]

    10. GBGagan Biyani1:18:15

        Yeah.

    11. MOMolly O'Shea1:18:15

        Well, Gagan, thank you so much. This was fantastic. Congratulations on the announcement.

    12. GBGagan Biyani1:18:20

        Thank you.

    13. MOMolly O'Shea1:18:20

        And apply to the Horowitz Andreessen Academy.

    14. GBGagan Biyani1:18:25

        Thank you, Molly.

    15. MOMolly O'Shea1:18:25

        Hey, it's Molly. If you enjoy our interviews, check out our newsletter Sorcery.vc, where we deliver a once a week top deals and tech headlines email, and also go deeper on our podcast interviews. Subscribe to Sorcery today. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. Link in description to sign up.

Episode duration: 1:18:49