Press Space to continue
Press Space to continue
Gagan Biyani @gaganbiyani says too many young people are rushing to become founders & raising VC money too fast: “For the vast majority of students, it's going to be valuable to spend 1-2 years deciding what you're going to do for the next decade. “It's not actually the right thing to go after the first decent idea you have. Startups are a 10-year slog & most of them don't work out. So when you go after it, you gotta be sure. You shouldn't just take the money just because it's there.”
Molly O’Shea@MollySOShea6h ago
BREAKING: a16z Launches The Horowitz Andreessen Academy with $42M in Funding Yes, a school. The Academy is an unaccredited, residential alternative to a 4-year degree in San Francisco, led by Founder & CEO Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) (Udemy, Maven). Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) & Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) are on the board. Investors include Adam D'Angelo, Tobi Lütke, Tony Xu, Fidji Simo & Shyam Sankar. Applications open today for a Founding Class of roughly 50 students, starting Fall 2027. 1 year, no tuition, admitted on proof of work. Anthropic, Anduril, Coinbase, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Palantir, Replit & Stripe are Founding Partners, with 30+ hiring partners behind them. We cover: › The $42M raise and the runway behind it › Portfolios, interviews and IQ testing in admissions › 75% to 80% project time and weekly pod check-ins › Tuition, partnerships and equity as the 3 revenue lines › Why the Academy is telling fundable 17-year-olds to wait "The big difference between going to the academy and going to college is we are not gonna prioritize your grades. We're gonna prioritize proof of work." 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Gagan Biyani, Founder & CEO of Horowitz Andreessen Academy (01:01) Why this Academy is different from college (04:44) Started his first company at age 13 (08:30) Building a school for Silicon Valley (11:55) Raising $40M for a School (14:06) "You Did What?" - Proof of work over grades (19:08) Should young builders really start companies? (22:37) Why this is different from YC and fellowships (27:35) The Academy is for young builders (31:33) Why schools need to embrace AI (37:18) How AI is changing education (44:17) What an AI-native curriculum looks like (48:51) Why high-agency students struggle in college (53:12) Why the best builders zigzag (1:02:19) Why you should apply even if you don't get in (1:04:36) Building a supportive environment for young builders (1:08:54) What the Academy program looks like (1:10:44) Why the Academy is in San Francisco (1:11:19) The people who shaped Gagan (1:14:41) Favorite book!
View