Interview
a16z Just Launched a School With OpenAI, NVIDIA & Anthropic
- The Horowitz-Andreessen Academy plans to launch a one-year, tuition-free founding class fellowship in September 2027, with a potential two-year paid program scheduled for 2028 pending regulatory approval and modeled after top-tier elite university tuition structures.
- Supported by $40 million in raised funding to ensure longevity until reaching profitability, the academy targets recruitment of 50 students for the initial cohort, with scalability goals reaching 500 to 1,000 students.
- The curriculum is designed to operate in reverse of traditional models, dedicating 75% to 80% of time to project-based work where classes serve as didactic supplements to applied building.
- Student admission will prioritize "proof of work" and "high agency," utilizing IQ, personality, and writing tests to identify builders who have created AI models or businesses, while excluding those with "AI doomer" perspectives.
- Students will receive direct access to partners including Anthropic, Coinbase, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Palantir, Replit, and Stripe, with NVIDIA providing specific insights into the future of AI technology.
- Operational plans include locating the school in San Francisco with co-located housing, providing compute credits for research, and fostering a "positive sum" culture to prevent ego-based conflict and incentivize collaboration.
- The educational objective is to cultivate "AI native builders with super high agency" capable of orchestrating multiple AI agents, aiming to prepare a "top 1%" of graduates who remain essential regardless of future economic scenarios.
- Financial projections expect monetization through future tuition, corporate partnerships, and equity stakes in student ventures, with the goal of becoming a for-profit, successful financial institution.
- The academy aims to influence the broader educational landscape by serving as a beacon for innovation, expecting to attract "misfits" and "alpha" students from top high schools while encouraging a "narrative change" where formal degrees are complemented by on-the-job AI tool learning.
- The institution anticipates recruiting a peer network of under-25 year-olds and older "luminaries" for mentorship, maintaining a "living and breathing" curriculum that adapts continuously to technological changes and ensuring students who have earned significant revenue in high school pursue "moonshots" over lifestyle businesses.