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Hey hey, class of ‘27 (and ‘26, and ‘25, and ‘24), This is a special edition. Most weeks I write to everybody. Today I’m writing to the students, the new grads, and anyone who graduated in the last three years and still gets asked “so what’s next?” at every family dinner. On today’s menu: - 🧪 The fellowship I co-lead (applications close THIS SUNDAY) - 🎒 98 internships and new grad jobs at startups that just raised - 🗳️ One poll about your summer - 📖 One story about a dropout and a coffin Xoxo, Jordan the alpha fellowship, explained 🧪 Confession: I co-lead the a16z speedrun Alpha Fellowship, and applications for cohort 2 close this Sunday, October 11. So this whole issue is me looking you in the eyes (lovingly) and asking you to apply. Here’s everything you need to know. Ok, what is it? A fellowship in San Francisco for highly technical students, dropouts, and recent grads who don’t want to wait to start building. There are two tracks. 🚀 Founder track: start a startup. - Up to $250K investment - $1M+ in credits across AWS, Azure, OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor and many more - An automatic final interview for speedrun, which invests up to $1M - Office hours with speedrun partners and coworking at the speedrun office in North Beach - 8 weeks in person, January 11 to March 5 - For students and recent grads within a year of school 💼 Talent track: join a startup. - 4 weeks embedded in the speedrun community, February 8 to March 5 - We introduce you to fast-growing speedrun portfolio companies to find a mutual fit, and you could land a role during the fellowship - Office hours, fireside chats, and the same coworking space - For students and recent grads within THREE years of school Alpha by the numbers 🔢 - $250K: the most the founder track invests in you - $1M+: in credits across AWS, Azure, OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor and more - $1M: what speedrun invests, and founder fellows get an automatic final interview - 8: weeks in SF for founders (4 for talent) - 0: ideas required - 6: days left to apply Do I need an idea? Nope. The founder track backs people pre-idea, pre-team, pre-company. Alpha backs builders “sometimes before the idea and sometimes before the diploma.” Pre-idea is the point. What if I already have a cofounder? Even better. Each of you applies separately and names who you’re building with. Do I need US work authorization? Not for the founder track. So what’s it actually like? On paper: coworking at the speedrun office, weekly small-group sessions with speedrun partners and industry leaders, and dinners with engineering leaders and portfolio founders. In practice, also this: Has this actually worked for anyone? So far, five companies from cohort 1 went on to get into speedrun, including Natalia Kokoromyti’s Cybernetic Physics and Nathan Roll’s Oruk. But don’t take it from me. Here’s cohort 1: “I received offers to join startups and big tech, but I ultimately wanted to bet on myself and work on the technical projects I’m interested in.” Calvin Huang, Kalmia “I moved to the Bay Area for Alpha, and the program brought me some of my closest friends here that I know will last a lifetime.” Sean Wu, Attending Labs “The best part has been the late nights and early mornings and getting to talk to the other fellows about the early stages of building a company.” Trevor Abbot, Astroform Corp Who’s in the room? Previous speakers and mentors include Marc Andreessen, Andrew Chen, and Substack founder Chris Best - along with founders from previous speedrun and alpha cohorts. When’s the deadline? Sunday, October 11. That’s six days. You’ve written cover letters in less. 🎒 back-to-school j.o.b.s. Not ready to start a company? Totally valid. Here are nearly a hundred internships and new grad jobs at startups that raised in the last three months, all checked live this morning. Fab2 (formerly Atomic Semi) is trying to build chip factories smaller, faster and cheaper, and its first disclosed round was a $500 million series A led by Fundomo. They have TWENTY internships, ten for this winter and ten for summer, mostly in Austin. The software ones are listed at $114K-$131K plus a housing stipend: Rust software engineering intern, chip design tools, infrastructure software intern, embedded software intern. Want to start in January? There’s a winter version of that Rust one. Base Power puts big batteries on the sides of Texas houses and sells you the electricity, fresh off a $1 billion series D. This is the biggest intern board in the issue: THIRTY internships in Austin covering basically every major. Software engineering, quantitative developer, design, growth, content, finance analytics, plus a new grad member experience role. No pay posted. Bring sunscreen. Antares builds nuclear microreactors small enough to drop somewhere with no grid, on a $470 million series C. FOURTEEN internships, almost all in LA, and every single one posts the pay: reactor software engineering intern ($36/hr), multiphysics software intern ($36/hr), business operations finance intern ($34/hr). Nuclear-curious, this is your sign. Armadin is the new AI cybersecurity company from Mandiant founder Kevin Mandia: AI attackers that try to break into companies before the real bad guys do. They just raised $255.5 million. For summer 2027 in Palo Alto: a frontend intern at $75 an hour and an agent systems intern. Seventy-five dollars. An hour. As an intern. Rundoo makes the software that runs independent hardware and building supply stores (your local lumber yard deserves nice things), on a $30 million series B led by Battery Ventures. In Redwood City: a product manager intern at $2,461 a week and a marketing engineering intern listed at $98K. Kastle builds AI workers for consumer lenders on a $24 million series A. There’s a software engineer intern role, and then there’s a posting literally called Founder Intern. It starts now, it’s in SF, and it pays $100K. Miter runs payroll, HR and job costing for construction companies (about two of every 100 American construction workers get paid through it), and just raised a $40 million series B led by Battery Ventures. In NYC: a new grad software engineer at $140K-$165K plus equity, and a new grad sales development rep at $90K plus equity and commission. Lightfield wants to replace the CRM with something that builds itself from your email and calendar, on a $47 million series A. Two roles labeled early career: an applied AI engineer in SF ($160K-$180K) and an infrastructure engineer in Cambridge, MA ($150K-$170K), both with equity. Fireworks runs open-source AI models for developers who don’t want to babysit GPUs, and raised $1.5 billion this summer. In San Mateo: an associate product manager ($160K-$180K plus equity), a new grad member of technical staff for BS/MS grads ($160K-$180K), and for the PhDs, a research new grad role at $200K-$300K. EliseAI builds AI that handles leasing and resident questions for apartment landlords, and raised $350 million. Two associate product manager roles (SF and NYC) and two junior research scientist roles (SF and NYC). Ema builds AI agents that do HR, IT and finance work for big companies, on a $77 million series B. Their entry door is called “AI Resident,” and it comes in three flavors: Bay Area, UK remote, and India remote. Lightning round, more doors in: - Engineering intern at Forus, NYC, $2.5K-$3.5K a week, fall ‘26 or spring/summer ‘27 - Associate product manager at Sela, SF, $110K-$150K - Business operations (graduate) at Augustus, a startup building a bank from scratch, NYC, $100K-$125K plus equity - Graduate applied research engineer at Xapien, London, £30K-£40K - Summer 2027 software internship at The Exploration Company, which builds reusable space capsules, California (plus an engineering one in Houston) Read that whole list and thought “honestly, I’d rather be the one hiring the interns”? That’s the founder track. Apply to Alpha by Sunday. poll position 🗳️ required reading 📖 - A UPenn dropout and a guy who left high school threw an actual funeral for mobile apps (with a coffin for the app icons) in San Francisco, then raised $4.5 million for Photon, which helps developers build AI agents that live in iMessage and WhatsApp. 40,000+ developer sign-ups. Not saying this is you. Not saying it isn’t. Last thing (then I’ll stop, promise): Alpha applications close Sunday, October 11. If you’re a builder, apply. If you know a builder, forward this. If you ARE a builder and you know a builder, do both and start a company together. P.S. Not a student or recent grad? This issue still loves you. Join the a16z speedrun talent network and regular programming resumes soon. 👨🏻💻 Thanks for reading. You mean the world to me. Go build something, Jordan
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