a16zWhy Education Has to Change
a16z
A New Era For Young People 0:00
The video opens by framing the current moment as one of the greatest times in history to be young, comparable to the era of Thomas Edison or Henry Ford. The problem raised is that the systems built to train young people were designed for a world that is disappearing. A Gen Z research report commissioned by Mark and the speaker found that this generation shows the highest variance and fragmentation across the board, and the message to young people without a billion-dollar idea is to keep exploring rather than settle for a smaller one.
Announcing Harowitz And Jason Academy 0:57
Ben and Gagan announce the launch of Harowitz and Jason Academy, a new school built for the AI era that means redesigning education from the ground up. The idea grew from noticing that college works well for people who want to be scholars or professors, but is a strange, expensive fit for an eighteen-year-old who mainly wants a job or has a company idea. On the hiring side, the required skill sets in technology have been changing so fast that large college systems cannot keep pace, so the academy is built specifically for students who already know they want to work in technology, using direct knowledge of what employers actually need.
Finding The Right Cofounder 3:31
Gagan is introduced as cofounder of Udemy and Maven, someone who had been thinking about this exact idea for over a decade before meeting Ben. The pairing works because Gagan brings deep experience building learning companies while the firm brings connections across 1,600 portfolio companies and a large base of employers, a combination described as potentially very special.
Why The Bundle Matters 4:31
College succeeds because it bundles many things together: training for jobs, but also status, credentials, brand recognition, and simple enjoyment. Past attempts to disrupt education failed by focusing too narrowly on just the learning piece without building the full bundle. The academy aims to teach people to build things directly, learning music by writing songs or learning technology by building systems, rather than just studying about a subject.
Comparing It To The Industrial Revolution 7:01
The university system originally grew from religious institutions, then exploded during the industrial revolution to train a newly literate, numerate workforce for the corporate world that didn't previously exist. The AI revolution is expected to be just as transformational to jobs as that shift was, and the training built for the industrial era won't map perfectly onto it, so a new model is needed. Rather than long lecture days, the academy proposes shorter instruction blocks combined with more individualized time using AI tools and more structured social activity.
Filling A Rare Gap 10:00
Very few efforts in the last fifty years have tried to deliver a college-comparable experience for young builders, one that includes interpersonal dynamics, a residential setting in San Francisco, and direct ties to top employers. What makes this effort different is a clear, elite source of demand: a generation of young builders already fired up about creating things, some of whom will go on to employ thousands of people or raise significant funding for their own companies.
Access To Real Companies 11:00
Students will have access to work at companies like Databricks, Nvidia, and Stripe, immersed in what's described as the firm's own extended universe of connections, gaining both career-oriented experience and simple exposure to the spirit of Silicon Valley.
Being Eighteen Today 12:00
Ben says he would be thrilled to be eighteen right now, calling it one of the best times in history despite widespread anxiety about the future caused by outdated systems. Young people entering the workforce now can be more capable early on than people with thirty or forty years of experience, skipping the traditional slow climb up a corporate ladder. He shares his family history, describing how his great-grandfather fled Russia and worked in a sweatshop, sleeping under his sewing machine, while his grandfather later got an education at CCNY and had a better life, a pattern of generational progress he expects young people today to repeat relative to their parents.
Learning Through Proximity To Builders 15:32
Rather than needing an original company idea right away, most young people benefit more from joining someone who already has a compelling idea, much like Zuckerberg's Harvard roommates who regretted not joining Facebook early. Ben notes he didn't have a great idea himself at eighteen, and that his career was shaped instead by joining Silicon Graphics and observing real innovation there.
Teaching People Skills 17:33
Asked how to teach interpersonal skills, Ben says the key is simply being around people, something threatened by screen-driven loneliness but potentially freed up by AI handling more routine computer work. He describes a habit he tries to instill at the firm: starting conversations by genuinely asking where someone is from and what their family and background are like, the same instinct people naturally use when meeting peers their own age.
Building Skills Through Immersion 20:00
Gagan explains that developing real skills happens through osmosis, immersing students not just among peers of the same age but alongside adults, companies, and internships, so that practical needs force learning. He gives the example of a student trying to build a robot dog who needs a specific chip and doesn't know how to write a cold email, and would be surrounded by people who can teach that skill on the spot. This project-based, socially embedded approach is contrasted with sitting in a lecture about negotiation, since real skill comes from caring about a project and needing to rally others around it.
Why It Has To Be California 22:31
The conversation turns to why the academy is based in the Bay Area. Most great American companies start in California, and the vast majority of the people who know how to build and grow them live there, making it the natural place to learn. San Francisco itself becomes the campus, not just the school's walls, and the region's cultural values matter: a tolerance for failure, a belief in positive-sum cooperation, and a high-trust culture where helping others is expected to pay off eventually. Many of the defining conversations about the future of AI, money, and biotechnology are described as happening in San Francisco first before spreading outward.
Keeping the Academy Independent 27:31
The project had to stand apart from the investment firm that helped start it. Running an academy is a different kind of work than running an investment firm, and folding it into the firm would have limited its ambition. The idea is not confined to technology either. It could apply to music, medicine, or many other professions, since every field is undergoing massive change, and the academy needs room to grow into those areas over time.
Serving Only the Student 28:30
The academy is structured as a for-profit specifically so the student remains the only customer, rather than splitting attention between alumni, donors, or parents. Everything built to train young people was designed for a world that is disappearing, so someone has to fully serve the student instead. The hope is not to monopolize this model but to have it copied, including by institutions like Harvard, because the goal is changing outcomes for young people broadly. The profit motive ties the academy's success to graduates going on to do great things, aligning incentives in a way traditional education often lacks.
Curiosity Over Cramming 30:31
A core tenet is curiosity, captured by the idea that education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire. The model shifts from a push system of grades and memorization to a pull system built on what students are naturally curious about, even if the payoff isn't obvious at first, as with Steve Jobs and calligraphy or a lifelong interest in rap music. Every interest, from calligraphy to horticulture to kite surfing, gets reframed into a project or challenge with a real output. AI is treated as a tool that raises what problems are worth attempting, since students can now solve things no one could before.
Learning People Skills by Doing 35:30
Skills like leading a team, negotiating, or managing conflict cannot be taught from a book, just as no book teaches an NFL quarterback to handle a rusher. The academy aims to give students practice putting teams together and facing real consequences, so they learn decision-making by feeling the cost of hesitation or unresolved conflict firsthand.
Choosing What to Work On 37:31
With tools now so capable, the harder question becomes what is worth doing. The advice is to match personal interest and skill to real problems, whether disease, environmental challenges, or election integrity, and to expect that entrepreneurial paths often turn up unexpected problems along the way, similar to scientific discovery. Young people should avoid settling for smaller ideas and instead explore widely, since the academy's role is to expose them to more of the real world than typical teenage life offers. Failure is valued when it produces real learning about why a problem is hard.
Vision for the Academy's Future 40:31
Success in five years means graduates with careers they love or interesting companies they've started, along with a clearer sense of what actually works so the model can expand to more types of students, including those drawn to creative or global problems rather than just technology. Creative fields are already changing fast, letting people express an idea across film, music, or any medium without being confined to one craft, and the academy wants to support that same range of possibility.
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