a16z's Gagan Biyani: Don't Just Take Python Classes in College, Use Python to Create Something You're Super Excited About
Gagan Biyani, CEO of Horowitz Andreessen Academy, stated in a discussion with Replit CEO Amjad Masad that the easiest way to learn anything is to apply it to something you genuinely want to do.
Biyani emphasized that students should not limit themselves to just Python classes in college; instead, they should use Python to create something they are passionate about, treating the language as a tool. With artificial intelligence, every student can take initiative without needing a customized syllabus or exercises, as long as they are allowed to create and feel excitement from the process. Masad referred to this approach as project-based learning, arguing that it should not be a buzzword but a standard; learning something without understanding its application is a modern and peculiar societal invention. For pragmatic individuals like him, the motivation comes from skills rather than pure knowledge: the ability to achieve what they want to do.
The academy itself announced two days ago that it is a non-accredited school in San Francisco aimed at "exceptionally ambitious builders" who are high school graduates or in their first two years of college. a16z has incubated and led a $42 million investment, with Marc Andreessen and Erik Torenberg joining the board. Biyani co-founded Udemy and Maven. Founding partners include Anduril, Anthropic, Coinbase, Google, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Palantir, Replit, and Stripe. The first year's Fellowship plans to recruit about 50 students in the fall of 2027, with no tuition fees, providing over $50,000 in computing credits and a $5,000 travel research budget; the two-year program requires regulatory approval, aiming for fall 2028, with tuition fees comparable to elite private universities. Officially, there will be no traditional grades, exams, or assignments; the core unit is Pursuits: personal projects, explorations, and entrepreneurial ideas, with short course durations and Co-Ops at partner companies. Biyani told local media that in the age of artificial intelligence, portfolios and work experience are more important than diplomas.
The campus location is still being finalized. San Francisco business reports indicate that the academy commits to "San Francisco or nowhere"; currently, there is no ready campus, and students must arrange their own accommodation. The admissions description requires applicants to have already taken action and mentions portfolios, interviews, and intelligence tests as part of the selection process.
Replit is listed as one of the founding partners, corresponding to Masad's vision of making the programming environment a directly deliverable product: students create deployable projects using tools rather than completing exercises disconnected from practical use. The discussion positions artificial intelligence as a condition for scaling project-based learning—every student can work independently, with the academy providing permissions, networks, and company interfaces instead of another standardized curriculum.
In market mechanisms, this is a competition for talent entry. Buyers are tech companies that want 18-year-olds in project teams and funds that want to lock in builders early; the pressure on sellers falls on universities that rely solely on four-year degrees as signals. Funding has already entered the academy's main body, but tuition cash flow has not yet formed. Beneficiaries are partner companies that can integrate internships, computing power, and recruitment into the same network, while traditional higher education institutions that still sell four years of accommodation based on credits and general education courses are under pressure.
Additionally, a16z's funding for the academy includes reports of a split of $35 million plus $7 million in angel funding. The guest and network list includes Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, Satya Nadella, among others, but course details and the legal status of degree alternatives still await approval for the two-year program.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Biyani's transition from Udemy's large-scale recorded courses to Maven's cohorts, and now to a venture capital-named physical academy, represents a shift from online education's customer acquisition logic to a Silicon Valley apprenticeship model. a16z is funding this initiative, with ten companies as Founding Partners, effectively moving the recruitment funnel to high school exit points. By not issuing diplomas and emphasizing portfolios, they are actively relinquishing certification authority, opting instead for job offers from partner companies as credentials. Replit's presence at the table is significant because coding directly in the browser and deploying projects is the default tool layer of this teaching method.
Capital seeks earlier filtering than universities provide. The first cohort of 50 students, with no tuition fees, serves as a brand subsidy, while the two-year program's tuition, aligned with private school fees, represents the business model: students pay for access to the networks of Anduril, OpenAI, and Palantir. Computing credits and co-working spaces shift cloud and workspace costs from company training budgets into educational products. Marc Andreessen joining the board indicates that this is not a corporate social responsibility project but a talent infrastructure for the fund ecosystem.
Similar structures exist in Y Combinator for founders, Minerva and Alpha School for alternative schools, and the Thiel Fellowship for dropouts. The difference is that HAA formalizes the message "don’t go to school, come to school here" and includes Palantir and Anduril as course partners. The industry is currently experiencing a devaluation of degree signals and an appreciation of portfolios and security clearances: companies want individuals who can immediately enter warehouses, models, and battlefield software, not those who need two more years of calculus proofs.
The essence is a restructuring of the industry chain. The mechanism is that artificial intelligence has driven the cost of "learning grammar" close to zero, leaving the scarce resources as judgment on what to do and with whom to do it; whoever controls project topics, computing power, and recruitment interfaces controls the distribution of the next generation of builders. Universities sell time and certification, while the academy sells the permission to start working and be seen by companies.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
- Knowledge without application is a modern invention.
- Once tools become cheap, permissions are more valuable than curricula.
- The day portfolios replace diplomas, the recruitment funnel will move to the school gate.