Dear guide,

A Stanford sophomore could drop out tomorrow and start a real company, and nobody would blink. The classes are the least of what they're getting there. They spend every day in a room with people their own age who are building things, people ten years ahead who have already done it, and a background assumption that someone like them starts companies. None of that requires Stanford.

So we're building a high school around that room. Four years, real companies, a million dollars in profit by graduation, or the tuition comes back. Four years is also a long time for a kid to wait before finding out what they're capable of.

This weekend is the compressed version. 30 kids get 48 hours, a Sunday deadline they can't move, and 20 strangers who owe them nothing.

Nobody makes a million dollars in a weekend. A few of them will make their first dollar, from a stranger who owes them nothing, on Saturday afternoon while you're standing three feet away.

Run the weekend they'll still be talking about in five years. Everything on the schedule serves one number, 20 conversations per kid. When one of them wants to quit at 4pm on Saturday because a stranger was rude to them, sit down and stay there until they send the next message. The rest is logistics.

Go make it a great one.

Nat

Head of Founders School