Andreessen Horowitz is funding a San Francisco academy, led by Udemy cofounder Gagan Biyani, that offers high school graduates a tuition-free, one-year program focused on building startups rather than academic coursework. The founding cohort of about 50 students will skip tests and homework, instead working on real projects with mentors from firms like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta, and receiving roughly $50,000 in computing credit plus a $5,000 travel and research budget. OpenAI's Sam Altman is named as a guest lecturer or instructor, and other tech figures, including Fidji Simo, are contributing funding.
news.slashdot.org
· 2026-09-23
A New York Times investigation found multiple harassment and rape allegations connected to Silicon Valley hacker houses, including AGI House in Hillsborough, where police logged 37 incidents since 2022, at least 17 tied to parties. In one December case, a woman called police at 2 a.m. from a Lyft saying a male resident had tried to force her into sex before she escaped by climbing a gate. AGI House founder Jeremy Nixon, who also founded an earlier house called Genesis, previously described his vision of housing 20 AI hackers together for three months.
futurism.com
· 2026-09-23
Andreessen Horowitz is opening The Horowitz Andreessen Academy, a one-year, tuition-free program in San Francisco for about 50 high school graduates who haven't attended college. The program mixes technical coursework with mentorship from tech industry figures, and is backed by $42 million in funding as a for-profit venture led by CEO Gagan Biyani.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-22
Venture firm Andreessen Horowitz is opening the Horowitz Andreessen Academy, a one-year, ungraded program meant to funnel young people into Silicon Valley startups. Ten partner companies, including Google, Meta, OpenAI, Palantir, and Anthropic, will host students in 'co-op' placements, backed by $42 million in a16z-led funding, compute credits, and a travel stipend. The program grants no degree and requires participants to relocate to San Francisco and cover their own housing.
theverge.com
· 2026-09-22
WIRED's Women issue features actor and comedian Patti Harrison portraying Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos in a satirical cover shoot commenting on Silicon Valley's male-dominated leadership. In an accompanying interview, Harrison discusses the concept, her comedic approach, and her own strained relationship with tech platforms after leaving Twitter.
wired.com
· 2026-09-22
A longtime WIRED writer and editor published a personal essay recounting a 17-year career marked by repeated instances of sexism, including being paid less than a male predecessor, having her parenting fitness questioned by bosses, and working at a publication where men appeared on 70 covers versus four for women. She traces her discomfort with some men in the industry back to her early days interning at WIRED in 2009, when the newsroom lacked female editors and reinforced narratives crediting men as the primary innovators in tech.
wired.com
· 2026-09-21
Thousands of unionized security guards contracted through firms like Securitas and Allied Universal have walked off the job at Big Tech campuses in California. The strike follows a member vote earlier this month authorizing action after months of stalled contract negotiations with SEIU-United Service Workers West.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-18
WIRED is hosting a subscriber-only livestream on September 24 examining the state of women in Silicon Valley amid a broader backlash against DEI initiatives. The panel, featuring Sandra Upson, Lauren Goode, and Ej Dickson, will address reader-submitted questions about gender dynamics in tech workplaces. WIRED is soliciting questions via its comment section ahead of the event.
wired.com
· 2026-09-18
WIRED is producing a special issue on gender and power in Silicon Valley and will record a live episode of its Uncanny Valley podcast in San Francisco on October 8. The event, co-presented with KQED, features a conversation between former WIRED writer Paulina Borsook and editorial director Katie Drummond, followed by a panel with Brian Barrett, Zoë Schiffer and Lauren Goode discussing Goode's search for the most powerful woman in tech.
wired.com
· 2026-09-15
A new State of Open Source AI report from Mozilla, shared with Ars ahead of its September 15 release, finds that top open-weights models from Chinese developers now perform nearly on par with closed frontier models from US firms like Anthropic and OpenAI. It cites Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 scoring only three points below Anthropic's Fable 5 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, despite costing roughly 30 percent as much to run.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-15
In a new opinion piece, Cohere co-founder Aidan Gomez argues that a small group of dominant Silicon Valley AI companies should not be allowed to single-handedly write the safety standards and competition rules governing artificial intelligence worldwide. He acknowledges AI carries real risks, citing Cohere's own work deploying systems in banks, telecoms and defense ministries, but insists the real debate is about who gets a seat at the table in shaping oversight, not whether oversight is needed.
cohere.com
· 2026-09-14
Concerns about artificial intelligence's risks and disruptions are increasingly showing up outside of specialized tech and policy circles, reaching everyday American conversation. The shift suggests AI has moved from an industry-insider talking point to a broader cultural and political issue.
wsj.com
· 2026-09-12
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