Katelyn Friedson

Product gal, building something new @ a16z SR4

[andrew chen @andrewchen]

a16z Speedrun Alpha, for pre-idea/pre-team/pre-everything founders

it's time to bet on yourself, and figure out your startup idea. 2026 is well underway, crazy stuff happening in AI, and you're building agents/apps/whatever every night+weekend. You want to start a startup but you're working or still going to school.

what if you're pre-idea, pre-product, pre-launch, and even a solo founder? You need time to cook

The Alpha Fellowship is for you.
https://t.co/9zJI7CzTee

details:
- $20K equity-free upfront to start building
- up to $250K investment when you finalize
- automatic final interview for a16z speedrun, with up to $1M investment
- 8-week, in-person experience with a kickoff retreat, founder AMAs, and small-group dinners alongside the a16z speedrun community
- targeted to early-career highly technical founders
- deadline to apply is March 6

We ALSO have a "startup track" for the Alpha Fellowship where you can get more founder experience by working for a portfolio company if you're not quite ready to found something.

The Alpha Fellowship places top early-career engineers into full-time roles at fast-growing a16z speedrun and Andreessen Horowitz portfolio companies. For future founders, we provide capital before a team or idea even exists.

We're looking for highly technical students and recent grads who don't want to wait to start building. Fellows take full-time roles at fast-growing portfolio companies - or, if you're ready to build now, receive capital to start your own company - kicking off with a two-month in-person fellowship. Fellows also have access to the a16z speedrun and EO Ventures communities and events.

...

If this is you, want to meet you. If you have people to introduce us to, that would be amazing too.

will have more to say, and lots of ideas coming up here. But excited to get this out! Excited to host y'all soon.

[Katelyn Friedson @kfriedson]

.@taskrabbit_help how do you ensure user safety for those booking through the Dolly app? My safety was at risk due to unreliable/sketchy helpers & my belongings were almost stolen. I haven’t heard back from support & they refuse to allow me to review my experience to warn others

[Katelyn Friedson @kfriedson]

Hi @Taskrabbit - how do you ensure user safety for those booking through the Dolly app? My safety was at risk due to unreliable/sketchy helpers, and my belongings were almost stolen. I haven’t heard back from support and I can’t review my experience to warn others.

[Katelyn Friedson @kfriedson]

Hey @SendGrid @TwilioDevRel – trying to get our account approved for transactional emails (password resets, verification). We're a legit consumer product already using Twilio. Support hasn't responded—any chance we could get a human review? 🙏 Ticket ID: [#20735821]

[andrew chen @andrewchen]

new announcement from a16z:

startup founders -- come work with me 1:1 and let a16z invest up to $1M in your very early stage startup :)

(yes, this is via a16z speedrun, and we are launching the next cycle today, taking applications over the next ~month. Here's how to apply: https://t.co/lExlSgiixi)

More details:
I’m back in (currently cloudy) LA after spending a couple months in San Francisco. It was super fun to be back in the bubble. It seemed, right after COVID, that so many other geos were ascendant — you saw a big explosion in LA and NY, and a lot of VCs (including us) starting offices in London. But very clearly the AI revolution has brought a lot of the action back to SF, even if folks are doing it remotely and SOMA is a bit dead. It was great to catch up with many of you over dinners, events, mixers etc. Bumped into a lot of friends during urban hikes in the city also!

I was in SF working on my big project at Andreessen Horowitz right now, which is building a16z speedrun . This is a new program where we invest up to $1M into very early stage startups and then work with them closely over 90 days, then launch them into the world. I am very involved, and it’s been fun to get my hands dirty working 1:1 and in small groups with founders early on their journey. There’s a new cycle kicking off, so would love if you could:

- recommend anyone I should be working with!
- fine to share the website below, or reach out via neutrals
- details + dates are: up to $1M investment from a16z speedrun plus $5M credits from our main partners (AWS, GCP, OpenAI, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Stripe, Deel, etc)
- the next programs kicks off July 28 to October 10, 2025 this year.
- speakers include the founders of Figma, Zynga, Zillow, DoorDash, Twilio, etc etc
- application deadline is May 11, so please get ahold of us by then

how to apply: https://t.co/lExlSgiixi
more details: https://t.co/cdLUfut9lJ

OK — so a bit more details on how this all happened:

I started working on Speedrun at a16z because there are a ton of very early stage startups out there that are building in and around our focus of tech, entertainment and AI. Many of these early wouldn’t know what to do with a16z’s usual check size of $10 or $20 million, but they would benefit from the a16z team (now numbering nearly 600 strong!) that provide access to everything from hiring, partnerships, financing, marketing, and everything else. I love working with founders at this stage.

Also it does not slip our mind that many of the best startups on the planet were started by first time founders and also repeat founders that also have a chip on their shoulder. We feel like we’re not able to help as many entrepreneurs if we just focus on ones that have a ton of revenue and are growing quickly (though we want to work with those ones too!). So starting about 18 months ago, we kicked off a16z Speedrun which is now heading into its 5th cycle. It’s been awesome and very rewarding!

If folks have any questions, I’ll try to address stuff in the comments here. But best thing to do if you have a specific startup in mind is visit the website.

[Katelyn Friedson @kfriedson]

12 weeks. 40 founders. 700+ investors. One wild Demo Day. Grateful to have been part of @speedrun SR004 — excited for what’s next.!!

[a16z speedrun 🧊 @speedrun]

Last week we wrapped our 4th Demo Day. Watching how far these founders have come in just 12 weeks has been surreal. To the class of SR004, it's been an honor to build with you—and we can't wait to see what you do next.

[Katelyn Friedson @kfriedson]

Big things are coming. Join our waitlist to get in early!
https://t.co/Lm1xfdJGh9

[a16z speedrun 🧊 @speedrun]

"Creativity requires controllability... This is why some of the current GenAI technology is deeply unsatisfying. Because it doesn’t give that controllability."

—Dr. Fei-Fei Li, speaking at a16z speedrun last week

[Katelyn Friedson @kfriedson]

Week 1 at Speedrun is a wrap! Building, learning, leveling up with an incredible cohort.

So grateful for the support and insights from @a16z and excited for the journey ahead. #Speedrun #BuildingTheFuture #SR4

[a16z speedrun 🧊 @speedrun]

🧊 This is SPEEDRUN 🧊

Today kicks off SR004 with over 100 founders ready to create the future ─=≡Σ((( つ＞＜)つ

[Katelyn Friedson @kfriedson]

A new chapter?

[a16z speedrun 🧊 @speedrun]

Winter is coming. Get your apps in before the Night King cometh :)

[a16z speedrun 🧊 @speedrun]

Demo Day ft. SR003

32 companies pitched to 100+ investors from everything between Anime Romance Games to Defense tech Simulations.

Here's the ICYMI:

[Katelyn Friedson @kfriedson]

@ElonMNews A. Yes

[Burn Ghost Games @burnghostgames]

The likenesses are uncanny...

[Jason Yeh @jayyeh]

Fun fact: Founders who excel at fundraising are also fantastic at recruiting top talent

Thought on why that is?

[Kevin Rose @kevinrose]

To all my web3 founders, artists, and collectors. I was speaking at the @a16z web3 startup school and this quote was up on the screen after the talk. This is one of my favorites. To all of us in the trenches during this market:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

1. Turn ChatGPT into your job interview trainer.

Train ChatGPT on your resume.

Then get ChatGPT to help you prepare for any interview by generating perfect responses to any question.

[tyler @NoCap_Capital]

Come watch Gabby play @burnghostgames new game mode "Lesser Evil" on Twitch.

Stream starts at halftime of the Celtics/Heat game.

Link: https://t.co/jhLtv9oFfd

[Burn Ghost Games @burnghostgames]

If you don't know the answer, just make something up.

We won't judge.

[Katelyn Friedson @kfriedson]

@alexbarrett06 I'm w/ Burn Ghost (web3 platform for playing games to win NFTs/crypto) & got your info from Tyler (nocap)-- would you be interested in testing out our new game before it goes live? Offering $30n in ETH for testers. DM me if interested!