for folks thinking about a role change this summer, we want to find you a job at a startup – we’ve invested in >350 companies so far via a16z speedrun.

I’ve spent time with all of the founders: I’m betting (literally) that they’re the next Cursor, Kalshi, Decagon, Databricks, etc.

their jobs are never listed - they tend to hire via referral or from our intros via the speedrun talent team

want to work with them? Let us know here: https://bit.ly/4fe2B4V

if the team sees a match, they’ll reach out to intro you to the founders.

300+ a16z speedrun startups are hiring · Get warm intros

Source: https://speedrun-talent-network.com/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=ahctaketwo It’s a way for talented operators, engineers, designers, AI researchers, and founders-in-waiting to get on aspeedrunpartner’s radar without cold-pitching every job listing. You fill out a few questions, we read them, and we introduce you to the founders in our portfolio most likely to need you.

A real human atspeedrunreads every signup. We map you against the 300+ companies in thespeedrunportfolio, looking at function, stage, location, and what you’ve built. When there’s a fit, we make a warm intro to the founder, with context on why we routed you to them.

Free for candidates. Always. And here’s the deeper reason why: we’re investors in these companies, not a recruiting agency. We don’t take a placement fee, a percentage, or a referral cut. We aren’t extracting value from either side. Our incentives are aligned with the founders we back, which means helping them hire the best talent is part of how the whole portfolio wins. Most recruiting orgs make money when a placement happens; we make money when the company succeeds. That’s a fundamentally different relationship, and it’s why we can afford to read every signup ourselves and route people thoughtfully.

No, and that’s the point. We do the matching. You tell us what kind of role and stage you want, and we route you to founders who are actually hiring for that shape of person right now. That said, it’s genuinely helpful if you’ve spent a few minutes browsing the portfolio and have a sense of the kinds of companies that excite you. The strongest matches tend to come from candidates who have at least some clarity about what they’re looking for, even if they don’t know which specific company is the fit.

If there’s an open match, usually within a week or two. If there isn’t right now, you stay in the pool and we reach out again when a relevant founder opens a role. A lot of our best placements happen months after signup, when the right founder shows up with the right ask.

Mostly very early. Our portfolio companies range from 3 people to about 75, but the average is more like 5 to 15. Many are still hunting for product-market fit. That means the work is high-leverage, ambiguous, and shaped by you as much as by the founder. If you want a defined ladder and a 1000-person org, this isn’t that. If “early, scrappy, build it from nothing” is the kind of work that excites you, you’re in the right place. Roles span engineering, AI research, design, product, marketing, growth, sales, BD, ops, recruiting, and founding-team seats.

Sign up anyway. Many of our best placements happened months after the initial signup, when the right founder finally showed up with the right ask. Staying in the pool costs you nothing.

No. We use what you send to decide who you’d be a fit for, then we ask before we make any introduction. You always get to opt in to a specific intro before your name shows up in a founder’s inbox.

Yes. We flag founders-in-waiting separately and route you tospeedrunpartners who can talk about the program, the cohort, and timing. If you’re closer to joining-the-speedrun-cohort territory than joining-a-portfolio-company territory, we’ll point you there.

Yes. One caveat: we typically don’t fill traditional, on-rails internship programs. If you’re looking for a structured internship with a defined curriculum and lots of mentorship, this isn’t that. But we very often introduce college-aged talent (currently in school or about to graduate) to founding teams across the portfolio. The expectation is that you’re prepared for very low guidance, very high expectations, and chaotic early-stage work. If that excites you, sign up.

Just fill out the signup again. We dedupe on email and LinkedIn, so resubmitting overwrites your record with whatever’s latest. New location, new function, new portfolio link, all of it. It’s the same flow you used the first time, takes a minute.