Most programs at a venture firm evaluate companies. This one evaluates the people who make ideas travel: the writer whose essay becomes the launch, the producer who turns a product demo into a video people share, the comms lead who knows which line will get quoted.
a16z built the New Media Fellowship for that kind of person. The first cohort drew more than 2,000 applications for 65 spots. Some people started calling it "the Thiel Fellowship for the terminally online," and a16z leaned into the nickname.
This guide covers what the fellowship includes, why a16z built it, who has gotten in, how competitive it is, and how to prepare for the next cohort.
What Is the a16z New Media Fellowship?
The a16z New Media Fellowship is an eight-week program and community for operators, creators, and storytellers shaping how technology ideas spread online. It runs out of a16z's New Media team and sits inside a16z Build, the firm's community for founders and operators.
| a16z New Media Fellowship | |
|---|---|
| Length | 8 weeks |
| Cohort size | 65 fellows |
| Format | Biweekly in-person dinners and events, with a flexible, opt-in time commitment |
| Primary hub | San Francisco |
| Cohorts so far | First cohort in early 2026, second cohort over summer 2026 |
| Current status | Applications closed, interest list open |
It isn't an investment program. Fellows don't receive funding or give up equity. What they get is access: to a16z's team, its portfolio companies, its speakers, and 64 other people working on the same craft.
Why a16z Built the New Media Fellowship
a16z was founded in 2009 to be the Creative Artists Agency of tech. CAA broke Hollywood's gatekeepers by helping talent build careers on its own terms, and a16z wanted to do the same for founders.
The firm sees a similar shift in media today. Founders once depended on a handful of outlets to tell their story. Now they can go direct, and the ones who win attention are the ones interesting enough to follow. a16z describes this as a fight for preferential attachment: out of endless options, investors, recruits, and customers have to choose you.
To help founders win that fight, a16z launched its New Media team in 2025. The team works in four ways:
- In-house creative: video and editorial teams produce launch videos and essays with founders. Four weeks before World Labs launched Marble, the team filmed its announcement on a 3D LED volume stage, with Marble generating the environments live. Fei-Fei Li said the launch went viral
- Owned channels: about 1 million followers on X, around 250,000 newsletter subscribers, roughly 1 million podcast downloads a month, and about 160,000 Instagram followers, which lets a16z guarantee reach
- Portfolio services: a team coordinates video, writing, press, and timing for each launch. a16z says these launches have helped startups win tens of millions of dollars in contracts and double their hiring pipelines
- A people network: events, group chats, and the Build newsletter that connect founders with talent
That work created a talent problem. After seeing it up close, founders kept trying to hire data storytellers, heads of social, and technical long-form writers, and those people were hard to find. Erik Torenberg, the a16z general partner who runs the program, said people who are both highly functional and very online are rare, so the firm built a fellowship to gather and train them.
Who Gets Into the a16z New Media Fellowship
a16z says it looks for people who:
- Live at the intersection of tech, media, and culture: they understand how new ideas and products spread online
- Are creators and tinkerers: founders, operators, designers, writers, editors, curators, and content strategists
- Have a track record of impactful content: newsletters, podcasts, communities, brands, or companies that shape how people think about technology
- Experiment with new formats: shorts, generative media, storytelling, comms, and filmmaking
- Bridge ideas and influence: helping founders and investors communicate in ways that are clear and culturally relevant
The cohorts show what that looks like in practice.
Founding fellows: announced at launch, they included James Reina, Chief of Staff to MrBeast; Andres O'Beirne and Loucas Tsilas of Alto Visuals; podcast host Jayden Clark; Sarah Chieng of Cerebras; Claire Vo of ChatPRD; Cat Orman of Flyby Robotics; swyx of Latent Space; and Peter Walker of Carta.
First cohort (January 2026): 65 fellows from companies including OpenAI, Google, Apple, Spotify, Vercel, Thrive, General Catalyst, Kalshi, and MrBeast. Familiar names included Logan Kilpatrick of Google DeepMind, Lindsay McCallum Rémy of OpenAI, Gaby Goldberg, and Jason Liu.
Second cohort (June 2026): another 65 fellows, including economist and writer Noah Smith, METR president Chris Painter, Stripe's Aly Pavela, MrBeast's Rohan Kumar, Amazon's Hannah Broadhurst, Zipline's Danielle Meister Lurie, and former Coinbase brand VP Austin Schumacher.
The mix runs from independent writers and podcasters to heads of comms at large companies. What they share is a body of work people can see.
How Competitive Is the a16z New Media Fellowship?
Very. The first cohort received more than 2,000 applications for 65 places, an acceptance rate of roughly 3%.
a16z hasn't published application numbers for the second cohort, but it described the launch as coming "by popular demand," and it kept the cohort at 65.
What a16z New Media Fellows Get During the Eight Weeks
- Biweekly in-person dinners and events: mostly in San Francisco, for fellows who live there or visit
- Talks from people who've built media at scale: the first cohort heard from Marc Andreessen, Katherine Boyle, and Justine Moore, plus Lulu Cheng Meservey of Rostra, Lenny Rachitsky, Tamara Winter of Stripe Press, Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis, Amjad Masad of Replit, Cecilia Stallsmith of Lovable, Emily Sundberg of Feed Me, and Hanne Winarsky of Substack
- The a16z New Media Summit: a half-day event on storytelling and distribution
- Workshops and group chats: ongoing conversation with the cohort and a16z's New Media team
- Possible forward deployment: some fellows embed with an a16z portfolio company to work on a launch
The time commitment is flexible, which lets people with full-time roles take part. Across its fellowships, a16z also runs larger gatherings, at times bringing 90 or more people to Carmel for a few days.
What Happens After the a16z New Media Fellowship
a16z describes three outcomes it hopes for:
- Fellows join portfolio companies: founders often try to hire for these roles once they've seen the work, and the fellowship gives them a pool of proven people
- Fellows start companies: the firm wants early relationships with people who might found something, and says it would welcome those companies into the a16z family
- Fellows find their peers: people practicing a new craft meet others doing the same work and learn how they've built their careers
a16z calls the third outcome the most meaningful for the community over time. A trusted network in a young field is hard to build alone.
How to Apply to the a16z New Media Fellowship
Applications for the current cohort are closed, but you can prepare for the next one.
- Join the interest list: sign up through a16z Build to hear when the next cohort opens
- Follow the announcements: a16z publishes fellowship news on a16z.news and its X account
- Gather your best work: pick a few pieces that show your craft and the results they drove
- Apply when the window opens: based on the first two cycles, applications have opened a few months before each cohort begins
Timing so far:
- First cohort: applications opened in November 2025, fellows were announced in January 2026, and the program began in early 2026
- Second cohort: applications opened in March 2026, fellows were announced in June 2026, and the program ran through the summer
Know someone who'd be a strong fit? a16z Build also accepts nominations.
How to Stand Out in Your a16z New Media Fellowship Application
a16z hasn't published its application questions, but its criteria and cohorts point to clear priorities.
Show reach with results: a newsletter with an engaged audience, a launch that drove signups, or a video that changed how people saw a product. Numbers help.
Show range across formats: a16z's go-to format pairs a one-hour podcast with one-minute clips. A writer who also produces short video, or a comms lead who runs a podcast, fits that model.
Show fluency in technology: the fellowship serves tech companies, so work that explains complex products clearly carries weight.
Show you can make other people interesting: much of New Media work is helping founders tell their story. Examples where your work lifted someone else stand out.
Keep it specific: "grew a newsletter to 40,000 subscribers in a year" says more than "built an audience."
a16z Build: The Community Behind the Fellowship
The New Media Fellowship runs inside a16z Build, a dinner series, community, and newsletter for founders and operators working out their next move. a16z is clear that Build isn't an accelerator: no curriculum, no demo day, and no prescribed outcome. It creates small, repeated settings where ambitious people meet often enough for trust to build.
Build serves three groups:
- Founders: looking for cofounders, early engineers, designers, and advisors
- Joiners: people who want to work with a strong founder from day one
- Operators in emerging crafts: design engineers, forward-deployed engineers, growth builders, talent leaders, and storytellers
Its best-known story is Decagon. Jesse Zhang and Ashwin Sreenivas met at an a16z retreat and co-founded the company two years ago. Decagon now powers customer support for brands like Eventbrite, Rippling, and Vanta, at a $1.5B valuation with $231M raised. Most Build gatherings happen in San Francisco and New York, though members can live anywhere.
Other a16z Build Fellowships to Know
The New Media Fellowship was the first of several a16z Build fellowships, each built around a role that's still taking shape:
- Ops Engineering: a six-week cohort for leaders deploying AI into how organizations run, with applications open for Fall 2026. Founding fellows include Floodgate's Ann Miura-Ko and Ben Tossell of Ben's Bites
- Forward Deployed Engineering: eight weeks in San Francisco for engineers shipping AI inside live enterprises, with founding fellows from Cursor, Snowflake, Ramp, Harvey, and OpenAI
- Design Engineering: eight weeks in San Francisco and New York for AI-native design leaders, including OpenAI's head of design, Ian Silber
- Growth Engineering: eight weeks in San Francisco for growth leaders building AI-native distribution, including Perplexity's VP of Growth and Shopify's former Chief Growth Officer
- Talent Engineering: an eight-week cohort of about 40 fellows in San Francisco and New York, building new systems for recruiting
You can check current status for each on the a16z Build fellowships page.
What Founders Can Learn From a16z's New Media Playbook
The fellowship is built for storytellers, but its existence says something to founders. One of the biggest venture firms now treats distribution and narrative as core company-building work, important enough to staff a team, run owned channels, and train a pipeline of talent.
A few lessons founders can borrow:
- Treat launches as recruiting and sales events: a16z frames launch day as a chance to win top talent and marquee customers
- Pair long-form with short clips: one deep conversation or essay can feed weeks of short content
- Show up often: a16z ships its podcast and newsletter five times a week to build skill through volume
- Let people carry the story: in a16z's view, signal comes from founders, researchers, and power users more than from company brands
For more on telling your company's story, read our guide to startup storytelling.
Give Your Launch Something Worth Telling
Great storytelling starts with something real to talk about: a product people use, a problem you've proven, a result worth sharing. That's the part most early founders are still building.
Ellenox works with early-stage founders to validate the problem, build an investor-ready MVP, and shape the go-to-market story around real traction. If you want your next launch to have substance behind it, talk to Ellenox.