Pilot cohorts opening 2026 · Schools pay $0

Train your company. Sponsor a school. Build the AI economy.

The AI Entrepreneurship Institute is a sponsor-funded program that gives high school students access to the same business-building and AI operating curriculum companies pay $1,000 per seat per month for. Schools pay nothing. Sponsors fund access. Students build real offers, real agents, and real customer conversations — before they ever sit in a job interview.

See where students start vs. graduate Book a 15-min call with Steve →
High school students in the AI Entrepreneurship Institute

Schools are preparing students for jobs. The jobs are being rewritten. Most "AI for kids" curricula stop at literacy — how to use ChatGPT — and end exactly where the actual leverage begins. Real sales, real offers, real customers, real agents that run without you: the operating layer of a business in the AI economy doesn't get taught in school. Anywhere. That's the gap — and the exact gap the AI Entrepreneurship Institute was built to close.

"
The difference with basic AI training is that it teaches you how to use a particular tool. This boot camp teaches you a framework where you build at the lowest level and then go one step higher, one step higher, one step higher. At each level, you increase your productivity.
Demar Lewis III Sprint 1 graduate
The two failure modes · And the third path

A 15-year-old who wants AI entrepreneurship education today
gets offered one of two things. Neither works.

One option teaches business as if AI didn't happen. The other teaches AI-native entrepreneurship — but locks it behind a six-figure tuition and one campus in Manhattan. There's a third path.

Option 01 · Built for a job market that no longer exists

Traditional entrepreneurship programs

Junior Achievement · NFTE · DECA · FBLA
What's good

Free or low-cost, broadly available in public schools, well-meaning. The adults who run these care.

What's broken

The curriculum was built before agents existed. Students learn business plans and lemonade-stand pitching for a labor market that's being rewritten in real time.

Right intention. Wrong era.
Option 02 · Built for the children of capital

Elite private AI-native schools

Founders.school · 20 spots · NYC only · ~$150K tuition
What's good

AI-native curriculum. Real founder mentors — a16z, Justin Mares, Claire Vo, Dan Shipper. Profit guarantee. Excellent program by every measure.

What's broken

Twenty seats per year, one Manhattan campus, families relocate. The right curriculum, locked behind an admissions process and a sticker price 99.9% of teenagers can't reach.

Right curriculum. Wrong access model.
The third path · Built for scale

AI Entrepreneurship Institute

Any school can host · Sponsors fund access · Schools pay $0
AI-native

The same agent-building, real-business curriculum companies pay $1,000/month per seat to learn — adapted for high school students.

Accessible

Schools pay nothing. A $25,000 sponsorship funds an entire cohort. Any school can host — the school a student already attends, the school a family already chose.

Right curriculum. Right access model.

Founders.school will produce a small handful of millionaires by 2030. The AI Entrepreneurship Institute is built to put every motivated teenager in America within reach of the same curriculum — through the schools they already attend.

Seven levels of AI value creation · Value follows the layer

This is the gap between where most kids enter the workforce
and where AI Entrepreneurship Institute graduates start.
Most 18-year-olds enter on rung 1. Institute graduates are on rung 7 before they leave high school.

Level 1
AI Prompter
You use ChatGPT or Copilot for one-off tasks. Most teenagers are here.
Replaceable
Level 2
Agent User
You invoke agents others built to get specific tasks done faster.
Replaceable
Level 3
Agent Builder
You build agents for your own repeatable workflows. Most adults trying to learn AI top out here.
Replaceable
Level 4
Execution OS
You wire agents into the recurring work of an entire small business. AI Entrepreneurship Institute target: every student here by month 6.
Operator
Level 5
Intelligence OS
You turn the activity of a real business (yours, an internship, a parent's company) into weekly decision intelligence. Institute students reach this in year one.
Operator
Level 6
Growth OS
You run KPI loops that improve revenue, margin, speed, and quality — for a real business, real customers, real money. Junior- and senior-year track for top performers.
Operator
Level 7
Company Transformation OS
You install the full AI operating system inside a real company. The infrastructure the business runs on — and Institute graduates get here before they leave high school.
Invaluable
Value a student can create in the AI economy
The earlier a student gets onto rung 4+, the more compounding they get before their first job interview ever happens.
"
The only other AI 'training' I paid for was a $250 class where I watched someone run demos for four hours. I left with nothing. Not a framework, not a file, not a single thing I could use the next day. Steve's bootcamp is the opposite of that in every way.
Katie Milton Jordan Sprint 1 graduate
What every student gets access to · The full training stack

Five trainings.
One ladder.

Every student in the cohort gets access to all five trainings — the same curriculum companies pay thousands per seat for, sequenced from first agent built to full Company Transformation OS installed. Click any training to see what's inside.

Sponsor a school →

AI Agent Workshop

90 minutes · run weekly

A live workshop where attendees build their first real agent using the Agent Builder — the meta-agent that builds other agents. Three parts. Ninety minutes. One working agent installed on their own data.

Part 01

The Five-File Structure

What an agent actually is. The five files, numbered 01–05. You see one running, live — every input, every output, every prompt.

Demystify the agent.
Part 02

The Agent Builder

The meta-agent that builds other agents. The three-run graduation that gets a new agent production-ready. You watch one built live.

The tool that builds the tools.
Part 03

Your Homework

Pick a workflow. Bring a golden example. The Agent Builder does most of the work. You ship one working agent before the next session.

Walk out with one running.
"
By Wednesday of week two I had an agent that had run 40 times without me touching it. No other training I've attended has ever produced anything I could say that about.
Tommy Rhoads Sprint 1 graduate
What every student gets · every day · for the school year

No student builds alone.

For every student in the cohort: the same operating room every Elite AI Operator gets — adapted for high school students. Daily AI coaching in the inbox every morning. A weekly group coaching session with peers and a mentor. A monthly full-day forum with the cohort. Click any pillar to see what shows up.

Sponsor a school →

Daily AI Coaching

Every morning · before homeroom

Overnight, the AI system reviews each student's previous day — what they built, what they learned, what they're stuck on — and delivers executable next steps for the morning.

Not suggestions. Not tips. Working instructions: which agent to build next, which sales conversation to have, which part of the offer to test. Paste them in. Run them.

Their business — yes, their real business — moves forward before first period.

"
Every other AI course I've taken taught concepts. Steve's program builds infrastructure. The difference is that when the session ends, I don't have notes — I have working agents, a registered operating system, and a pipeline that's one conversation away from revenue.
Josh Brockmann Sprint 3 graduate
The promise

By graduation, an AI Entrepreneurship Institute student knows how to build, sell, and operate real businesses in the AI economy.

Not AI literacy. AI-native operating skill — the same operating layer adults pay $1,000 per seat per month to learn. Here's what a graduate walks out with.

01

Working agents that ran without them.

By graduation, every student has shipped agents that ran real workflows without supervision. Real inputs, real outputs, real customers. Not a class project — a portfolio.

02

Real offers sold to real customers.

Pricing, pitching, follow-up, delivery. By graduation, every student has had at least one paying customer pay them for something they made.

03

The three OS stack installed.

Execution OS (agents). Intelligence OS (operating data into briefs). Growth OS (KPI loops). The same stack Fortune 500 operators install.

04

A portfolio that's hard to argue with.

Shipped agents, customer testimonials, revenue receipts, mentor letters. The first internship or first job interview is a different conversation than their classmates'.

05

Three years of compound advantage.

While their classmates were learning to write a five-paragraph essay, your kid was running KPI reviews on a real business. That gap doesn't close after graduation — it widens.

06

Real choice about what comes next.

College. Internship. Run the business. The graduate has earned the right to choose — and the proof to justify whatever they pick.

That's not what college prep produces. That's what AI-native entrepreneurship education produces. It's why parents who can afford Founders.school pay $150K for it. Every student in an AEI cohort gets it through a sponsored seat — at the school they already attend.

"
In a single week, Byers Creative went from zero operating infrastructure to a fully functional AI-powered operating system. Traditional consulting estimate: $47,100 and six weeks. Actual cost: $1 and 3.5 hours.
Michael P. Sprint 3 graduate
How sponsorship works · Three-sided flywheel

Schools pay $0.
Sponsors fund access. Students build the proof.

The Junior Achievement model, rebuilt for AI entrepreneurship. A school provides students and legitimacy. A sponsor — typically a local company, a pool of founding families, or a community combination — funds access. The students build real offers, real agents, and real customer conversations, creating the proof that brings the next school and the next sponsor in.

01

The school provides students.

The school promotes the program through counselors, business teachers, entrepreneurship clubs, and parent newsletters. The school's cost: $0. Their role is distribution and legitimacy, not procurement. They get the program; they don't buy it.

02

A sponsor funds access.

One school sponsorship is $25,000/year. It can come from a single company, a pool of founding families, a family foundation, or a community combination. Recognition: logo on the school's AI Entrepreneurship Institute page, "Founding Sponsor" status, billing at the launch event and the student demo day.

03

Students create the proof.

Students get access to the same Elite AI Operator curriculum companies pay $1,000/month per seat for. A 50-student cohort × $1,000/mo × 12 months = up to $600,000/year in retail-equivalent access. That ratio — $25K unlocks up to $600K of value — is the impact multiple a sponsor gets to point at.

A $25,000 school sponsorship can unlock up to $600,000/year in retail-equivalent program access for the cohort. That's the multiple a sponsor gets to fund — and the story they get to tell.

Section 04 · Why now

Three converging windows. All of them sit inside the next twelve months.

The curriculum is being defined. The first pilot schools are being chosen. And a student's window between 15 and 18 doesn't repeat. Each of these compounds on the others. None of them stay open forever.

01

The category is being defined this year.

"AI entrepreneurship education" as a category is being shaped in 2026. The pilot schools that join now set the curriculum, anchor the case studies, and define what the category means nationally. The schools that wait until 2028 join a category someone else already named — under terms someone else already set.

02

Founding-sponsor recognition only happens once.

The first companies and families to fund pilot schools get founding-sponsor status — logo placement, recognition at launch and demo days, and the "we put a generation of students into the AI economy" story to tell to their own customers, employees, and community. By the time the program is national, that recognition is gone.

03

A student's 15-to-18 window doesn't repeat.

College admissions and the labor market are both being rewritten in real time. A student who shows up to senior year with three years of real AI operator work behind them — agents they built, offers they sold, customers they served — walks into a different conversation than the one their classmates are having. That compounding starts the moment they start. Not the moment they apply.

The cohorts launched this year are the cohorts whose proof points anchor the field. The students in them will be in the room when the rules get written. The students who join two years from now will be following them.

How to get involved

Three ways in.

Path 1 · Sponsor directly
$25,000
one year · school-wide license
  • Free program access for an entire school cohort — up to 50 students
  • Full five-training curriculum plus daily AI coaching, weekly group coaching, and monthly full-day forum
  • Founding Sponsor recognition — logo on the school's AEI page, billing at launch and demo day
  • The "we sponsored an entire school into the AI economy" story to tell your customers, employees, and community
  • First-position founding-sponsor status — only available during the founding-pilot phase

Context: $25,000 unlocks up to $600,000/year in retail-equivalent program access for a 50-student cohort. Direct, fast, school-wide.

Sponsor a school →
Path 2 · Train + Sponsor
$1,000/mo
+ school sponsorship
your company gets trained · a school gets funded
  • Elite AI Operator membership for your team at $1,000/month per seat
  • Your team learns to build agents, install Execution OS, Intelligence OS, and Growth OS
  • Bundled with a school sponsorship — the most-leverage way to fund the mission
  • Recognized as a Founding Sponsor on the school's AEI page
  • Often the less expensive path overall when you account for the ROI of your team's training

Buying Elite AI Operator for your company AND sponsoring a school is the most-leverage move. Your team becomes operators while a school becomes a pilot.

See Elite AI Operator →
Path 3 · Train-only or Forward
$1,000/mo
or $0 to forward
two lighter ways to help
  • Roll out at your company at $1,000/month per seat. Train your team. Revenue helps fund schools.
  • Or forward this page to a school admin, founder, family foundation, or company exec who'd sponsor a cohort.
  • Both paths help the mission without a $25K direct write
  • The forward path is free — and one well-placed introduction can fund a whole cohort

If you're sympathetic to the mission but the $25K direct sponsor or the bundle aren't a fit, both lighter paths still move it forward.

Forward this page →

Frequently Asked
Questions

For parents, sponsors, and school leaders

What is the AI Entrepreneurship Institute?+
A sponsor-funded program that gives high school students access to the same business-building and AI operating curriculum companies pay $1,000 per seat per month for. Students learn to build agents, design offers, run sales conversations, deliver to customers, and operate a real business in the AI economy. Schools host. Sponsors fund. Students build.
Who is this for?+
Three audiences: (1) parents who want their teenager prepared for a labor market that's being rewritten in real time, (2) companies and families who want to fund a school cohort and earn founding-sponsor recognition, and (3) school leaders — principals, CTE directors, business teachers, advancement officers — who want to bring real AI entrepreneurship education to their students at zero cost to the school.
What does a student actually do in the program?+
They build. By the end of month one a student has shipped their first agent and their first offer. By month three they've had a real prospect conversation. By the end of year one most students have either a small functioning business, a documented portfolio of agents, or a paid internship-equivalent role with a real client. This is not curriculum that ends when the bell rings — it's an operating room with peers, mentors, and a daily cadence.
How does sponsorship work?+
One school sponsorship is $25,000/year. That funds the entire student cohort at a single school. It can come from one company, one family, a pool of founding families, a local foundation, or a combination. Schools pay nothing. The model mirrors Junior Achievement: schools host and provide legitimacy; sponsors fund and earn recognition; students create the proof that brings the next school and the next sponsor in.
How is this different from coding camps or AI clubs?+
Coding camps teach a tool. AI clubs teach awareness. The AI Entrepreneurship Institute teaches the operating system of a business in the AI economy — agents, offers, funnels, sales conversations, customer delivery, pricing, follow-up. The deliverable isn't a hello-world project. It's a real offer sold to a real customer, a real agent that runs without the student, and a real conversation with a former Amazon executive about what the job market is going to ask of them in three years.
What if our school wants to host?+
Book the call. The path from interest to pilot looks like this: a 15-minute call to scope fit, then introductions to the right people in school administration, then a 60-minute working session to design the launch (when to start, how to recruit students, who at the school is the program champion), then matchmaking with sponsors. Schools that move quickly land founding-pilot status while it's still available.
What if $25,000 is too high for a single sponsor?+
The sponsorship pools cleanly. Common shapes: five founding families at $5,000 each, ten at $2,500, or one anchor company plus a handful of founding-family contributions. The math doesn't change — $25K per school per year — but the source of the $25K is flexible. Steve will scope the right structure on the call.
Who teaches the program?+
Steve Cunningham — former Amazon, built the curriculum, runs the cohort — leads the program. Mentors include a former Amazon executive who built employee onboarding for thousands of new hires across the company, bringing a clear-eyed view of where the job market is heading. Weekly group coaching pairs every student with a coach and a small group of peer student-operators from other pilot schools.
How do I get involved?+
Book the 15-minute call. Whether you're a parent, a potential sponsor, or a school leader, the call is the right next step. Steve will tell you straight which lane fits — and which doesn't.