Our nation has a talent problem. Our brightest minds choose not to pursue careers that move our country and our world forward, but instead choose jobs at seemingly prestigious, large companies. Instead of seeking opportunities to build the future, they choose the safety of consulting firms, financial giants, and big tech companies.
Why? Big firms provide the perception of safety, of stability, of prestige. New joiners are proud to show off the Goldman Sachs logos to their family and friends. The rotational and training programs that many firms promote promise the ideal of continued education and future optionality.
This misallocation of talent does the world a grave disservice. Lured in by the promise of joining the elite, our most capable spend their days (and nights) making PowerPoints, updating Excels, and waiting to turn comments from their managing director. They are far removed from the drivetrain of the business, they never learn how to build a product, and they never learn the true meaning of “adding value”. They learn little, they grow little, and they contribute not at all.
Meanwhile, there are groups of people crazy enough to try and change the world. They go by many names, but we call them startups. Even when they are little, they dream big and fight on, despite often having the odds stacked against them. They do not have the money, the prestige, the brand, or the influence of the big companies. Yet, time and time again, they succeed, and, when they do, they move the world forward. Whether they are working on novel medicines, energy systems, or spacecraft, the very best of them use innovation and ingenuity to leave an outsized, positive impact on human progress.
So how can we get our brightest minds to join our best startups? This problem of spurring innovation has long preoccupied many in the technological old guard. Venture capital and accelerators have done much to enable and destigmatize founding a company. Funding aside (which is a critical piece of the puzzle), dropping out of school is easier to explain to your parents if you’ve been accepted to Y Combinator. How can we do the same for our most talented looking to join a startup?
Enter The Arena Fellowship. The Arena Fellowship is a two-year fellowship that places our nation’s most talented individuals at our nation’s best startups. Fellows follow a rotational program, working one year at their first startup before gaining exposure to a new startup in their second year. Created by leading VCs, founders, startups, and universities, the Arena Fellowship marks those talented enough to be accepted as the very best in tech.
The Fellowship serves a dual purpose. It eases the leap for our most capable interested in joining startups but hesitant to leave the perceived safety of the big co path. For those talented few, it provides early structure, accelerated learning, and a network with unparalleled access to the best investors and operators in the country. For top startups, it provides access to a pool of the very best candidates currently stuck in the big company morass.
Fellows can choose which startup to join from a shortlist of startups that are likewise interested in the Fellow. Fellows get paid, and they get exposure to equity, as they join each startup as a normal teammate. If a Fellow loves their first startup, they can stay for their second year. If they love their second startup, they can stay on there instead.
As founders, startups, VCs, and universities, the Arena Fellowship is our clarion call for our most capable to finally start doing the most meaningfully work of their careers. There is no better feeling than knowing your work is directly contributing to moving the world forward in a positive direction. There will be hard days, there will be failures, but you will become stronger and more capable than you ever thought possible. We, who live in the arena every day, are proud to be Arena Fellows. We will be your mentors as take your first steps, and we will be your network for the rest of your career.
The Arena Fellowship is for those courageous enough to enter the startup arena. For those in the arena, we know that there is nowhere to hide in the very best way. All of us have true ownership, true responsibility, true accountability. We have to make things happen, we have to make working products that customers actually want, we have to build teams that are greater than the sum of their parts and that succeed for all involved. It is a far cry from a big company where no one will notice if another analyst sits in your seat. As an Arena Fellow, your work matters. Your time matters. Your effort matters. You matter.
In the words of Theodore Roosevelt, “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 them 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, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows 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 fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
Choose to become a doer of deeds. Choose to dare greatly, to strive, and to succeed. Choose to enter the Arena.
Tell us why you want to join the true elite at enter@arenafellowship.org
- The Arena Fellows