Basis Set AI Fellowship

About Basis Set

At Basis Set, we invest in exceptional people early.

We’ve been backing AI companies since 2017, before ChatGPT was a household name. We were the first investor in Quince, now a $10B company and one of the fastest-growing companies in the country, OpenArt, Vizcom, Solvely, Mem0, Tigris, Entire, Cusp, and Sakana. From the beginning, we’ve approached founders and operators from first principles— studying the underlying attributes that actually drive exceptional outcomes.

The Basis Set AI Fellows program is for early-career builders ready to become stronger operators in the next era of computing. This program is designed to help you build the range to operate more cross-functionally inside the most ambitious AI companies.

Basis Set AI Fellows

Built for people at a career inflection point, especially:

• Technical candidates who want stronger product, customer, and business judgment
• Product, business, and operations candidates who want to become more technical

The goal is the same: help you become someone who can connect product, engineering, and strategy inside high-growth AI companies. If you’re ambitious, high-agency, and want to grow into a more cross-functional operator, this program is designed for you.

What You Get

• Mentorship from portfolio company CEOs and experienced operators
• A cohort of exceptional peers
• Fast-tracked full-time opportunities
• Access the Basis Set platform as you explore and build, with 1:1 guidance from our team

Select Project Fellows also get:

• Paid, embedded project work at some of the fastest growing AI companies
• Co-working space in San Francisco

What You'll Do

Solve hard problems. Work through the kind of messy, ambiguous challenges AI-native startups face, not textbook cases. Break problems down from first principles using the same frameworks we use to evaluate founders and companies. Learn unfamiliar technologies fast and ship real solutions.

Build with AI. Prototype with LLMs, agents, embeddings, and the latest frameworks. Stress-test new products. Build scrappy demos that inform real investment and product decisions.

Operate like a generalist. Move across engineering, product, research, and market analysis. Communicate insights to technical and non-technical audiences. Work closely with portfolio teams and the Basis Set investment team.

Three Pathways After the Fellowship

1. Join a portfolio company: Fast-tracked offers at 100+ companies like Quince, Mem0, and OpenArt
2. Start a company: Apply to the Basis Set Fellows Fund for dedicated pre-seed funding
3. Stay connected: Lifetime access to the Basis Set alumni network, founders, investors, and future cohorts

Who This Is For

If you're resourceful, curious, and want to take on more responsibility than your title suggests, this is for you.

• First-principles thinker — can solve almost any problem given time and tools
• High agency — figures things out without waiting for instructions
• Fast learner — ramps quickly in new domains
• Impact-driven — takes on responsibility early

We care about exceptional signal, not resume credentials. We’re especially excited to meet self-directed learners who push projects forward without being asked and AI-native builders with shipped side projects!

We welcome applications from candidates who are in their final year of undergraduate or graduate study, or who expect to graduate soon.

Program Details

• 12 weeks — mid-June to early September 2026
• San Francisco — in person [with select exceptions where company matches may be elsewhere]
• Applications open April 6–30, 2026