“Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh tradeoffs differently than some companies. […] We will continue to focus relentlessly on our customers.”
— Jeff Bezos, first shareholder letter in 1997
How long does it take for a company to turn a profit? According to Alex Hormuzi, it’s only at about the 5-year mark that you see things start to work.
With the right intentional training, 5 years is also what I think it takes to become a capable engineer. Well-rounded. Overall competent.
We are entering the 5th year now so here is an glance of the past
In 2026, we have finally reached a point where we can safely point to a Talent Member and confidently say that we know it can work and the magnitude of the potential. We have one talent member who has gone through the journey end-to-end, having secured a well-paid remote job.
In the last 2 years, we’ve iterated and refined the “Managed internship model”. More than 11 different real applications built with founders across the US, UK and Europe.
We now know how to to make this work and are ready to scale this up.
We have done a lot “on the fly” — hacky solutions, existing tools, spreadsheets. This is all okay when still in the exploratory phase.
Now, we understand the requirements, so we can simplify and automate the processes with code and AI.