TL;DR: We’re hiring new analysts. Applications will go up on our blog and across our socials in two weeks and will only be live for two weeks after that. Please help us share this announcement.
People are often surprised to learn that throughout USV’s 22-year history, the investment team has been entirely composed of a handful of general partners and 1-3 analysts. Analysts are full members of the investment team that engage in all aspects of the venture capital job. They help us expand our thinking, push into new areas, and scale how we engage with founders and companies. We’re writing this post both to announce that we’ll be continuing USV’s analyst program tradition and to reflect on how this role will shift amidst an explosion of intelligence.
Our last class of analysts (Matt, Grace, and I) started two months after ChatGPT launched. To say the least, a lot has changed since then. At times it’s hard to even imagine the way we worked just three years ago. Taking notes in meetings by hand, no always-on agent to elucidate every startup’s domain, no omniscient legal counsel at our fingertips.
All startups and frontier organizations have felt this change, which was slow in 2023, picked up steam in 2024, and felt like a tidal wave the last 12 months. We do not believe that venture capital – despite its human-centricity and relative simplicity – is insulated from these changes. Just as we encourage the companies we work with to maximally embrace AI, we have tried to do the same. We have spent the past six months deploying a fleet of agents to make our systems more robust and to help us automate many pieces of our business. We believe these efforts will help us make better decisions and give our team the leverage to more deeply immerse ourselves in the human networks in which we find the most compelling products and ideas.
Like many other organizations, leaning in helped us get clarity on what types of people we need going forward. We now believe, more strongly than ever, that analysts will continue to play an instrumental role at USV, though the job will look a little different. There will be more emphasis on the parts of the work only a human can do well – more time spent surfacing new founders and teams, developing conviction through conversation, and building relationships.
I can say firsthand that the analyst program is an incredible experience. It is a junior investing role with high autonomy, high responsibility, and the opportunity to learn from some exceptional investors. There are many great venture capital firms out there, but you would be hard pressed to find one that recruits through an open process. We have been doing this for 20+ years and are excited to continue. We believe it allows us to cast a wider net and reach unique people, and we have been fortunate to have incredible individuals come through the program who have gone on to found successful companies, launch their own funds or join great ones, and operate strong businesses.
We are looking for self-starters and curious learners. We prefer candidates with at least one year of work experience, and no prior VC experience is required. We strongly encourage you to apply or to share this with someone who may be interested. We will be launching the application via another public post in two weeks on our blog, X, and linkedin.