A new Manhattan private school is opening this autumn with an unusual offer to students: graduate as a millionaire, or receive a refund on the cost of all school fees.
The educational establishment, Founders School, promises families their $150,000-a-year fees back if their child has not set up a business worth $1 million by the time they graduate from its four-year high-school course. Students will mostly be aged 14 when they begin their studies at the school and 18 upon graduation.
The ambitious venture is part of Alpha School, an AI-powered educational group which aim to replace traditional classroom teaching with student-led online learning. The venture is backed by billionaire entrepreneur Joe Liemandt and is targeting teenagers who aspire to become entrepreneurs rather than follow a traditional academic path.
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Liemandt, who made his $6.6 billion fortune in tech and software investments, is also the principal of Alpha School, which first opened in 2014 in Austin, Texas. The organisation has attracted widespread attention in the United States for compressing core academic learning into around three hours each morning through its AI-assisted, personalised instruction, leaving the remainder of the day free for other entrepreneurial pursuits and other student-led activities.
The school’s website promises more than 1,000 additional hours each year devoted to building businesses, alongside mentorship from founders, investors and operators.
Founders School is led day-to-day by entrepreneur and writer Nat Eliason, who joined the Alpha School business to launch the initiative.
In a recent LinkedIn post, Eliason wrote: ‘I’m already blown away by the students who are applying to Founders School.’ In another post promoting the project, he argued that ‘ambitious teens shouldn’t be forced to sit in a classroom all day’.
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Rather than being taught primarily by teachers, students will be supervised by adults known as ‘guides’, whose role is closer to that of a mentor or coach. Alpha School executives have previously said that guides do not provide conventional academic instruction, instead helping students stay motivated and on track while AI systems deliver much of the curriculum.
Job advertisements suggest the company is willing to pay generously for such roles. Recent recruitment drives for senior positions at the school have offered salaries stretching into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, such as $200,000 a year for an ‘elite guide’ and $400,000 per annum for a head of media role, while Alpha School has previously advertised guide roles paying well into six figures.
The curriculum is equally unconventional. Promotional material highlights reading lists featuring multibillionaire Peter Thiel’s book ‘Zero to One’ and ‘The Book of Elon’ by investor Eric Jorgenson, rather than the traditional canon of Shakespeare, Steinbeck or Harper Lee.
Founders School is also seeking to recruit a small number of ‘Entrepreneurs in Residence’, who will work closely with students as they launch and scale businesses. Eliason has described the positions as an opportunity to coach ‘the most capable, motivated teenagers in the world’ while drawing on a network of founders, executives and investors.
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Alpha School has attracted support from prominent investors including billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who has publicly praised the model.
The network now operates campuses across the US, with schools in Texas, California, Florida and New York, with further openings planned. One forthcoming location is in Highland Park, the affluent Dallas enclave that is home to many of Texas’ wealthiest families.
The school’s launch comes amid growing interest among wealthy technology entrepreneurs in reinventing education. Elon Musk established the experimental Astra Nova school in 2020. Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan founded The Primary School in 2016 – a tuition-free private school in San Francisco for low-income families, which recently announced its closure after Zuckerberg withdrew his support. Kanye West also attracted attention with his controversial Donda Academy, which closed in 2024.
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Alpha School received criticism in October for creating a stressful learning environment for children, with staff at the school’s Brownsville Texas campus reportedly denying a nine-year-old pupil access to snacks until she met her ‘learning metrics’, according to a story from WIRED. In response to the article, Alpha School denied allegations of mistreating students at the school, writing that they ‘prioritize a safe and productive environment to accelerate academic mastery and allow students to thrive’.
Yet the enthusiasm for AI-driven schooling sits alongside a seemingly contradictory movement among many technology executives. In Silicon Valley, technology-free and low-screen schools, such as Waldorf School of the Peninsula, remain popular among some of the industry’s elite, who have long expressed concerns about the impact of excessive technology use on children.
Founders School’s inaugural class will consist of around 20 students. With tuition potentially reaching $600,000 over four years, and a money-back guarantee resting on the creation of a million-dollar business, it is already positioning itself as one of the most ambitious and controversial educational experiments in America.
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