Tracy Huang

Tracy HuangSep 9, 2026

Lucked out in the lottery and landed 15 minutes with Jordan Carver, Talent Partner @Andreessen Horowitz With only 15 minutes, I knew I had to make every question count and focus on the things I’ve been thinking about most. Since sophomore year, I was set on consulting, so I wanted his perspective on the tradeoffs between consulting, VC, and entrepreneurship. We talked about how optimizing a consulting path for venture may not necessarily mean optimizing your career for eventually building a startup. If entrepreneurship is the goal, getting more hands-on operating experience could be more valuable. We also talked about what to look for in a potential co-founder and, more importantly, whom you’d actually want to build with: You have to ask the deeper questions because you could be working with these people for years. as he has seen at his time with a16z speedrun talent network. One thing that really stuck with me was the mindset of great founders. There’s a certain level of conviction, almost irrational conviction, that you need to build something from scratch. There will always be people telling you the idea won’t work or that you should do something more realistic. The ability to keep going despite that skepticism is one of the hardest things to do- things that all the most successful founders have in common. But it’s not about refusing to listen. It’s about being persistent enough to keep going while still being self-aware enough to learn and adapt. I learned more in those 15 minutes than I could have learned from hours of researching these questions on my own. Sometimes the fastest way to learn is to talk to someone who has already done it and ask the right questions.

Tracy HuangJul 17, 2026

Thank you guys for 2,000 followers ❤️ I still remember my first post 4 months ago. I was shaking in the library, covering my eyes, too scared to even hit post. I hadn’t posted anything in over 5 years, and now my entire network was going to see the passion project that I was working on. I never imagined that 2,000 people would choose to follow along with my journey and over 120k of you guys saw my content. The messages from people telling me I inspired them, or hearing from people I once looked up to, have been absolutely incredible. I’m so grateful for this community. Here’s to continuing to be cringe, posting anyway, and the rest of my journey 🤍

Tracy HuangSep 14, 2026

I graduated 2 times in one year. 🎓🎓 The past few months have been some of the hardest of my life. I’ve been juggling 50+ hour work weeks at my full-time job, building Interlink IQ and spending 10+ hours a week on Venture Institute by VC Lab But I’m so excited to announce that I’m officially a VC Institute alumnus! Here are some of my biggest takeaways: 1. Power law changed how I think about investing. Before VC, I always thought investing was mostly about hedging risk and minimizing downside. But venture is different. The goal isn’t to avoid every risky investment. It’s to find the few companies that can become massive outliers and drive the majority of your returns. You need to stop thinking about how to minimize risk and start thinking about how to maximize returns. 2. There is SO much behind the scenes of running a fund. LPA structures, solicitation rules, LP requirements, fund regulations… there were so many things I had never even heard of before. I came in thinking mostly about how investors evaluate startups. I left with a much more complete understanding of the legal, structural, and operational side of running a fund. 3. VC is ambiguous, no matter how much you try to reason your way through everything. You can source hundreds of companies, analyze markets, and write detailed investment memos. But there is no perfect formula for knowing which company will win. A company can have a massive market, strong revenue, and an exciting product and still not become the best investment. So much of the decision comes down to factors you can only understand by talking to founders, asking the right questions, and digging deeper. That uncertainty is what makes venture difficult, but also what makes it so interesting. 4. Being young is an advantage, not a weakness. At 22, with the average age of my group around 33, I definitely experienced some imposter syndrome. I was the youngest person in my working group, and sometimes wondered if I was behind because I had just graduated while many of my peers had 10+ years of experience. But I realized being earlier in my career also gives me a different perspective. I may not have the same years of experience, but I have my own experiences as a founder, investor, and someone building in technology. I’m incredibly proud of how much I learned, pushed myself, and most importantly, that I kept showing up even when I was exhausted. Thank you to my Breakers working group Renata P., Christopher Y., Eric Fleishman, Maher Budron, Qianwen Chen, Seif Allah Yasser and Kanav Aggarwal. Thank you to Connor Sattely, Kelly Schricker, Milian-Erik Retkowski and Mike S. for sharing your experiences and sessions with us. Great meeting Eduardo Marchena, Alime Karimova, Jillian Hoffstadt, and Sofi Zambakhidze in person, Stephanie Landers Silva and Tomas Aparicio online! Definitely one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but the only way to grow is to do hard things.