☝️Issue #7: Pomona College - Where it all Began
From an uninhabited hotel to an entrepreneurial powerhouse...the early bird gets the worm
💬 Welcome to issue #7 of Between the Lines
Mask mandates are back in effect in Portland, where I’m based at the moment. Oh boy oh boy. I miss the days when masking up meant a fun, themed party. Delta, be gone! Expelliarmus! ✨🦠
Anyway. Things are well here and I have a lot to be grateful for. And so do you, because we’re kicking off a special seven-part series in the coming weeks on each of the Claremont Colleges’ entrepreneurial roots and some of the critical figures and organizations in the enterprising Claremont community. And while students and alums at the respective colleges have long preened and crowed as to why their alma mater is the finest one of all, we can all agree that without our founding member, we wouldn't even have a consortium to banter over. In this week's feature, we'll kick things off with the college that started the Consortium, Pomona College.
My Best, Miles
🎓 Pomona College: An Entrepreneurial-first Biography
Authors: Josh Tatum & Miles Bird
Pomona is widely acknowledged as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the world. What’s under-acknowledged, however, are its alumni’s contributions to the fields of technology and entrepreneurship. Pomona was the first and founding college in the Claremont Consortium, which as we’ve already published, has one of the most entrepreneurial alumni communities in the world. But, as the first college in the Claremont Consortium, I guess the early bird really does get the worm. 🐛 What’s the worm in this outdated colloquialism? $20.5B in venture capital raised….what a worm! Sagehens are chomping on some colossal-sized worms these days and it’s hard to keep track. In this essay, buckle your seat belts because we’re going to take you on a ride through Pomona’s earliest days to some of its most exciting contemporary successes amongst its technology-focused alumni.
Enough about the stat sheet, though. Let’s take a journey back in time to Pomona’s entrepreneurial founding story…read the full article here! 👇
👨🎓👩🎓 Pardon the Introduction: Alex Ker & P-ai
One of our goals here at BTL is to drive connectivity and visibility across the Claremont community. Today we’d like to showcase a unique opportunity for Claremont-founded companies to work with some top AI & ML talent at the Claremont Colleges.
Meet Alex Ker, a current Pomona student and founder of P-ai, an on-campus hub for AI talent at the Claremont Colleges. He is looking to bring on some partners this fall and begin conversations for Spring 2022 partners.
P-ai is the modern incubator for AI projects and ideas at the Claremont College Consortium with 200+ members. We have executed 16 student projects to date spanning ML subdomains like reinforcement learning, NLP, and computer vision, across different verticals like healthcare, education, finance. We are looking to partner with sponsors this fall to partner with us. See our partnerships package for benefits and details here.
We are also open to running more extensive semester or yearlong projects with companies, where our clients can hire a student AI team with an associated project manager to tackle a topic of choice within a reasonable scope. Please email P-ai lead Alex Ker if you are interested in a short 15-minute call to explore a potential collaboration.
If you, your company, or anybody else you might know is interested, email Alex here! 📧
💼 Who’s Hiring?:
by Josh Tatum
Brandon Brown (CMC), and his team at Quit Genius are on a mission to help 100M people overcome their addictions by combining technology, healthcare, and design. Quit Genius has raised $78M from leading global investors, and now Brandon and his team are looking to hire an Operations Associate to join their London team among many other roles. They are hiring for:
And many more!
Christophe Rimann (CMC) is the co-founder of Juniper Behavioral Health which is making behavioral health more accessible and affordable. Juniper is backed by top investors Y-Combinator, Craft Ventures, Zigg, and many others and they’re looking to expand their team and are hiring for roles across engineering, product, and ops.
Gabriel Ayala (CMC) has been working on BizOps and Special Projects at Cash App, and his BizOps team is currently looking to hire. Cash App is one of the fastest-growing financial brands in the world. Initially built to take the pain out of peer-to-peer payments, Cash App has now gone from a simple product with a single purpose, to a dynamic app with over 30+ million monthly active users. 🤯They are currently hiring for the following positions:
If any of these roles catch your eye 👀 , apply and mention Between the Lines! Or if you are an employer and are looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, fill out this form!
🗣️ Conversations on the interwebz:
by Josh Tatum
This week’s top read 🔥
Ever curious about exactly how CEOs spend their time? Sam Corcos (CMC), the founder of the new blood glucose monitoring company Levels, shares his schedule over the last two years with First Round. It’s worth a read. 🤓
Everything else you need to know….📖
Many of us are Year 2 into working remote and I don’t need to explain what burnout is. Some companies are even starting to detect burnout with your sweat now…Regardless of the level of cortisol in your sweat though, Laszlo Bock (PO) and his company Humu have some thoughts to help! 🔥
A very hearty congratulations from the Claremont community to Edith Harbaugh (HMC) and her co-founder John Kodumal (HMC). Together these HMC graduates founded LaunchDarkly and are launching monumental things for the cloud industry 🖥️ ☁️
Check out this thread by Rebecca Offensend (CMC) on what impact investing actually means for her and the Working Capital Fund! Also, check out their Impact Report on the thread 💥
Whether you were able to figure out how to watch it or not, the strangest Olympics are now over, but one former Sagehen walked home with the Gold! Congrats to Coach Pop and the U.S. Men’s Team 🏀 🏆
Can’t get enough Between the Lines? Follow and connect with us on Twitter!
🤤 BTL Snacks:
You may not be able to get your favorites snacks at the Claremont dining halls anymore on the weekdays, but hopefully, these juicy tidbits from BTL will satisfy the hunger for now!
🎉 There’s a new Claremonster in the house! Read about why Mollie (Amkraut) Mueller (CMC) is leaving her role at IDEO to found a career-coaching company, Crew!
💻 Edith Harbaugh (HMC) and John Kodumal (HMC) first met in an advanced math class at Harvey Mudd….and the rest is history. LaunchDarkly is helping companies nail their launch day and is snagging a cool $3B valuation in the process…
🏆 If you're unfamiliar with Reforge, it's the world's leading career development platform for top-tier tech talent…you should apply here! Sara Caldwell (CMC) is the head of Program Operations over there and she would love to see your application…
🦁 Check out Jeeves…the corporate card tailored for global startups. They are building international fintech infrastructure from scratch, and Matthieu Hafemeister (CMC) is leaving the investing world of Andreessen Horowitz to go join their team!
Feedback? We love to hear it. Hit us with an email. 👊🏼