Kavak's Jedi Academy trains everyone from CEOs to mechanics to launch AI agents, ensuring the entire workforce can collaborate with new technology. ✦ AI generated
Ali Massa · a16z Podcast · 2026-08-10 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 19:56
“There's a lot of people worried about how the organizations of the future are going to look like and the role that humans are going to play.”
So, um we we took that question very seriously 3 years ago and the truth is that everyone's job will change. So, and what we were doing a couple of years ago will probably be be be performed better by an AI agent. Right? So, what does this mean? We need to train everyone. So, so we launched a program inside Kavak that's called the Jedi Academy where anyone from Kavak like from the CEO to like AI engineers to mechanics like go into the academy. It's super hard. Like I I I've I led I can you you designed the program. And but constantly because you you need to be upgrading the the program because everything's changing so fast. And there there's like you can't send these people like outside to to Stanford to to learn this because like it's new stuff, right? So, we train everyone and after 6 weeks they launch state-of-the-art agents AI agents to production. And it's mechanics and and finance guys and engineers, like everyone can do it. And what this generated is maybe this person won't become an AI engineer, some of them have, but they they know how to collaborate with this new technology, right?
verbatim transcript · starts at 19:56
19:37>> Now, like this this is a good segue to key topic right now in Silicon Valley where you know, there's a lot of people worried about how the organizations of the future are going to look like and and the the role that humans are going to play. >> Yes. And I think you touched a little bit on that. So, we'd love to hear yeah, like how you guys are thinking about
19:56that and yes. >> And the organizations. >> Yeah. Totally. So, um we we took that question very seriously 3 years ago and the truth is that everyone's job will change. So, and what we were doing a couple of years ago will probably be be be performed better by an AI agent. Right? So, what does this mean? We need to train everyone. So, so we launched a program inside Kavak that's
20:29called the Jedi Academy where anyone from Kavak like from the CEO >> We love this. >> to Yeah, and it tells them like from the CEO to like AI engineers to mechanics like go into the academy. It's super hard. Like I I I've I led I can you >> You got that myself. >> You designed the program. >> I designed the program. >> And but constantly >> Constantly because you
20:53you need to be upgrading the the program because everything's changing so fast. And there there's like you can't send these people like outside to Stanford to to learn this because like it's new stuff, right? So, we train everyone and after 6 weeks they launch state-of-the-art um agents AI agents to production. And it's mechanics and and finance guys and engineers, like everyone can do it. And what this generated is maybe this
21:24person won't become an AI engineer, some of them have, but they they know how to collaborate with this new technology, right? So, the way we looked about it was guys, there's no way back. Like this is the way Kavak is going. This is the way the company will look like. These are the changes for the engineering team, the finance team, the product team. Like this is what's going to change.
21:49You have the choice to like train and and get the skills to perform in this new reality in this new world, um or maybe leave Kavak if this is not for you, but this is the way we're going. And like we're great. Like like we we we strengthened the culture, and we were super excited. Um people really know how to build these agentic systems. And then, if you look