What is the $699 startup bootcamp?

It is an eight-week online program under HBS Foundry where aspiring founders can rehearse investor pitches, sales calls, and board meetings with AI clones of Harvard instructors. It includes live sessions with experts and the chance to pitch to investors for $100,000.

Who are the AI clones based on?

The clones are based on seven HBS professors and senior lecturers with backgrounds in venture capital, business-model design, board dynamics, and startup strategy. Their participation was voluntary, with dedicated interviews, recording sessions, testing, and ongoing faculty feedback.

Is this bootcamp part of an HBS degree?

No, it is not an HBS degree program nor for academic credit. It is a way to extend entrepreneurial support to high-potential founders wherever they are, including people who may never study at Harvard.

AI Business & IndustryFortune AIAug 25, 2026Aug 25, 2026, 19:01 JST

Harvard launches $699 AI-clone startup bootcamp

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3 Key Points

What happened
Harvard Business School has launched an eight-week, $699 online startup bootcamp under its HBS Foundry program, where aspiring founders can rehearse investor pitches, sales calls, and board meetings with AI clones of seven HBS professors and senior lecturers. So far, 760 founders have participated, and the program culminates in a chance to pitch to investors for $100,000.
Why it matters
The bootcamp is not an HBS degree program or for academic credit, but a way to "extend entrepreneurial support to high-potential founders wherever they are," according to a Harvard spokesperson. This experiment reflects a growing split on campus: professors complain about AI-enabled cheating, while some universities use AI to scale scarce faculty time into a digital product, as Imperial Business School and Georgia Tech have done.
What to watch
The goal, as cloned professor Shikhar Ghosh put it, "isn't to create a substitute for me," but to give founders another way to prepare, so live sessions can focus on "questions where human judgment and conversation matter most." How universities balance efficiency with what students believe they are paying for could become a tension, especially since the bootcamp's price is relatively inexpensive compared to HBS's annual tuition of over $84,000.

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Context & Analysis

This bootcamp is Harvard's latest move in a broader trend of universities turning professors into software. Georgia Tech's David Joyner created an AI avatar of himself last year for an online course, and Imperial Business School has already made digital twins of professors. The idea is to democratize access to elite instruction, but experts like Lindsay Tanne Howe caution that AI cannot replicate "everything that happens between people." Stanford lecturer Kian Katanforoosh adds that AI can handle repetitive tasks like answering unlimited questions, but cannot truly know a student or put its own reputation at stake. The program also raises a potential tension: if AI scales faculty time cheaply, what does that mean for the perceived value of an elite education? Joyner, now interim Vice Provost at Georgia Tech, stresses that faculty collaboration is key to making such avatars work well, suggesting that the quality of the experience depends on how closely it represents the actual professors.

FAQ

What is the $699 startup bootcamp?: It is an eight-week online program under HBS Foundry where aspiring founders can rehearse investor pitches, sales calls, and board meetings with AI clones of Harvard instructors. It includes live sessions with experts and the chance to pitch to investors for $100,000.
Who are the AI clones based on?: The clones are based on seven HBS professors and senior lecturers with backgrounds in venture capital, business-model design, board dynamics, and startup strategy. Their participation was voluntary, with dedicated interviews, recording sessions, testing, and ongoing faculty feedback.
Is this bootcamp part of an HBS degree?: No, it is not an HBS degree program nor for academic credit. It is a way to extend entrepreneurial support to high-potential founders wherever they are, including people who may never study at Harvard.

Fortune AIRead Original Article

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Also reported by TechCrunch AI

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