Garrett Lord is co-founder and CEO of Handshake, which started as a career network for college students and new grads but recently discovered something extraordinary: they were sitting on the world’s largest network of academic experts—exactly what frontier AI labs desperately needed. With 500,000 PhDs and 3 million advanced degree holders creating training data, in just eight months they’ve built a new business that hit $50 million in revenue in its first four months and is on track to blow past $100M in the first 12 months. What you’ll learn: 1. How Handshake found an opportunity to leverage their proprietary network of experts to launch a data-labeling business that’s on track to blow past $100 million ARR in 12 months 2. Why AI models need human experts (e.g. physics PhDs) to improve, and what this “data labeling” actually involves 3. Inside the actual work: what a biology PhD does for 8 hours that makes GPT-5 smarter 4. The playbook for building a startup inside a startup: separate teams, separate offices, separate everything 5. Why the shift from “generalist” to “expert” data labeling created a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity 6. Why AI won’t eliminate entry-level jobs—it’s creating “Iron Man suits” that make junior employees 10x more productive — Brought to you by: CodeRabbit—Cut code review time and bugs in half. Instantly: coderabbit.link/lenny Orkes—The enterprise platform for reliable applications and agentic workflows: orkes.io Claude.ai—The AI for problem solvers and enterprise: claude.ai — Transcript: lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-h… — My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): lennysnewsletter.com/i/17141095… — Where to find Garrett Lord: • X: • LinkedIn: • Email: Garrett@joinhandshake.com — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: • X: • LinkedIn: — In this episode, we cover: — Referenced: • GPQA: • Handshake: • OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): • Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder and CEO of StackBlitz): • Goldman Sachs: • General Motors: • Google: • Sahil Bhaiwala on LinkedIn: • Francisco “Paco” Guzman on LinkedIn: • Avery Yip on LinkedIn: • Game of Thrones on HBO: • SNOO: • Careers at Handshake: — Recommended books: • Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future: • The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship: — Production and marketing by . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.