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Andreessen Horowitz Launches Unaccredited Tech Academy
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is launching the Horowitz Andreessen Academy, a $42 million unaccredited two-year college alternative in San Francisco for students aged 16 to 22 (WSJ). A7 Fintech and EU Delistings Expose Sanctions Failure
A7, a Kremlin-backed fintech set up to bypass Western financial sanctions, used counterfeit invoices to funnel $6.
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Transcript
JOHN: Welcome to The Gist. It is Tuesday, September 22nd, 2026. I’m John.
MARY: And I’m Mary. We are your smart friends on the go. We skip the noise and make sense of the news by following the power, the money, and the incentives.
JOHN: Let’s dive into The Gist View. Today, we are looking at a massive shakeup in education. Andreessen Horowitz is making a huge move.
MARY: Right. They are a massive Silicon Valley venture capital firm—basically, they fund startups. People call them a16z. Now, they are launching the Horowitz Andreessen Academy.
JOHN: It is a 42 million dollar alternative to college. It targets kids aged 16 to 22. And it is completely unaccredited.
MARY: That means the state does not officially recognize it as a university. And they do not care. They are shifting the trust entirely onto their elite corporate backers. Big names like Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic are all on board.
JOHN: The fellowship is tuition-free. It starts in Fall 2027 with just 50 students. To get in, you don’t take a standardized test. You show them what you have built.
MARY: This is classic power analysis. Let’s look at who benefits. Traditional universities are expensive. Why? Because administrators need guaranteed tuition money. They drag out the study timelines to keep the cash flowing.
JOHN: Exactly. Universities rely on a piece of paper—the degree—to prove you are competent. This new model bets that direct access to employers will instantly outcompete those legacy academic gatekeepers.
MARY: It cuts out the middleman. It forces teenagers to be builders right now, instead of just sitting in lectures collecting passive credentials. Think of it like a farm-to-table pipeline, but for tech talent.
JOHN: But there is a real risk here. A standard university degree is a safety net. It survives economic downturns.
MARY: Spot on. If the artificial intelligence bubble pops, a hyper-specific tech fellowship leaves these kids totally exposed. Legacy institutions might be bloated, but a general degree still holds weight. Still, academia ignores this shift at its own peril. Private money is building its own exit doors.
JOHN: Moving on to the Global Overview. The upcoming summit between US President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping is missing something big.
MARY: Or rather, someone big. The CEOs. There will likely be no Chinese corporate delegation at this summit.
JOHN: Usually, these diplomatic meetings are huge networking events for multinational companies. Not this time. Expectations for any bilateral business agreements are at rock bottom.
MARY: Let’s look at the incentives. Both governments are drawing hard lines. By keeping executives out of the room, politics takes total priority over profits.
JOHN: They are structurally reducing the power of big corporations to shape trade policy. The state keeps total control of the narrative.
MARY: Speaking of hard lines, President Trump just laid out his foreign policy vision at the United Nations. And he used his speech to threaten to “annihilate” Iran.
JOHN: That is incredibly stark rhetoric. We have seen escalating proxy warfare across the Middle East lately—mostly localized drone attacks and skirmishes backed by larger powers.
MARY: This UN threat confirms a shift we have been tracking. The long standoff in the region is moving away from those hidden, localized fights. We are now facing overt risks of direct, state-to-state military confrontation.
JOHN: Finally, let’s cross the Atlantic for the European Perspective. The West’s financial siege against Russia is showing massive cracks.
MARY: It is a structural collapse, really. Exhibit A: a Kremlin-backed financial tech company called A7. They were set up late last year specifically to bypass Western sanctions.
JOHN: And it worked. They used counterfeit invoices to funnel 6.9 billion dollars globally.
MARY: A7 basically built a shadow clearinghouse. They hid behind obscure front companies to access SWIFT. SWIFT is the global messaging network that banks use to move money securely across borders.
JOHN: By spoofing the system, Russia made Western sanctions completely meaningless. Between late 2024 and August 2025, British bank Standard Chartered processed 1.1 billion dollars in Hong Kong. Citigroup and DBS handled hundreds of millions more.
MARY: Global banks process trillions of dollars every single day. No private compliance team can perfectly catch industrial-scale forgery from a hostile government.
JOHN: The power dynamic is totally mismatched. Relying on private banks to enforce geopolitical blockades is a fatally flawed strategy.
MARY: Which brings us to Exhibit B. The European Union just lifted sanctions on two major Russian billionaires, Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman.
JOHN: Why would they do that?
MARY: Leverage. The EU dropped them to secure a three-year extension on sanctions for 3,000 other individuals. On top of that, France reportedly pushed to delist Usmanov to get a secret prisoner deal done with Azerbaijan.
JOHN: So, member states are trading individual exemptions for diplomatic wins.
MARY: Exactly. Meanwhile, inside the EU, there is a massive fight over the budget. France’s European Affairs Minister, Benjamin Haddad, is pushing back against drastic cuts to foreign aid.
JOHN: The EU is negotiating its next seven-year budget. They need to find savings. The big target is the Global Europe Fund. It is a 200 billion euro pot of money used for international development.
MARY: Member states are debating: do we slash foreign aid, or do we cut domestic programs right here in Europe? France is arguing to protect the aid. It is about holding onto Europe’s soft power abroad, even when money is tight at home.
JOHN: Time for the sign-off. Today’s temperature reads like a massive bypass operation. Everywhere you look, legacy systems are being routed around. Silicon Valley money is bypassing the university system to buy talent directly. Nationalist politics are bypassing corporate CEOs to control global trade. And state-backed shadow networks are easily bypassing private bank compliance to move billions. The old gatekeepers are standing guard, but the real power has already found a side door.
MARY: That is all for today. If you enjoyed the show and want to stay one step ahead of the news, come join our community. You can subscribe to The Gist’s daily newsletter for free. We’ve dropped a link right in the show notes—just tap it and we will see you in your inbox tomorrow.
JOHN: Thanks for listening. We will catch you next time.
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