Harvard Business School will sell you eight weeks for $699 — and the instructor giving you feedback is a copy of one
HBS Foundry is an eight-week online startup programme from Harvard Business School priced at $699. Human instructors run one live session a week. In between, AI avatars built by HeyGen sit in on practice pitches and mock board meetings and give the feedback. One is modelled on Jeff Bussgang, co-founder of Flybridge Capital, who called his digital copy 'creepy' while saying students like it. Programme director Katharina Rings said the avatars grew out of an earlier chatbot idea, after students asked for something more guided. The TechCrunch reporter who sat in noted the avatar's frozen smile.
Why it mattersAn elite business school's product has always been scarce access to expensive people. Duplicating the instructor is what makes $699 possible — the price and the copy are the same decision. Whether that is a good trade is now a question every prospective student has to answer, and the answer depends entirely on whether feedback from a likeness is worth anything.
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