Harvard Is Offering a New $699 Bootcamp for Entrepreneurs, But There’s a Catch

At first glance, Harvard Business School senior lecturer Jeff Bussgang looks normal on the screen. He is smiling and eager to listen to a student’s startup idea in a video call. 

But there’s a catch. The student isn’t speaking to Bussgang; they are talking to his AI video avatar. Bussgang is one of several Harvard faculty members who have agreed to let the university use their AI clones as part of a new eight-week entrepreneurship bootcamp. According to a recent report from The New York Times, Harvard has tested the $699 course, called HBS Foundry, with more than 100 universities across the country. 

The real Bussgang told the Times that he knows the simulation is a little “creepy.” Still, “my students love it,” he said. 

HBS Foundry aims to expand entrepreneurship education beyond the 900 MBA students Harvard admits every year. 

The program takes participants step by step through launching a company, from sharpening an idea to pitching investors and customers. The virtual platform combines HBS materials with a peer community and AI tools. 

Participants can also practice pitches, sales calls and boardroom scenarios in video call simulations with AI avatars, including one modeled on Bussgang. 

Founders, investors and Harvard Business School faculty host live weekly sessions. But the portal’s main job is to help students use the school’s startup resources and AI tools as they build their companies. 

When the Harvard team began developing Foundry in 2024, they envisioned a simple ChatGPT-style chatbot for entrepreneurs, said project director Katharina Rings. Student feedback from an October trial pushed the team in a different direction: Users wanted more structure. The school released the more guided version in April.

Since then, at least 760 founders have taken the course. 

Why they added AI avatars

HBS Foundry worked with AI avatar maker HeyGen to create AI clones of professors. The response was overwhelmingly positive, which took the program leaders by surprise.

“It was just so clear from what the users were telling us and what the numbers were saying,” Rings said. “It seems like people actually much prefer the AIs, and they actually trust more, if it is based on one specific person’s input.”

Another entrepreneurship educator, Harold Solomon, said that the HBS Foundry course gives academics the ability to serve more founders. “I can have 20, 30 meetings a week, but beyond that, I literally can’t,” Solomon, a principal at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told the Times. “We can’t service the class, let alone the campus, in person constantly. So we need a way to scale.”

Solomon added the HBS Foundry program to a 12-week entrepreneurship course offered by the Georgia Institute of Technology this summer. 

Tom Eisenmann, a faculty co-chair for the HBS Foundry project, told the Times that despite the platform’s AI tools, its community forums have emerged as one of its biggest draws. The spaces let founders connect directly with other entrepreneurs in the program. 

“They’re using the AI; they’re learning a lot,” he said. “But it keeps coming back to humanity.”

At first glance, Harvard Business School senior lecturer Jeff Bussgang looks normal on the screen. He is smiling and eager to listen to a student’s startup idea in a video call. 

But there’s a catch. The student isn’t speaking to Bussgang; they are talking to his AI video avatar. Bussgang is one of several Harvard faculty members who have agreed to let the university use their AI clones as part of a new eight-week entrepreneurship bootcamp. According to a recent report from The New York Times, Harvard has tested the $699 course, called HBS Foundry, with more than 100 universities across the country. 

The real Bussgang told the Times that he knows the simulation is a little “creepy.” Still, “my students love it,” he said.