Internships are Really Apprenticeships
This sentiment from Mixpanel is spot on. Done right, “internships” are really much more like a productive, paid apprenticeship:
In 2008, I interned at Slide, Inc. and it was one of the most valuable summers of my life. I went from being a college hacker interested in starting a company to learning the intricacies of product design and working with a team.
At Slide, Inc. we stayed up late hacking (because we wanted to), I learned about product from an awesome product manager named Adora, and Max Levchin worked closely on a product that didn’t necessarily have immense amount of business value for Slide.
After my internship, I had huge takeways:
- I wanted to start a company.
- I knew grad school didn’t matter out in California
- I grew a huge network at Slide who became some of my closest friends.
- I learned smaller things like: git, python, vim, etc.
- I could have never built Mixpanel without having been at Slide first.
- Max Levchin ended up investing in our company during the recession - a time when it was hard to raise money.
At Mixpanel, we value our internship program because of this. Last year, we asked our interns to talk about their experiences: http://code.mixpanel.com/2011/11/15/internship-stories/
If you’re looking for similar experience, please apply for an internship by emailing: jobs@mixpanel.com with the subject “Internship”
Sincerely,
Suhail
Founder @ Mixpanel, Inc.
Far too many startups don’t have the resources for an internship program. Mostly, the missing link is a little creativity on what a 20 or 22-year old student can contribute over the course of a single summer. This is a solvable problem. :)
