Key Takeaways
- • Ibrahim Noon, a 20-year-old San Francisco-based associate at venture capital firm Forerunner, describes how he landed a tech VC job without waiting for a posted opening.
- • After a return offer from Morgan Stanley was in hand, Noon pursued Forerunner directly after finding a months-paused associate application, submitting an email, résumé, and a one-page consumer AI investment thesis that he wrote without AI tools.
- • Noon's pitch to Forerunner centered on mapping his network of young founders and builders, based on the premise that relationships formed before startups exist can make a firm among the first called when companies launch.
- • Noon's advice for young candidates emphasizes attending events and hackathons, following up consistently, and treating outreach as low-risk.
Summary
Ibrahim Noon, now 20, is an associate at venture capital firm Forerunner in San Francisco, according to this as-told-to essay published by Business Insider. Raised on a farm in Pakistan, Noon came to the University of California, Berkeley at 17 to study economics and data science. During college he held internships at KPMG in carbon markets, a Miami brokerage, and Morgan Stanley's sales group in New York. He left an internship early to work on two startups, which he built from scratch and did not pursue long term.
Noon says he cultivated informal relationships with investors throughout college, including at Afore Capital, where he sent founders he met through clubs and classes. After graduating in May, he had a return offer from Morgan Stanley set to start in August. In mid-July he learned that Forerunner had been hiring an associate, but that the application had been paused for more than two months. He wrote a detailed email, résumé, and one-page consumer AI investment thesis, drawing on Forerunner's website and published prospectuses, all without AI assistance.
The interview process centered on a case study requiring candidates to map their network: who they knew, what those people were building, and how Forerunner could benefit. Noon's thesis was that the next generation of founders is increasingly young, and that firms benefit from building relationships before a company or idea exists. He cited people who might work at OpenAI, Anthropic, or Cognition before founding their own companies. He said keeping the right relationships warm matters more than the size of a network, noting he has about 6,000 LinkedIn connections.
Noon's advice for young people seeking entry into the industry includes attending events, hackathons, and conferences, introducing themselves, and following up. He also described sending 250 outbound messages a day during a Wall Street internship, most without replies, and said he applies the same persistence to outreach generally.
Noon says he cultivated informal relationships with investors throughout college, including at Afore Capital, where he sent founders he met through clubs and classes. After graduating in May, he had a return offer from Morgan Stanley set to start in August. In mid-July he learned that Forerunner had been hiring an associate, but that the application had been paused for more than two months. He wrote a detailed email, résumé, and one-page consumer AI investment thesis, drawing on Forerunner's website and published prospectuses, all without AI assistance.
The interview process centered on a case study requiring candidates to map their network: who they knew, what those people were building, and how Forerunner could benefit. Noon's thesis was that the next generation of founders is increasingly young, and that firms benefit from building relationships before a company or idea exists. He cited people who might work at OpenAI, Anthropic, or Cognition before founding their own companies. He said keeping the right relationships warm matters more than the size of a network, noting he has about 6,000 LinkedIn connections.
Noon's advice for young people seeking entry into the industry includes attending events, hackathons, and conferences, introducing themselves, and following up. He also described sending 250 outbound messages a day during a Wall Street internship, most without replies, and said he applies the same persistence to outreach generally.
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