Recommend exceptional scientists to 5050, help build a better future, win prizes!

You likely know at least one scientist or engineer who inspires you—relentless, ambitious, technically brilliant, and driven to build a future of abundance.

That’s where you come in.

In our last cohort, 40% of participants joined through recommendations. Recommendations strengthen applications and play a big role in deciding who gets into 5050.

Top recommenders also win prizes!

All expenses paid trip to Silicon Valley with tours of deep tech startups to experience what the early days of building in deep tech are like.

$1000 Plasmidsaurus credits to massively accelerate
your research.

Special Edition 5050 socks and hoodie!

1. Scoring:

  • 1 point per recommendation.

  • 5 points for every recommendation who gets an interview.

  • 50 points if they are accepted.

2. You can recommend multiple people!

3. If multiple recommenders suggest the same person, every recommender wins points independently.

If you recommend someone who hasn’t applied, we’ll encourage them to apply. If they’ve already applied, your recommendation will strengthen their application. Winners will be announced after we confirm this cohort.

Leaderboard results are coming soon!

Here are the rules:

5050 has helped create 55 companies—many of which wouldn't exist otherwise.

Most participants who joined 5050 were unsure about entrepreneurship and only applied because a friend or labmate had recommended them.

Know a brilliant scientist or engineer who could benefit from 5050?

We started supporting Mark Budde, the founder of Plasmidsaurus, in the inaugural 5050 cohort. He was still a postdoc at Caltech, researching mammalian synthetic cell circuits.

We helped him realize the workflows he built to speed up his research could be the foundation of a great business. He set up a shack in his backyard and began delivering overnight plasmid sequencing.

Two years post-founding, Plasmidsaurus is the fastest-growing startup we’ve seen, profitable, and serving scientists across 50 U.S. states and most European countries.

The story of Plasmidsaurus

FAQ

  • Scientists, engineers, builders, and hackers interested in entrepreneurship. Whether you're at the early stages of building a company or deciding whether entrepreneurship is right for you, we can help you accelerate the journey to build a company to solve humanity’s biggest problems.

  • Deep tech companies require deep technical expertise to drive breakthroughs in areas like: energy, climate tech, materials, bioengineering, transportation, hardware, computation, communication, health, aerospace, and AI. If you're building something that could be a civilizationally important tech, we'd probably call it deep tech!

  • Not at all. Many cohort members are simply talented, curious, and ambitious builders. We'll use the cohort to make your idea even stronger.

  • One weekly session during the week. Sessions are usually in the evenings, but two will happen on Saturday for a half-day session. Every 5050 participant joins a weekly 1-hour long group office hour with 50Y Partners and has access to additional individual check-ins as needed. 5050 has a cohort-wide Friday - Sunday retreat. The cohort runs for 16 weeks.

  • Nope! The program is free.

  • The goal of 5050 is to help more indispensable companies get started! Scientists and engineers are the best people to solve some of the world’s biggest problems; we want to increase their chances of success regardless of whether 50Y backs the founders who go through the program!

  • Shoot us an email at ale@50y.com.