As I walked into the Strand Theater with a group of theater-curious tech founders, there was one question on our minds: Who, in the year of our Lord 2025, is asking for another hip-hop musical?
For one: LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman. The billionaire has invested in everything from OpenAI to a proposed utopia in rural California. His latest pet project is “Co-Founders,” a musical about a young Black coder from Oakland who hacks her way into the most competitive startup accelerator in San Francisco.
Think “Hamilton” meets “Silicon Valley.”
In fact, the Lin-Manuel Miranda mega-hit about the founding father is precisely what inspired Hoffman to stand up this play about tech founders, he told The Standard via email.
“I saw ‘Hamilton’ and was struck by how the rap battle format made debate engaging, emotional, and accessible,” said Hoffman, who did not disclose how much he contributed to “Co-Founders.” “If Silicon Valley is going to fulfill its potential as a cultural movement — a modern Renaissance — we need more of that work.”
In development for seven years, “Co-Founders” was written by Beau Lewis, Ryan Nicole Austin, and Adesha Adefela. The three are part of the media company Rhyme Combinator (yup!), which produces events and theater about tech.
In the musical, Esata Thompson’s family is about to be pushed out of their Oakland home to Antioch due to gentrification. Thompson, played by Aneesa Folds, is an exceptionally talented coder who’s spent years building a large language model to support Dadvatar, an AI avatar of her late father. After getting rejected from a startup incubator called Xcelerator that purports to accept only the top 1% of applicants, she hacks her way in and forms an alliance with a prep-school dropout.
“It’s not currently fashionable to champion [inclusion],” said Lewis, CEO of Rhyme Combinator and a former Microsoft project manager. “But we’re not doing it for fashion. We’re celebrating what happens when underdogs and different lived experiences combine to create something better.”
During intermission on the first night of previews, the consensus among the tech-heavy audience members was that it’s easy to enjoy art about the world they inhabit.
“It’s fun because it’s just so Bay Area,” said Amin Zargar, a biotech founder from Berkeley. “It’s almost too on the nose.”
Indeed, Xcelerator is abbreviated to XC, a clear nod to Y Combinator, aka YC. The incubator, where much of the action takes place, is located in a Rincon Hill skyscraper, the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge visible below in the backdrop.
Tech-insider name-dropping peppers the production, with references to venture firms Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Kleiner Perkins. There’s an appearance by a VC named Sandy Hill and a rap sequence that tracks the story of Ben Horowitz’s career in Silicon Valley. Other songs include “Silicon Valley to Vallejo,” “This Is the Bay,” and “Rideshare.”
The audience lapped up the holograms of the Dadvatar, speeding BART trains, and a silver cybertruck. They guffawed at jokes about vibe-coding, “Patagucci” vests, and startup incubators being like religious cults.
“Co-Founders” focuses on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion and the perils of AI-based surveillance at a time when companies have proudly backed away from DEI efforts and privacy concerns are being drowned out by the full-throttle race to make billions with AI.
“This is not a vanity project for Silicon Valley,” Lewis said. “We want timeless storytelling that connects people to their hearts.”
Holograms are used as a metaphor for unresolved grief, at a time when many are experimenting with AI versions of therapists, partners, and deceased loved ones.
“We didn’t want tech as a gimmick,” Lewis says. “We wanted it to be emotional.”
“Which song are you going to leave the theater humming?” asked Chad Miller, a biotech founder and musical theater aficionado, at intermission.
After the show, as I marched down Market Street to my awaiting robotaxi, the catchy tune “This Is the Bay” buzzed in my head.
Zara Stone contributed to this report.
- Website
- Co-Founders
- Date and time
- Through July 6