# Handshake

> Handshake is a San Francisco company that began as the career network for Gen Z, connecting tens of millions of students and recent grads with employers and university career centers. Built by three Michigan Tech computer science students to give kids from non-elite schools a fair shot at good jobs, it grew into the dominant early-career recruiting platform. In January 2025 it launched Handshake AI, turning its network of students, PhDs and domain experts into a human data-labeling marketplace that supplies high-quality training data to frontier AI labs - a pivot that has grown into a roughly $1B annualized gross revenue business.

- **Founded:** 2014
- **Headquarters:** San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founders:** Garrett Lord (Co-founder & CEO), Ben Christensen (Co-founder), Scott Ringwelski (Co-founder)
- **Team size:** ~950 employees
- **Products:** Handshake (career platform), Handshake for Employers, Handshake for Universities, Handshake AI, Cleanlab (acquired)
- **Notable:** All three founders named to Forbes 30 Under 30 (2017), Grew to 18M+ students and 950k+ employers across 1,500+ universities, Raised ~$435M total and reached a $3.5B valuation

## Products & services

- **Handshake (career platform)** — Career network and recruiting marketplace where students and alumni build profiles, discover jobs and internships, attend virtual career fairs, and connect with employers and university career centers.
- **Handshake for Employers** — Recruiting tools for companies to source, screen, message, and engage early-career talent at scale, including job postings, candidate outreach, virtual events, and employer branding.
- **Handshake for Universities** — Career-services software for colleges to manage student engagement, events, employer relationships, and outcomes/student-success metrics.
- **Handshake AI** — Launched January 2025: a human data-labeling and expert-network marketplace that supplies high-quality training, evaluation, and RLHF data to frontier AI labs across domains like math, physics, and computer science.
- **Cleanlab (acquired)** — Data-quality / label-auditing technology acquired in early 2026 that automatically flags incorrect labels, strengthening Handshake AI's data accuracy.

## Achievements

- All three founders named to Forbes 30 Under 30 (2017)
- Grew to 18M+ students and 950k+ employers across 1,500+ universities
- Raised ~$435M total and reached a $3.5B valuation
- Built Handshake AI into a ~$1B annualized gross revenue segment with 349% YoY growth within about a year
- Became a data supplier to eight top AI labs, reportedly including OpenAI
- Expanded internationally into the UK, France, and Germany

## Latest updates

- **2025-01** — Launched Handshake AI, a human data-labeling marketplace turning its expert network into a training-data supplier for frontier AI labs.
- **2025** — Garrett Lord publicly framed the AI pivot as a 're-founding' of the $3.5B company, restructuring teams around the AI business.
- **2026-02** — Acquired data-quality startup Cleanlab to strengthen AI data accuracy and add research talent.
- **2026-04** — Reported ~$1.1B annualized gross AI training revenue, up 349% year over year.

## Links

- Website: https://joinhandshake.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/team-handshake
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/joinhandshake
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/joinhandshake
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joinhandshake
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/joinhandshake

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/handshake
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-15