How Max Friedlander became founding operations at Petrarch

Max Friedlander was building voice agents for service businesses when a LinkedIn message changed his trajectory. Ian, one of the founders of Petrarch, reached out to pick his brain about voice AI data. Max told them the idea wouldn't work. They kept talking anyway. When the team mentioned they had a YC interview coming up, Max asked them to keep him posted. A few weeks later, they got in — and a couple days after that, they asked if he wanted to be an intern. "Just based on the vibes from the call we had before," Max says.

He was employee number five. He's 20 years old, an applied mathematics major at Middlebury College, and he does sales at Petrarch, a YC S26 company that supplies data for frontier AI labs.

Why he said yes

Max had tried starting his own ventures before and been stood up at the last minute for other opportunities. He had traditional internship offers on the table — SDR and BD roles at bigger companies — but they felt wrong. "What felt safe began to feel suffocating and limiting," he says. "I wanted to be pushed and flexible, seeing what I could learn."

The deciding factor was the founders themselves. They were driven and ambitious, but also people he'd want to hang out with outside of work. "When it comes to evaluating whether the company is the right choice, it's more of a gut feeling than anything else, especially when it comes to people."

Leading deals with complete autonomy

Within his first months, Max was leading his own deals and negotiating high-stakes contracts — the kind of responsibility that wouldn't come for years at a large company. He handles legal review, sales, and communication with all parties on his own.

The reality is less glamorous than it sounds. One night, the team believed they had a multiple five-figure deal secured. Everything fell apart at the last minute. Max had to restructure the entire deal within 36 hours and secure three signatures. "It was challenging, but it was also incredibly rewarding to have such autonomy and the freedom to make my own decisions," he says.

He's also built tools to support his work — a scraper and harness to find obscure leads and automate outreach so prospects book directly into his calendar. His stack includes Claude Code in the terminal, Apollo, and VS Code.

The highs and lows are real

Max is candid about what startup life actually feels like. "It's really hard to be level," he says. "The highs and lows are emotionally jarring, a lot more than any other type of job I have worked in, for better or worse."

What surprised him most was how much his strategic ideas mattered. The founders listen. There are no strange dynamics around seniority — everyone on the team is the same age, and Max describes the culture as one where people can be serious when they need to be but still crack jokes and be themselves. "In a startup you spend a ton of time with the team, even more than with a partner or significant other," he says. "That's key to success."

The experience has changed him in a specific way: confidence. "The more you do, the less afraid you are to act like a founder."

Who would thrive here

Max plans to start his own company one day. For now, he has a clear message for anyone weighing whether to join a startup early:

"It's hard, rewarding, fast, and you will act like a founder more than an employee. You need to be a fast learner and super curious. It will ultimately condition you to be a thinker, not just a worker."

If you want autonomy over real deals, a team that treats you like a co-founder, and a front-row seat to the AI data business, Petrarch is hiring.