We remove the constraint of professor proximity. All of a sudden we get to re-imagine the student experience. These students who will in the future run the world – would you want them to spend 75% of their undergraduate years in a secluded bubble? I want my future President or PM to have lived and seen the world with people from other cultures. To actually go and live in Britain with 149 other students from 50 other countries.

The PIE: How will you achieve that?

BN: We don’t recruit our students, we select them. We have structured interviews, which are recorded and assessed by the faculty.

We don’t do any mass marketing. We talk to folks like you who help spread the word. And then we have Marielle [European MD] and her colleagues in Shanghai and Mumbai, San Francisco, Montevideo and Dakar, who go out and find the students.

Our ambition is to find the highest human potential and if they happen to all come from Romania or Botswana, we don’t care. We don’t have a quota – we are driven by where we can find talent.

The word ‘elite’ is loaded. Our philosophy is that intellectual capacity is not related to parental lineage or wealth

The PIE:  So it is not elitist, then.

BN: The word ‘elite’ is loaded. Our philosophy is that intellectual capacity is not related to parental lineage or wealth. You find tremendous human potential everywhere, but it is not in everybody. It’s a disservice to everyone involved saying ‘let me put you through this rigorous program which 90% of you cannot handle’. It’s absurd trying to teach people of massively different capacity in a group.

The PIE:  And if you would qualify someone who is brilliant but couldn’t afford it, would you have a scholarship system in place?

BN: We are working on scholarships, student loans. The thing about access is you need to have a philosophy of acceptance. Secondly, you need to have an overall low cost.

Scholarships are great, but scholarships are not a market solution  – it is generous individuals subsidising individuals in need. The market solution is to create a low-interest loan. And you can create those types of markets by using philanthropic funds, and then you are not limited by scale at all. So for us, those are the three elements.

The PIE: It’s a big project. How is it being funded?

BN: Our initial capital came from Benchmark Capital, personal investors from eBay, external board members of Twitter. They’ve been tremendous supporters of what we’re trying to do.

The PIE: How long will it take to develop a technological platform that the professors will use?

BN: We’ve been working on it since July 2012. It’s in operational form now but it doesn’t launch until September 2014 and it will continue to be enhanced over many years. All first year students study in San Francisco and then break into the cohorts for rotations.

The PIE: Are they being selected already?

BN: They are applying now for the Fall 2014 Founding Class. The application deadline is 31^st of December.

The PIE: Do you think it will change the world?

BN: If it doesn’t then we will have failed. If we are successful the education system will not be the same.