Assembly Code is a nonprofit incubator and steward for public interest software. We fund consumer applications from idea to scale and help maintain them for the long term.
Software increasingly shapes everyday life. But so much consumer software is optimized for engagement, monetization and data harvesting rather than human wellbeing. And most investment goes to areas that can maximize financial ROI, rather than where it can have the greatest impact for society.
Meanwhile, AI development tools have made it dramatically cheaper and easier to build software. One person can build in one month what previously took 10 people a whole year.
We believe this creates an opportunity for a new generation of digital public goods.
We build consumer software with clear public benefit. Initial areas of investment include education, health, community, and AI tools. We build according to these principles.
Optimize for meaningful customer value, not shareholder value
Prioritize user privacy through system design
Embrace AI thoughtfully and with consideration
Deliver best-in-class user experiences
Prioritize simplicity for customers, developers, and maintainers
Delivering consumer software through a nonprofit model aligns incentives with end users, rather than shareholders. We believe this can deliver better experiences to consumers.
Products are built and delivered under the umbrella of Assembly Code. They may remain under Assembly Code stewardship, or spin out independently.
Our focus is not on any particular domain but on an approach: encouraging talented builders to work on meaningful problems in a highly-leveraged way.
Each quarter we select a cohort of applicants to build projects based on their own areas of expertise. They receive a $15K stipend over three months (part-time) to build a software project for public good and demonstrate its value at a small scale.
Learn moreSuccessful incubator projects may be selected for follow-on investment through our growth portfolio, providing additional capital, resources, and strategic support to scale.
We offer public impact rotations for experienced professionals to work on their own projects and contribute across the portfolio. These are full-time remote positions available on a rolling basis, for a duration of 1-2 years.
At Assembly Code, we believe:
Nick is a co-founder of Outschool, the marketplace of K-12 live online classes. He was also part of the early team at Airbnb, where he helped to develop and scale the core product. He studied Astronomy at Harvard and earned a master's in Computer Science at Oxford. Nick serves on the board of iNaturalist, a community-powered platform that engages millions of people in monitoring life on Earth.
Jared Schiffman is a creative technologist, educator, and entrepreneur who has worked at the intersection of design, computer science, and learning for over two decades. He is a co-founder of Superstructures, Phenomena Learning, and Popplet, and design firms Potion Design and Perch Interactive. He holds degrees in Computer Science & Engineering and Media Arts & Science from MIT.
Assembly Code is a nonprofit organization operating as a fiscal project of the Edward Charles Foundation. Assembly Code was established in 2026 and is a distributed team. You can reach us at
We fund individuals and small teams with
If you have a project in mind, we'd love to hear from you.
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