The first rung is disappearing. We built one back in.

The work that used to train young professionals is the work AI now does first. Entry-level analysis, research, the early grind that taught a generation how their field actually works: much of it is being automated before the next generation gets to do it. The ladder into a career is losing its bottom rungs, and no one has decided who is responsible for putting them back.

We have a view on this, and First Notes is what we do about it. Our whole company is built on the idea that AI should sharpen human judgment, not replace the humans who have it. That has to apply to the people who don't have the judgment yet, the ones still building it. So we take on a small number of college students, put them on real work alongside people who have spent decades in the field, and let them learn AI the way anyone learns anything worth knowing: by doing it, with someone experienced watching.

The name follows our own. Tenuto is a held note, sustained for its full value. First Notes are the people at the start: the first note of a career we think is worth sustaining. This page is not a staff roster. These are interns, most of them will move on, and that is the point. What follows is what they built with us, in their own names, so the next person who reads it knows exactly what they can do.