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Hey, co-founder of Lambda School here. Yes, some countries have similar structures, where you pay after a certain threshold. The difference is: 1. In those st

Hey, co-founder of Lambda School here. Yes, some countries have similar structures, where you pay after a certain threshold. The difference is: 1. In those structures the school gets paid no matter what, the taxpayer just swallows the cost. With Lambda School we will literally go out of business if a large percentage of our students don't get jobs. That causes a lot of stuff. For example, we have an entire sales team dedicated to bringing companies in to hire students, and there are 2-3 that come in every day to hire students. 2. Our minimum is much higher than government minimums ($50k in the US). 3. We only collect a percentage of income if you're hired in field (using the skills you learned) 4. If you don't get a job within 5 years the agreement simply goes away and you owe nothing.Happy to answer any questions, though I'll be in and out.

malshe 8y ago
Congrats on the funding! I think that this is a viable model for professions where high paying jobs are available aplenty. How are you planning to scale with this narrow model? Also what is your competitive advantage? I am trying to figure out the valuation as an investor.
- austenallred 8y ago
  Valuation is in the NYT article :) The model scales very well. We move people from low(er) income to high(er) income. That’s how it should be, and there’s a whole lot of that to be done.
IMTDb 8y ago
It might be cynical but it seems you are moving from a bad system to another bad one. In the current system, students are the customers, in your new systems, students are the products. How will you ensure that your private interest are aligned with individuals, and society needs ? You are currently avoiding that issue by targeting high demand/high paying jobs but on a larger scale those issue will arise
- austenallred 8y ago
  How are students the products now? We only get paid when they are successful, that doesn’t mean they’re not the customer. The service we provide is helping them into a good job, so of course hiring companies are stakeholders, but companies are the customers.
  - IMTDb 8y ago
    The university has an incentive to value your early salary _above all else_. This may be dangerous (hence my question). The article clearly shows some potential issues by pointing to several very useful but not very well paid profession (eg: nurses) who will have trouble finding lessons in this model. Closer to our trade you might see stuff like : - We don't offer design lessons because backend developers earn more than designers, so go study Rust, it's so hot right now ! - Marketing ? Heck no, salaries are only soaring later in your career, we can't get break even with that - Your idea of a quantum computing course seems interesting but we don't believe there is a big enough market for people in that field at the moment, it's more of a research subject right now (weather that's true or false is up to the reader to decide). - ... Since the university is exclusively paid by your future salary, every second that you spend in class must be immediately translated in extra $$$ in you first compensation package. If your goal is to make as much money as soon as you get out of school, your incentive are aligned. Otherwise they are not, and that can be dangerous. Steve Jobs is a notorious example of someone who took some lessons that did not seem really useful not so high profile at the time, and only later proved to be critical in his success. At a much smaller scale, 7 years after graduating, I am rediscovering some skill/knowledge I acquired at uni that did not seem to matter a lot when I started working (and that definitely were not taken into account in my first job interviews). I believe they makes me a better/more productive engineer. I fear that under that new system I might have never learned them in favour of something hotter and more marketable.
    - diminoten 8y ago
      It's not dangerous, not nearly to the extent you're making it out to be.
- 8y ago
zawerf 8y ago
Won't you be incentivized to prefer quantity over quality? You can easily scale the number of classrooms by 2x but it isn't as easy to 2x the starting salary of your graduates. The worry here is that you will over-focus on how to market/brand yourself to capture the salary of as many people transitioning to tech as possible, rather than helping individuals maximize their potential.
agentphil 8y ago
Hey, your startup is really good and I'm pretty sure it will be a hit. I have been thinking to implement such a system myself and I have done plenty of basic research on this topic. The idea comes at the right time.

malshe 8y ago

Congrats on the funding! I think that this is a viable model for professions where high paying jobs are available aplenty. How are you planning to scale with this narrow model? Also what is your competitive advantage? I am trying to figure out the valuation as an investor.

austenallred 8y ago
Valuation is in the NYT article :) The model scales very well. We move people from low(er) income to high(er) income. That’s how it should be, and there’s a whole lot of that to be done.

IMTDb 8y ago

It might be cynical but it seems you are moving from a bad system to another bad one. In the current system, students are the customers, in your new systems, students are the products. How will you ensure that your private interest are aligned with individuals, and society needs ? You are currently avoiding that issue by targeting high demand/high paying jobs but on a larger scale those issue will arise

austenallred 8y ago
How are students the products now? We only get paid when they are successful, that doesn’t mean they’re not the customer. The service we provide is helping them into a good job, so of course hiring companies are stakeholders, but companies are the customers.
- IMTDb 8y ago
  The university has an incentive to value your early salary _above all else_. This may be dangerous (hence my question). The article clearly shows some potential issues by pointing to several very useful but not very well paid profession (eg: nurses) who will have trouble finding lessons in this model. Closer to our trade you might see stuff like : - We don't offer design lessons because backend developers earn more than designers, so go study Rust, it's so hot right now ! - Marketing ? Heck no, salaries are only soaring later in your career, we can't get break even with that - Your idea of a quantum computing course seems interesting but we don't believe there is a big enough market for people in that field at the moment, it's more of a research subject right now (weather that's true or false is up to the reader to decide). - ... Since the university is exclusively paid by your future salary, every second that you spend in class must be immediately translated in extra $$$ in you first compensation package. If your goal is to make as much money as soon as you get out of school, your incentive are aligned. Otherwise they are not, and that can be dangerous. Steve Jobs is a notorious example of someone who took some lessons that did not seem really useful not so high profile at the time, and only later proved to be critical in his success. At a much smaller scale, 7 years after graduating, I am rediscovering some skill/knowledge I acquired at uni that did not seem to matter a lot when I started working (and that definitely were not taken into account in my first job interviews). I believe they makes me a better/more productive engineer. I fear that under that new system I might have never learned them in favour of something hotter and more marketable.
  - diminoten 8y ago
    It's not dangerous, not nearly to the extent you're making it out to be.
8y ago

zawerf 8y ago

Won't you be incentivized to prefer quantity over quality? You can easily scale the number of classrooms by 2x but it isn't as easy to 2x the starting salary of your graduates. The worry here is that you will over-focus on how to market/brand yourself to capture the salary of as many people transitioning to tech as possible, rather than helping individuals maximize their potential.

agentphil 8y ago

Hey, your startup is really good and I'm pretty sure it will be a hit. I have been thinking to implement such a system myself and I have done plenty of basic research on this topic. The idea comes at the right time.