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I am high level member of a volunteer based org that does online workshops in the tech space, and does dozens of workshops in dozens of countries every year. I

I am high level member of a volunteer based org that does online workshops in the tech space, and does dozens of workshops in dozens of countries every year. I fail to understand how you can mess up basic things like having a predecided curriculum, good teachers, a fixed schedule, or providing quality outside class support. We do all of this on a shoestring budget. The stories I have heard about Lambda/BloomTech seem to show almost a willful attempt to not get the basics right. I understand the financial component might have been difficult, but the education is straightforward. To fail it with millions of dollars of funding is outstanding.

japhyr 3y ago
I think if your focus is on actually educating people, and you're willing to invest your resources in those people, you can do quite well. If your focus is on scaling and creating an appealing image to investors, the education part isn't so easy. There's probably something to who you're attracting as well. If your pitch is "come work hard with us and we'll help you learn", you draw people who are ready to learn. If your pitch is "come take out a [loan we won't call a loan] with us and we'll make you a bunch of money", you draw a different set of people. That's not even saying anything against the students of Lambda school. I believe one issue has been people joining to improve their economic outlook, while working a different job to continue paying bills. You have to be pretty thoughtful about how you work with people who have a tight schedule. You can't just throw your curriculum and your expectations up in the air any time you want, and expect all those people to "pivot" with you. But the focus always seemed to be more on the "success" of Lambda school than on the actual success of every student. From all the stories that come out of Lambda school, it really feels like the classic predatory view of students. They're not so much learners as they are potential sources of money.
addicted 3y ago
This is kind of true about all of Tech. Much of the crowd here isn’t very smart. They simply happened to be at the right place at the right time, ie a time where “software was eating the world” and also the iPhone/Android took over. Finally, the success of the actual smart people in Tech (Google, Apple, Amazon, FB) who are largely pre-iPhone companies, meant that there was a lot of venture money flowing around, when the VCs discovered the Uber model. Spend a ton of money to establish monopolies (and break a bunch of laws along the way, which you could get away with because Tech still had a good reputation thanks again to the pre-iPhone pre Web 2.0 companies) and walk away with the money while exploiting customers, clients, governments and employees.
- a_random_canuck 3y ago
  I wouldn’t call most of those Amazon, FB, YouTube etc, people the actual smart people either. They’re mostly just lucky. What made Facebook or YouTube successful over any other competitor? Just luck that their design turned out to be the one people like more? They mistakenly think their success is due to how skilled or smart they are they think they’re hot shit and their thoughts are gold. But most of them are just like Elon Musk: average intelligence people who got lucky enough to climb to the top of the pile. The same is true for most software people. We think we’re super smart because we have logical thinking and understand a complicated thing that most people don’t, but then you can always get a good laugh reading the HN crowd try to talk smart on other subjects like physics / quantum mechanics.
  - Enginerrrd 3y ago
    A ton of skill, talent, adaptability, and mountains of hard work are still prerequisites for "getting lucky" in that way though. Just because luck plays a big role doesn't make it the only factor.
  - kortilla 3y ago
    > The same is true for most software people. We think we’re super smart because we have logical thinking and understand a complicated thing that most people don’t, but then you can always get a good laugh reading the HN crowd try to talk smart on other subjects like physics / quantum mechanics. Talking out your ass about subjects you don’t understand isn’t limit to software people. It’s funny you mentioned physics because really smart physicists would frequently spew all kinds of stupidity about software when I was in grad school.
    - dmoy 3y ago
      > It’s funny you mentioned physics because really smart physicists would frequently spew all kinds of stupidity Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/ Not all physicists. Some are pretty chill. In fact a physicist I worked with was the one who clued me in to the whole "lots of physicists think they know everything" joke/not-a-joke thing, he thought the whole situation was very funny.
__mharrison__ 3y ago
Not surprising. Was the founder technical? Have any insight about education?
- abdullahkhalids 3y ago
  He didn't need insights about education. Just needed to hire 5-10 profs with significant industry experience and ask them to create a curriculum. But from the stories it seemed like a bunch of amateurs were playing the move-fast-break-things game.
  - __mharrison__ 3y ago
    I think you made my point...
tbrownaw 3y ago
> I fail to understand how you can mess up basic things like Hiring people who have experience and know what they're doing isn't very revolutionary or disruptive. Plus it can be hard to evaluate competence in a field you don't know that well yourself.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kirso 3y ago
Growth at all costs? Taking shortcuts? Sounds familiar...

japhyr 3y ago

I think if your focus is on actually educating people, and you're willing to invest your resources in those people, you can do quite well. If your focus is on scaling and creating an appealing image to investors, the education part isn't so easy. There's probably something to who you're attracting as well. If your pitch is "come work hard with us and we'll help you learn", you draw people who are ready to learn. If your pitch is "come take out a [loan we won't call a loan] with us and we'll make you a bunch of money", you draw a different set of people. That's not even saying anything against the students of Lambda school. I believe one issue has been people joining to improve their economic outlook, while working a different job to continue paying bills. You have to be pretty thoughtful about how you work with people who have a tight schedule. You can't just throw your curriculum and your expectations up in the air any time you want, and expect all those people to "pivot" with you. But the focus always seemed to be more on the "success" of Lambda school than on the actual success of every student. From all the stories that come out of Lambda school, it really feels like the classic predatory view of students. They're not so much learners as they are potential sources of money.

addicted 3y ago

This is kind of true about all of Tech. Much of the crowd here isn’t very smart. They simply happened to be at the right place at the right time, ie a time where “software was eating the world” and also the iPhone/Android took over. Finally, the success of the actual smart people in Tech (Google, Apple, Amazon, FB) who are largely pre-iPhone companies, meant that there was a lot of venture money flowing around, when the VCs discovered the Uber model. Spend a ton of money to establish monopolies (and break a bunch of laws along the way, which you could get away with because Tech still had a good reputation thanks again to the pre-iPhone pre Web 2.0 companies) and walk away with the money while exploiting customers, clients, governments and employees.

a_random_canuck 3y ago
I wouldn’t call most of those Amazon, FB, YouTube etc, people the actual smart people either. They’re mostly just lucky. What made Facebook or YouTube successful over any other competitor? Just luck that their design turned out to be the one people like more? They mistakenly think their success is due to how skilled or smart they are they think they’re hot shit and their thoughts are gold. But most of them are just like Elon Musk: average intelligence people who got lucky enough to climb to the top of the pile. The same is true for most software people. We think we’re super smart because we have logical thinking and understand a complicated thing that most people don’t, but then you can always get a good laugh reading the HN crowd try to talk smart on other subjects like physics / quantum mechanics.
- Enginerrrd 3y ago
  A ton of skill, talent, adaptability, and mountains of hard work are still prerequisites for "getting lucky" in that way though. Just because luck plays a big role doesn't make it the only factor.
- kortilla 3y ago
  > The same is true for most software people. We think we’re super smart because we have logical thinking and understand a complicated thing that most people don’t, but then you can always get a good laugh reading the HN crowd try to talk smart on other subjects like physics / quantum mechanics. Talking out your ass about subjects you don’t understand isn’t limit to software people. It’s funny you mentioned physics because really smart physicists would frequently spew all kinds of stupidity about software when I was in grad school.
  - dmoy 3y ago
    > It’s funny you mentioned physics because really smart physicists would frequently spew all kinds of stupidity Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/ Not all physicists. Some are pretty chill. In fact a physicist I worked with was the one who clued me in to the whole "lots of physicists think they know everything" joke/not-a-joke thing, he thought the whole situation was very funny.

__mharrison__ 3y ago

Not surprising. Was the founder technical? Have any insight about education?

abdullahkhalids 3y ago
He didn't need insights about education. Just needed to hire 5-10 profs with significant industry experience and ask them to create a curriculum. But from the stories it seemed like a bunch of amateurs were playing the move-fast-break-things game.
- __mharrison__ 3y ago
  I think you made my point...

tbrownaw 3y ago

> I fail to understand how you can mess up basic things like Hiring people who have experience and know what they're doing isn't very revolutionary or disruptive. Plus it can be hard to evaluate competence in a field you don't know that well yourself.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

kirso 3y ago

Growth at all costs? Taking shortcuts? Sounds familiar...