4 ms·

Paul Graham has been getting a lot of criticism recently, both from this obviously bad take and because of his praise for the fraud-ridden Lambda School and Pau

Paul Graham has been getting a lot of criticism recently, both from this obviously bad take and because of his praise for the fraud-ridden Lambda School and Paul's hero worship of Austen. I personally appreciate the reality check that not everything these famous people think is worth writing down nor sharing.

localfirst 2y ago
im out of the loop on the Lambda School, what happened?
- alwa 2y ago
  Turned out to be fraudulent. Didn’t provide a meaningful education, lied about placement numbers, lied about their financial incentives aligning with the students'—the list went on. The CFPB, a federal regulatory body, came down on them (and the founder in particular) a few weeks ago [0] See e.g. the narrative and related discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40729501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40729501 [0] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-takes-action-against-coding-boot-camp-bloomtech-and-ceo-austen-allred-for-deceiving-students-and-hiding-loan-costs/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-takes...
  - localfirst 2y ago
    in 2019 - 743 folks are on the hook for the ISA - 516 graduated - 132 got a job I'm not sure what to make of this. What is ISA? Isn't this like 20% hire rate from taking Lambda course? Or was it that they attracted a lot of people who simply can't make that leap from student to developer because they never had the aptitude for that job? Not saying Lambda School wasn't a fraud but seems like they started out with some good intention but halfway got greedy and dishonest because Paul likes "edgy founders" Just a ton of broken dreams, financial ruin not unlike some of YC's backed companies.
    - bitwize 2y ago
      ISA = Income Sharing Agreement. The way Lambda School worked was, you didn't pay for the instruction up front. Rather, when you got a job, Lambda School was entitled to take a chunk of your income. It had the whiff of scam to me, as it reminded me of the payment arrangements for another outfit, variously called Unbounded Solutions, BrighterBrain, and EnhanceIT: you go to Atlanta for two months of "free" training, after which you were bound to indentured servitude to them for a period of two years. Attempt to break the contract and you would be billed a minimum of $20,000 for the "free" training they offered you.
      - localfirst 2y ago
        Good god, this is straight up rackateering
bitwize 2y ago
Many of us Hackernews gushed over Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos back when they were at peak hypecycle. The thing about these fraudsters is they are good at bamboozling even smart people, especially smart people who are not in the scammer's putative line of work.
- tpush 2y ago
  Or the people fancying themselves as smart aren't actually all that.
- talldayo 2y ago
  Don't forget all the @sama/@a16z apologists working overtime to sweep Worldcoin under the proverbial rug: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldcoin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldcoin
- fortran77 2y ago
  Perhaps you only think you are a smart person.
ComplexSystems 2y ago
This was not a bad take at all in 2007. In fact, it's really incredible just how much things have turned around, with Microsoft (via OpenAI) currently far ahead of Google.
- ffhhj 2y ago
  In order to survive Google zombified their search engine with ads. Microsoft has brought Windows thru the same process.
- BlackCherry 2y ago
  The latest stats I can get are from 2009, but it looks like Microsoft had over 95% of the OS market share in 2009. This was a bad take. It also demonstrates how disconnected from the average person he was if he almost only saw OSX, when the market was 95%+ Windows.
  - ComplexSystems 2y ago
    If you are primarily interested in desktop OS market share, then sure.
_xivi 2y ago
> from this obviously bad take This is like saying your evaluation of my property, back when it was in bad shape was wrong... because after renovating the entire thing and fixing its issues, I got a different price. From the linked article: > Is there some way Microsoft could come back? In principle, yes So, of course if you manage to change the input, you'll get a different output. Today's Microsoft (WSL, Edge, Bing, Azure, VSCode, copilot, etc) is so different from 2007 you wouldn't even recognize it as the same company. Just like what Paul Graham has said they needed to change if they were to survive.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

localfirst 2y ago

im out of the loop on the Lambda School, what happened?

alwa 2y ago
Turned out to be fraudulent. Didn’t provide a meaningful education, lied about placement numbers, lied about their financial incentives aligning with the students'—the list went on. The CFPB, a federal regulatory body, came down on them (and the founder in particular) a few weeks ago [0] See e.g. the narrative and related discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40729501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40729501 [0] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-takes-action-against-coding-boot-camp-bloomtech-and-ceo-austen-allred-for-deceiving-students-and-hiding-loan-costs/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-takes...
- localfirst 2y ago
  in 2019 - 743 folks are on the hook for the ISA - 516 graduated - 132 got a job I'm not sure what to make of this. What is ISA? Isn't this like 20% hire rate from taking Lambda course? Or was it that they attracted a lot of people who simply can't make that leap from student to developer because they never had the aptitude for that job? Not saying Lambda School wasn't a fraud but seems like they started out with some good intention but halfway got greedy and dishonest because Paul likes "edgy founders" Just a ton of broken dreams, financial ruin not unlike some of YC's backed companies.
  - bitwize 2y ago
    ISA = Income Sharing Agreement. The way Lambda School worked was, you didn't pay for the instruction up front. Rather, when you got a job, Lambda School was entitled to take a chunk of your income. It had the whiff of scam to me, as it reminded me of the payment arrangements for another outfit, variously called Unbounded Solutions, BrighterBrain, and EnhanceIT: you go to Atlanta for two months of "free" training, after which you were bound to indentured servitude to them for a period of two years. Attempt to break the contract and you would be billed a minimum of $20,000 for the "free" training they offered you.
    - localfirst 2y ago
      Good god, this is straight up rackateering

bitwize 2y ago

Many of us Hackernews gushed over Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos back when they were at peak hypecycle. The thing about these fraudsters is they are good at bamboozling even smart people, especially smart people who are not in the scammer's putative line of work.

tpush 2y ago
Or the people fancying themselves as smart aren't actually all that.
talldayo 2y ago
Don't forget all the @sama/@a16z apologists working overtime to sweep Worldcoin under the proverbial rug: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldcoin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldcoin
fortran77 2y ago
Perhaps you only think you are a smart person.

ComplexSystems 2y ago

This was not a bad take at all in 2007. In fact, it's really incredible just how much things have turned around, with Microsoft (via OpenAI) currently far ahead of Google.

ffhhj 2y ago
In order to survive Google zombified their search engine with ads. Microsoft has brought Windows thru the same process.
BlackCherry 2y ago
The latest stats I can get are from 2009, but it looks like Microsoft had over 95% of the OS market share in 2009. This was a bad take. It also demonstrates how disconnected from the average person he was if he almost only saw OSX, when the market was 95%+ Windows.
- ComplexSystems 2y ago
  If you are primarily interested in desktop OS market share, then sure.

_xivi 2y ago

> from this obviously bad take This is like saying your evaluation of my property, back when it was in bad shape was wrong... because after renovating the entire thing and fixing its issues, I got a different price. From the linked article: > Is there some way Microsoft could come back? In principle, yes So, of course if you manage to change the input, you'll get a different output. Today's Microsoft (WSL, Edge, Bing, Azure, VSCode, copilot, etc) is so different from 2007 you wouldn't even recognize it as the same company. Just like what Paul Graham has said they needed to change if they were to survive.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]