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18 Jul, 9 tweets, 3 min read
Books I finish last week:

(Being off the grid makes you wrap up the books you've been meaning to finish for some time).
Amazon Unbound: 2/5 stars.

This is what happens when an author both has a boring narrative and is determined to shoehorn absolutely everything into it.

Such a wasted opportunity. Disappointed. Mediocre in every way.

amazon.com/Amazon-Unbound…
Project Hail Mary: 5/5 stars.

I have no idea why this book was so much fun, but it was really, really good. The science was clever, the story was great.

amazon.com/Project-Hail-M…
The Coddling of the American Mind: 4/5 stars.

The book is 3 years old and already feels very out of date.

amazon.com/Coddling-Ameri…
A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness. 5/5 stars.

While the author was IMO too objective about what was bad leadership, the (+ and -) effects that mental illness (and drugs) have had is absolutely fascinating.

amazon.com/First-Rate-Mad…
Driven to Distraction (Revised): Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder. 3/5 stars.

Started this long ago. Finally finished it.

amazon.com/Driven-Distrac…
The Greatest: My Own Story by Muhammad Ali: 4/5 stars.

Fascinating to hear things from Ali's point of view instead of a biographer.

amazon.com/Greatest-My-Ow…
Winning: The Unforgiving Race to Greatness: 5/5 stars.

Incredible book. Will be coming back again and again.

amazon.com/Winning-Unforg…
Wow a giant tweetstorm with a typo at the beginning.

*Books I finished last week

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More from @Austen

Austen Profile picture
10 Jul
In 1984 a researcher named Bloom found that students learning mastery-based and with one-on-one mentorship perform two standard deviations better than those in a conventional classroom.

Incredible to know, but too expensive to do anything about, so nothing changed.
We’re now in the early days of software that not only mimics 1-on-1 mentorship and mastery-based learning for cheap, but actually *surpasses* traditional mentorship.

We’re entering a completely new world where kids in classrooms (even expensive ones) will be left behind.
I’m talking to schools concerned about figuring out what to do when 13-year-olds have completed High School at an advanced level with perfect standardized test scores.
Read 5 tweets
Austen Profile picture
8 Jul
Unbelievable.

The median debt of graduates from the program is $181,000.

The median income is less than $30,000/yr.

wsj.com/articles/finan…
Questions:

1. Shouldn't students be more careful?

Yes, obviously.

2. Why does the government provide unlimited debt to a program with these outcomes?

Yes, terrible idea.

3. Why does a school with an $11.26 billion untaxed endowment not care about student outcomes?

🤔🤔🤔
Reminder:

If you owe $180k in debt, your interest payments alone are probably going to be north of $10k/yr.

Compared to your $30k/yr salary.

AND THAT'S BEFORE YOU TOUCH PRINCIPAL.

Many of these people will die in debt. Massive payments for life. For two years of film school.
Read 5 tweets
Austen Profile picture
28 Jun
Look like judge threw out FTC monopoly cases against Facebook.

Seems right, legally.

I have no idea how you would prove that Facebook has monopoly power in "social networking services" amongst 10,000 competitors.
“The FTC’s Complaint says almost nothing concrete on the key question of how much power Facebook actually had, and still has, in a properly defined antitrust product market."
"It is almost as if the agency expects the Court to simply nod to the conventional wisdom that Facebook is a monopolist.”

Ouch.

cnbc.com/2021/06/28/jud…
Read 5 tweets
Austen Profile picture
28 May
Virtually everyone I talk to misunderstands how ISAs work.

I’ll often see people say, “Lambda School costs $30,000.” Or “120 Lambda grads hired = $3.6 million.”

If only!

Here’s a breakdown in more detail.

ISAs are *dramatically* more student-friendly than loans.
Let’s take a traditional school.

100 students enroll, tuition is $30k, you book $3m in revenue.

The average student will actually pay *far more* than $30k net/net, although that goes to the lender.

Some students will default on loans, so interest covers that as well.
So while “tuition” was $30k if you take 100 students paying that tuition the total they’ll pay will be something like $37k on average, depending on interest rate etc.

ISAs work in the opposite direction.
Read 10 tweets
Austen Profile picture
29 Apr
Today is a sad day.

About an hour ago we held a company all-hands where I announced the hard decision that we are laying off 65 Lambda School employees as part of a restructuring.

lambdaschool.com/the-commons/up…
We’re saying goodbye to many very talented people. People who helped us get to where we are today. My goal is to help every one of them find their next home well before departure pay is done.
I’ll be sharing a spreadsheet of who is looking once folks have a chance to opt in, but in the meantime you can let us know what you’re hiring for here:

forms.gle/JNS5kz6WQuZoZG…
Read 7 tweets
Austen Profile picture
9 Apr
The high level is ISAs are very, very hard to make work. We designed them to be *incredibly* student-friendly.

In their current form a school has to be executing nearly perfectly to make money on them.
To use an ISA a school takes equity-like risk but gets debt-like returns.

If a student doesn’t do well in the school they probably pay zero. If they don’t get hired they pay zero. If they get hired below the income threshold they may pay but potentially not for years.
Meanwhile, in every student’s mind, they have/are paying the full ($30k) cap.

Most students won’t pay the full cap ever, and there’s no interest, so the school pays that. The net present value of them having paid x dollars 2+ years from now is far, far less than x.
Read 7 tweets

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