What do Sergey Brin, George Clooney and Taylor Swift have in common?

They underwent the same learning that produces the world's most successful people.

Thread on the underrated modes of Montessori education: Maria Montessori was one of the first Italian women to become a medical doctor.

She believed in the respect of an individual's freedom and their innate drive to learn.

She observed that children in asylums needed better stimulation - so she developed her own educational method.

Whenever someone asks me about what it means to be an entrepreneur, I think about @elonmusk's answer to @sama 8 years ago.

"Utility Delta x Number of People Affected."

Here's how you visualise it: Happiness is a trailing indicator of impact.

You can either make a huge impact on a few people or make a small difference to a lot of people.

The golden egg every entrepreneur is chasing is obviously to have a huge impact on a vast amount of people.

Americans are losing confidence in college education.

A Gallup report came out 2 days ago showing a steep decline in those who said 'College is very important': From 75% in 2010 to 35% in 2025.

Thread on why college degrees are losing vitality: The study suggests 4 reasons:
- High cost of college
- Benefits of trade schools
- Growth of online learning and micro-credentials
- Changes in the labor market due to advancements in AI

All major American subgroups show less support for higher ed today than 12 years ago.

Elon asked everyone to listen to this podcast yesterday.

It deconstructs the most pervasive assumption about human nature.

Thread breaking down The Greatest Lie Ever Told: The Blank Slate Theory:

- Suggests we're all born without any innate traits.
- Chooses Nurture over Nature.
- Disproved by modern genetic studies, neuroscience.

Some believe that if we accept genetics play a factor, it may fuel a wave of racism or sexism.

This guy is revolutionising Education.

He's invested $1 Billion of his own money to redefine what a school means.

Elon asked him 'Why aren't you at 1000 schools already?'

It's one of THE most valuable interviews ever (especially if you're a parent/entrepreneur).

[Thread] 🧵 About Joe Liemandt:

- Stanford dropout.
- Founded Trilogy Software in 1989.
- Left Trilogy after 3 decades to join Alpha School.
- Net worth $6.2 Billion.

One of THE most successful entrepreneurs ever just decided to spend the next 2 decades trying to transform learning.

61 years after gaining independence from the UK, Singapore is:

- 70% richer (per capita)
- Growing 400% faster
- More educated & healthy.

How did Lee Kuan Yew turn a literal mudflat into the highest GDP per capita country in the world in 45 years?

[Thread] In 1965, Singapore separated from Malaysia to become an independent republic.

Singapore was poorer than most African nations.
No oil, no gold, 0 natural resources.
Their GDP per capita was $516 vs UK's $1,804. Almost 4x higher.

They would literally import drinking water.

Every $10B opportunity can be explained by a simple heuristic:

Does it create a Delta-4 customer experience?

It explains why Uber crushed taxis, why iPhone killed Blackberry, why Google owns search, and why Netflix killed Blockbuster.

So what the hell is Delta-4? Ask customers to rate their experience using Cabs on a scale from 1-10
Then ask customers to rate their experience using Uber

Usually Cabs are a 4/10 and Uber is a 8 or 9/10

The difference 'aka' Delta is greater than 4.

Meet Jamie Beaton.

He applied to 25 elite universities, got into all 25.

And CHOSE to study at Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Princeton, Yale, and UPenn.

He built Crimson Education, a $554M empire that charges $200K to give your 8-year-old a 98% shot at the Ivy Leagues.
Let's start with Jamie's resume - not because it's outright absurd, but because it also happens to be the foundation of Crimson Education:

Harvard (finished in 3 years)
Stanford MBA + MS in EdTech
Oxford (Rhodes Scholar)
Yale Law
UPenn Masters
Tsinghua (Schwarzman Scholar)

Most students think Harvard admissions is a lottery where everyone has a 5% chance.

They're dead wrong.

If you're "world-class" at something, your admission rate is 90%.
If you're "well-rounded," it drops to 2.9%.

Harvard was forced to reveal this data in a lawsuit
A thread🧵 Harvard gets 43,000 applications. They accept 2,000.

Of those 43,000:
- 8,000 have PERFECT GPAs
- 625 have perfect ACT scores
- 3,500 have perfect SAT math

Yet only 1000 "world-class" students apply.
And Harvard accepts 900 of them.

The math is shocking.

Just in: Stanford shows that virtual reality lectures outperform in-person lectures from PHD professors.

Grades jumped from 87% to 96% and students performed better studying from their bedrooms than in-person.

Why universities are on the verge of obsolescence🧵 Arizona State tracked 4,000 students over 2 years.

They replaced every single biology lab with VR experiences where students are space scientists at an "intergalactic wildlife sanctuary."

Their job?
Save alien dinosaurs from extinction using real biology concepts.

Results were wild.

In my time at UPenn, I collected reading lists from some of the coolest Nobel laureats, CEOs and PhD professors.

4 yrs at UPenn, another 5 yrs distilling, spanning 750 BC - 2025:

The ultimate reading list - condensing an entire liberal arts education into 132 books. This isn't just another reading list.

It's architected like a classical education - 11 subjects flowing from abstract to concrete, theory to practice.

From Aristotle's Categories to Thiel's Zero to One, each book is chosen for how it builds on the last.

Here's the blueprint:

Trump wants to scrap the DoE (Department of Education) and hand over all schools to the states.

This would single-handedly choke America’s ENTIRE talent pipeline.

Here's how I think it would all go down if the plug is pulled: March 2025: Trump signs executive order to dismantle the DoE.
His plan? Let individual states control their schools.

But Mississippi spends $8,000/student. New York spends $25,000.

Guess which kids lose their shot at Harvard?

I built the ultimate Socratic tutoring prompt to learn ANYTHING.

It questions you like Socrates - exposing your blind spots, then fixing them.

Watch me test it LIVE. Most of us watch 1 YouTube video and think we're experts on a topic.

Until someone asks a couple of follow up questions and our knowledge begins to crumble.

This happened to me last week.

NASA discovered schools eliminate 86% of human creative genius by the time they graduate.

The study was so damning it never made peer review.

1,600 kids tracked for a decade.
What they found should terrify every parent🧵 1968. George Land and Beth Jarman had just designed a test for NASA.

The goal: identify the most innovative thinkers.
An idea emerged: What would happen if we gave this test to children?

What they discovered next contradicts everything we believe about human potential.

This was the entire 4th century curriculum at Plato's Academy.

No majors. No electives.

Just 30+ years of stacked learning. Each discipline unlocking the next. It produced the likes of Aristotle who went on to shape an entire era.

Ivy league education could never.

A thread🧵 Plato's 'ideal' educational blueprint was designed to cultivate 'just' philosopher-kings in a political climate that led to the execution of his mentor and friend - Socrates.

The curriculum: 10 disciplines across 3 themes.

This would take you about 30+ years to complete.

Elon Musk built what he calls the 'perfect school' for his 14 kids.

It's called Ad Astra and it doesn't have grades, majors or class ranks.

The school's curriculum is his answer to 'How do you make a school that produces more Elon Musks?'

Here's what's different: There are two ways you can teach heat transfer.

I like to call it the "broken refrigerator" analogy.