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We're launching a school for entrepreneurs and if your kid doesn't make a million dollars by graduation, we are going to refund you the tuition.
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[snorts] >> Tuition is 150k a year, right?
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>> So, you know, we're saying that we're going to give you [music] back 600k at the end of 4 years if we don't get your student to this outcome.
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It's it's putting the pressure on us to actually figure this out to actually make sure that we are delivering on these outcomes and not playing startup like I was when I was in college trying to learn this for for myself.
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Hello and welcome to Infinite Loops. I am Jimmy Sony.
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I'm filling [music] in for Jim Oanisy.
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Today's guest is a repeat guest, Natalie.
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He is the co-founder of Founders School.
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He's building a new model for education and a new model for educating young entrepreneurs who are in high school.
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All right, Natalie, thank you for coming on Infinite Loops. It's >> good to be here.
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Last time I did this with uh Jim, right now I got to do it with Jimmy. >> There you go.
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[laughter] Yeah, we're just we're just going to continue rotating in people.
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Jim, Jimmy have have a cast [laughter] of characters.
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You know, one of the things that I have this I have this like theory of the case of of friendship that is like a a contemporary case or contemporary theory of the case of friendship, which is before the internet, it was basically like there's like a less than 1% likelihood you and I would have ever have become friends, right?
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Because we grew up in different places.
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Like it it would have it would have been unlikely, not impossible, just highly unlikely.
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And now what happens is you can like have all these people who are internet friends who become like in real life friends, right?
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And so it's this it's this fascinating thing because it before you would sort your friendships based on like how close my locker was to yours, right?
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Did we did we grow up playing on the same like little league team or something?
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And fast forward, you and I connected.
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I I believe it was on Twitter or when when it was >> No, you emailed me about Yeah.
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the podcast back in >> 2017 18. >> Yeah.
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>> And then you sort of evolve from there and you follow friends projects and you support them along the way.
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And so it's a real pleasure to do this because it actually shows you I think like what's different about friendship now that would have been impossible 50 years ago highly unlikely 50 years ago.
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Even even 101 15 years ago, I feel like a lot has changed, right?
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We I certainly grew up in the era of don't talk to strangers on the internet, right?
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[laughter] That was my parents' number one concern with me getting on the for, you know, for decent reasons.
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>> And and now at least half of my friends, if not more, I meet online first, right?
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And I I have this very vivid memory of 20 2018.
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My wife, my now wife and I had just moved into our first house in Austin and I invited a friend and his girlfriend over for dinner.
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And I think like an hour before he showed up, she was like, "Oh, by the way, how do you know Adam?"
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And I said, "Oh, we know each other through Twitter, [laughter] >> right?"
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>> And she she was like, "What?
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>> You've never met this person in real life?
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Like, who are you bringing into our house?" Right.
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And it was, you know, it was great, right?
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Like admire are good friends now.
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And that was that even then that was odd.
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And she was totally fair to have that reaction.
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And now it's just like, oh yeah, of course that's another person we met, you know, and it is funny cuz you do you accelerate I think you accelerate a lot of friendships that way, right?
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Like you because you do feel like you're you're kind of in each other's heads in some way.
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You know, vaguely the projects you're interested in, right?
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Whereas like with like call it like locker proximity.
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Locker proximity still requires a fair amount of investment in a friendship to know if you're even interested in the same things. >> Yeah.
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But but like online or digital friendships that convert into real life friendships, you're like, I already know all the stuff you like.
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We like all the same stuff.
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>> We follow all the [laughter] same people.
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Our feeds are the same, >> right? Hanging out same. Yes, I saw it.
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[laughter] >> Although it does create these funny circles where like I I have a much harder time being friends with Instagram guys than Twitter guys because I just like I [laughter] don't know what's in their feed. Right. >> That's right.
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It's it's almost like a relationship strategic thing where it's like Cosette knows what's going on in a lot of our friends lives that I don't know because I'm not on Instagram >> and I know stuff that's going on in our other friends lives that she doesn't know because she's not on X as much. It's strategic almost.
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>> You do get a little bit of I don't know if you have this like the the six degrees of Chris Williamson, right?
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Or like the the problem of like everybody also just then consuming the same information. Yeah. Right. That's definitely true. >> Yeah.
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I think that's true of all communities, but I think it might be particularly true of like your friends who are based on Twitter X.
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>> I I have a group chat of guys who are also, you know, terminally online on X.
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And I swear twothirds of the time when somebody posts something funny in the chat, I've already seen it.
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And it's it's a weird experience of, oh, okay, like this world is big and it's really small. Really, really small.
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>> Well, we're here to talk about your world expanding a bit and changing a bit.
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But just for people who who don't who aren't famili who are listeners who aren't familiar with your particular path, can you can you kind of sketch out because you you have one of the like like I I think of like you as like the dosey sky of the internet.
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Like [laughter] it's like you you've had some of the most interesting career shifts, transitions, experiments you've run.
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Can you just walk us through briefly like take me from like your education at CHO to now like kind of bullet points so that people have a sense of of who you are? >> Yes.
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So, I guess the way I describe it is that I have I've been very fortunate to have made a career out of just getting super fascinated and obsessed by things and diving down these different rabbit holes that have these thin relations but not very thick ones.
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And that's been kind of this very fun journey over the last 12 14 years now.
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So, uh, you know, I went to high school at Chroers Hall up in Connecticut and while I was there got, uh, I thought that I was going to go into physics and then in the same year I took microeconomics and Red Atlas shrugged and got immediately red pill on entrepreneurship and business [laughter] and so kind of like hard pivoted there, decided that, you know, entrepreneurship business what I what I wanted to do.
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Applied to really just the top 10 business schools for college.
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just went down that list and then went to the best one that I got into, which was Carnegie Melon.
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And one year into business school at Carnegie, realized that it wasn't going to teach me anything useful about entrepreneurship.
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Uh it was, you know, great for learning, you know, finance and stuff that would be useful in a management consulting career, things like that, but really not much.
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There's not much value in like the entrepreneurship degree really, I'd say, at almost any college or grad school.
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Dropped out of that into the philosophy program because I still had that kind of literary interest.
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Uh but that also was the lowest requirement major and so it gave me the most freedom to do whatever I wanted with my college degree and I ended up dropping out for a year to work on a startup.
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Uh and convinced the business school and the philosophy school to give me credits of like work exper like you know kind of like independent study credits to work on my business which allowed me to still graduate on time.
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So kind of got to like hack the system that way.
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>> Which by the way, I actually I this to pause here for a second because there are there are either young people listening or parents of young people listening.
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One of my ways that I when I'm speaking because I did roughly the same thing.
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So I designed my own degree at Duke and it basically let me as a as a start of my sophomore year, I was able to choose all of my classes through senior year, but I basically designed it so that I got to do exactly what I wanted with who I wanted and then just did a bunch of independent studies to fill in the gaps.
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I if you I tend to think college is you're in this business, but college is far more hackable than people think it is.
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There are no rules, right?
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There's nothing they actually have to do.
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You can make it up as you go along.
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And by the way, get money to do it.
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>> And and once you graduate, no one's going to really care what grades you got or most of the classes you took.
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And so you either should use it to get a extremely deep education on a challenging subject that you could not realistically get anywhere else. Right?
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If you can study physics at MIT or something that is you have the potential to get a degree of education that you cannot get anywhere else.
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I I really think you either go that way or you kind of do the bare minimum, get the piece of paper, meet everybody because those are going to be your friends, possibly your wife or husband, your future business partners, all of that.
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And then focus on other stuff and learn other things like kind of I think like the biodal approach is is the way to do it.
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and and I ended up getting a lot of value in that sense of I I spent that whole year off campus in downtown Pittsburgh working on my startup with other adults.
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I went through a startup accelerator that was downtown.
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And so it was me, the like 20-year-old who couldn't go out to the happy hours and then all these other adults who were working on their startups.
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And so I was off campus during the day learning all these like business skills and interacting with people much older and further in their career.
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But then at night I went back to campus and I got to stay in my fraternity and I got to throw parties and I got to do all the fun aspects of college and that was the best year of college by far, right?
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Because I was Yeah, it was the best of both worlds. It was awesome.
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>> Did you How did that business go in >> Oh, terribly.
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[laughter] >> I mean, it it was the classic problem of, you know, one I was a 20-year-old had gotten into good schools without herculean efforts and you like I was smart, right?
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smart, right? And I knew I was smart and so I felt like I knew what I was doing and you know I'd read a couple of books like lean startup and stuff and there was nobody around me saying you don't know what you're doing and so I just assumed that I did and I was able to raise a small amount of money but I mean
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I don't think in that year we got a single paying customer right I was really good at making pitch decks >> right [laughter] >> I was really good >> which is a skill which is a skill it's a skill it's a skill you know I was good at going to networking events and I was good at playing startup, but I did not actually learn how to start a business. >> And about a year into it,
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>> And about a year into it, >> I it must have been a book I read or cuz it wasn't somebody who told me.
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There was just this moment of like cascading dread when it kind of all hit me at once of, "Oh my gosh, I'm a fraud.
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[laughter] This this isn't working at all. This is making no money.
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making no money. there is no product market fit here and I've just spent a year on this and I could have figured this out probably 11 months ago >> but very useful and thankfully when I realized that I then very quickly went to I need to shut this down and I need to get my act together because I am
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graduating in 8 months and I have been sherking a philosophy degree and so I have no job prospects that way like my startup has failed so that's not going to pay me a job and so I have about eight months to figure out how to make money or how to get hired or else like I'm moving back like I don't I didn't know what I didn't really have a fallback plan. I was like I'm just gonna
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I was like I'm just gonna figure it out and thankfully I did and that was when I got really into content marketing and writing because the the question that I asked myself was okay I want to get into startups.
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I don't have any useful skills for that right now.
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I don't know how to code.
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I don't know how to design.
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I don't know how to market.
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I don't know how to do sales.
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What is the skill that would be useful to a startup that I am the closest to knowing how to do?
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And so I picked marketing, specifically content marketing because I was a philosophy major. I was writing a lot.
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I figured, okay, I can figure out how to write good articles for a company blog, for a startup blog, and then that will get me my first jobs and internships.
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So I started my blog, started writing articles on it just to kind of demonstrate that I could do content marketing from what I could piece together from, you know, blogs really that were out at the time.
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There wasn't really, there wasn't like YouTube back then.
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in the educational sense that we have it today.
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>> This is back in the stone age. >> Yeah, exactly.
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[laughter] There was no like there were no Twitter accounts like a follow like people were just posting about pooping on Twitter, right?
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[laughter] No friends no network.
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>> Uh but uh Zapier and Buffer were the two big like future of content as marketing companies at the time.
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And so I started my blog, posted on for two months, felt like I was getting good and then I just cold emailed both of them and said, "Hey, will you take me on as a freelance writer?"
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And I didn't say internship.
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I didn't say like college student or whatever.
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I was just trying to pitch them to hire me as a freelance writer.
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And Buffer said no, but Zapier said yes.
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And so by like December, I think this is a two or three month period.
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I'd gone from, you know, nothing to okay, I have my first freelance writing gig with this company that I have a lot of respect for.
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>> And it was $150 an article.
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And so I kind of like did the math and I said, "Okay, well if I do 124 articles a month, so call it three per week, then that gets me enough that I could afford to pay for my cost of living somewhere like Argentina or Thailand."
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And so now I know that I can go do that when I graduate if I need to.
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I don't need to look for any job that I don't want to take.
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I can keep focusing on the entrepreneurship skills and I kind of like have this as the back stop.
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And that was really the first, you don't think of like freelance writing as entrepreneurial, but it was a very entrepreneurial thing to do, right?
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It was like, okay, I'm going to develop this skill. I'm going to sell it.
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I'm going to figure out my like rough P&L to run that business and go from there.
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>> And >> I ended up taking a job for about 8, nine months that didn't work out very well, but then started a marketing agency right after it.
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And it kind of all started with making that decision that senior year of college.
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And then that marketing agency ended up doing a few million a year. I stepped out of it.
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Uh had another CEO take over and she ran it for a few years before it was eventually acquired.
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But that was like my first entrepreneurial business thing that did very well and kind of all stemmed from that decision senior year.
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>> Did your just out of curiosity, did your family were they nervous [laughter] or like like were there any tough conversations?
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Because that's like that's that's usually the part of the story that people leave out, right? >> Yeah.
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one one has to drop out of college, but the more complicated thing is usually not dropping out.
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It's the phone call to the parents to let them know what your plans are. Right.
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In your case, you didn't drop out, but did they have any concerns about you've gone to Chot and you've gone to Carnegie Melon, you've like been in these worlds that are like indisputably prestigious and now you're going to go write freelance articles and maybe move to Thailand.
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>> Yeah, they I mean by that point they had been warmed up to it from me doing that year off, >> right?
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And you know, that was the hardest of those conversations, right?
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And I think more so, I don't think my mom was ever worried.
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She was like, "He's going to be fine.
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He's going to figure it out."
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My dad is like much more uh academic, right?
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Like he went to Harvard Law School. He's a professor.
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He was, you know, it's like college is important.
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And so I think he was very worried that I wasn't going to get a degree.
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I think he knew rightly that as soon as I got a taste of not being in college, I would never want to go back, never be okay going back.
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And it's sort of a fluke, I think, that I ended up graduating in the sense of if I hadn't gotten all that extra credit and if I hadn't had so many APs from high school, I wouldn't have finished. There's there's no way.
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But after after I shut down the startup and I kind of papered out the math and talked to my adviser, we realized that we could jam one semester full of kind of BS classes to get me to the finish line >> and like still get the piece of paper.
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And I think if we hadn't been able to work that, it wouldn't have happened.
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But that like satisfied him at least that I got the degree.
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But I think that clear to them at that point that okay even if that startup hadn't worked, I had started something. I had hired people.
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I had raised some amount of money.
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I was you know on some path and I think if I had said oh after I graduate I'm going to figure out how to make money doing freelance writing.
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That would have been one thing.
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But going to them and saying I'm already doing it. I'm already making it. Right?
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like that helps a lot, right?
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It's like, okay, clearly there's a plan here.
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He's on some sort of path and trajectory.
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And so, actually, sometimes, uh, kids in high school or college will reach out to me.
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They used to more when I was younger.
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Uh, but [laughter] >> younger younger.
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>> Now you're over the hill. >> No.
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Well, I feel like when I was when I was like, >> he wasn't even alive when YouTube was.
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[laughter] >> No, I feel like when I was in my mid20s, I was more vocal about the like college alternative path and so I'd get more of this inbound.
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I I don't get as much of it anymore, but I would always say like make some money online first and then tell your parents because they're going to be a lot more amendable to this idea if you have some proof of success instead of like hope that it's going to work out. Exactly.
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>> Did Did you when you were raising money at 20 years old, how did you communicate with investors?
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Like what what was what were those conversations like?
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Because raising money is something that even adults obviously struggle with mightily, right? >> Yeah. Yeah.
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I honestly it was a lot easier for me because it was from a local startup accelerator in Pittsburgh and I was a Carnegie Melon student >> and so you know and like these guys are wonderful.
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I don't mean this as a criticism.
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criticism. They gave me a lot of benefit of the doubt because I went to Carnegie and I think that was really what like got it there was like I went to Carnegie [snorts] >> and I had just won the startup weekend in Pittsburgh with this idea and so I had that kind of like charisma and there
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was a bit of that local excitement around what I was doing and so it was kind of a natural fit in that sense but I think you know looking back if I had gone out to Silicon Valley or something and tried to pitch like YC or try to you know get in front of A6 16Z or one of like those people. I think they might
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I think they might have said you have no idea what you're doing.
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Like [laughter] you have nothing here.
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That might have been very helpful. Right.
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Um and so even when I raised the the follow on money, it was from the same parent fund which was like a Pittsburgh innovation fund to, you know, support job creation and innovation within or a Pennsylvania innovation fund to like support job creation and stuff within the state.
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And so again, it was like I wasn't going I wasn't playing in like the hardest leagues.
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And I think that they did give me more trust because I went to Carnegie. >> Yeah.
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How did you how did you deal with the feeling you described of like [clears throat] this you're a year in and you realize it's not going to work right.
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Did it did it feel like the sky was falling down?
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Like uh because because look, even even at that age, even if you're not building a business, you are generally dealing with the challenge of what am I going to do with my like earthly time, right?
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And those are challenges for people who are just going to class every day, right?
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You're building a business and watching it fail.
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What was your if you can think back, what was your thought process like?
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>> I I usually don't stay in that headsp space very long.
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like I I'll I'll have those feelings occasionally, but it very quickly shifts to okay, well, there is something to do here.
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And so it there's I've never had long periods of like wallowing, I don't think, or the being stuck in the fear because I've just naturally very quickly click into like, okay, well, we need a new plan here, like what is the plan, right?
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And let's just focus on that.
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And so it very quickly shifted to I literally remember writing this on I had a whiteboard in my room.
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I remember writing $2,000 like on the whiteboard because it was okay I'm scrap you know the startup is dead.
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I'm not working on this anymore.
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These illusions of raising 500 grand and and going big and going on like that's not happening anymore.
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So what is like the thing that I can focus on next and like this number is it like how do I get to this number by this date? >> Wow.
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And that was just the new plan.
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And so it felt like a very quick shift from, >> you know, focused on the startup to, oh wow, no, this is like not it. This is dead.
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And I I think I must have spent some time making sure that I wasn't just having a momentary freakout because you don't want to go in that route either.
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But I remember it being a pretty quick and pretty adamant realization and decision.
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And it was probably bubbling up for a couple of months is like really what was going on.
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Um, and then yeah, I was just like, okay, this is the thing that I focus on now.
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And for better or worse, I think I am good at that, right?
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Of >> okay, like this feels like it's hit a wall or there's an issue here and like but there's this other vector that does have potential.
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I'm going to go on that one.
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And that has worked out very well for me.
20:04
And it has definitely had the the downside, the negative side of like quitting things too quickly or killing things too quickly.
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And it can be tough to find that balance sometimes. >> Yeah.
20:12
when you think back on that because you've written publicly about quitting and and talked a lot about it, but do you do you have in 2026 where we sit now, do you have any updated thoughts on like when like sort of knowing when to fold them and knowing when to hold them?
20:25
Like is there do you have any new heristics or like ways you're thinking about it?
20:29
>> Yeah, I I think that ultimately, you know, I have always had this bias towards quitting early is the wrong term, but like being willing to kill something and move on to a better opportunity.
20:39
The issue with that is that it has led to a lot of shiny object syndrome.
20:44
And most people I think go through a period of that where they do this thing and then this thing and then this thing and then this thing and they don't get anywhere and so they realize like oh I shouldn't do that.
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I should pick something and focus on it.
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>> The issue for me is that it's worked. >> Right. >> Right.
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In like [laughter] >> and I I don't whatever I I don't mean this in like a braggadocious way.
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It's just like I've gotten away with it, you know?
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Like I've been able to get super interested and fascinated in things and go hard in them for a year and launch these little businesses off of my ex account or my newsletter and then they go super well, right?
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And it's like, okay, I can just become obsessed about something and dig into it for 6 months and then launch a course or do a product and it makes like a few hundred grand in the span of a couple of months and it's like great, like costs are covered for this next period of getting obsessed about things.
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And that's a cool ability to have.
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That's a really I mean it's incredibly powerful.
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It's incredibly useful and very grateful that I've been able to do that.
21:43
And it does lead to not fully committing to things, not seeing where they can go, not I think like living up to my full potential or those ideas full potential in a lot of those areas because these these moments will happen, right?
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I'll have these these breakthrough periods and then instead of saying like, "Okay, cool.
22:06
saying like, "Okay, cool. the excitement is over now for the long slow >> slog >> slog to you know 10x this or something it's well I could just goof off for 6 months and then I could just do this again and like and that that has been fun that has been satisfying and then really last fall I I actually sat down
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and I I ended up having this conversation with my wife too where I was like I don't think I should keep doing this like even though it's working >> and even though it has you know provided a lot of the sustenance and stuff for for our life Um, it feels like I've been playing this game a little bit too long. Like I should I really need to I want to
22:41
Like I should I really need to I want to focus on something.
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Like I want to do something bigger that's like serious that has a meaningful risk of failure.
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Cuz I think part of it comes from a fear of failure.
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A fear of trying something big and it not working and being embarrassed because that means I'm not smart.
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That means I'm not capable.
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But as long as I'm doing these little things, there's no risk of ever feeling that way. Exactly.
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6 months later something else will come down the road and you can figure that out.
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>> Something's going to happen.
23:10
>> Why did that why last fall?
23:10
Like was there something going on that occasioned that kind of hey maybe I I need to stick with one thing for a while?
23:19
>> I think it was it was a combination of things.
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One I'd been doing this sci-fi writing for a year and a half and you know it was clear that that wasn't going to pay the bills.
23:31
Uh while that had been going on, I'd been super deep in building with AI and learning how to use these AI tools.
23:38
And I had launched a course on learning how to vibe code before vibe code was even a term. Yeah. Yeah.
23:44
Nobody had used that word yet. Andre hadn't coined it.
23:46
It was basically the first big vibe coding educational thing out there. And I launched it.
23:51
It did like 250 grand of sales in a weekend.
23:55
went on to do half a million over the course of the year with like basically no ongoing work after that first set of recordings and then an update in October.
24:03
So like breakout [snorts] success and I had seen a lot of people who came in after me.
24:08
Some of them even who like took my course and then actually committed to doing something with those skills and like building a product or building like a bigger education business and realizing that I had been so early.
24:22
I had established myself in that topic area and then had just completely let that opportunity go >> and like maybe there would never be another opportunity like that in my life.
24:35
life. um you know I don't actually believe that but it's a it's a consideration right and so looking at that >> that was hard right it was like wow you know I >> like I nailed this time >> yeah [laughter] >> I mean that was like and then I just did nothing with it I just like let it go right and that felt like a mistake it
24:52
felt like you know this and I think being a parent contributes to it a lot right where it's like would I tell my kids to treat opportunities that way like definitely not right uh if they came to me and said what should I do with this I would say like obviously you should keep going right like >> [laughter] >> That's right. >> You know, uh, and so it's like, okay,
25:06
>> You know, uh, and so it's like, okay, well, why wasn't I doing that?
25:08
And it just it made me want to do something bigger, right?
25:13
Like fully commit to something.
25:16
>> And that kind of like started that thought process last fall.
25:18
And then I spent the next like four, five, six months figuring out what that could be. >> Yeah.
25:25
Well, so that kind of, you know, we'll we'll cover some of the other the other topics from your from the early part of your adventures, but it brings us to what you are doing now, which is one of the most interesting things that I've seen in your career evolution and you're just like the portfolio of stuff you work on.
25:40
But tell us a little bit about the result of that soularching last fall and what you are up to today. >> Yeah.
25:47
So I I you know I had that decision basically made this decision last fall like okay I'm going to put the book work on hold.
25:54
I'm gonna take something from this interest in technology and really just go all in on it.
26:01
it. And so started spending really all of my time at that point going even going deeper than I had before on the building with AI using AI like what is interesting here and had started working on one product led to another and another and was kind of
26:17
going down that path and then there was this like tiny trickle of a side quest where uh Cameron Sorsby was working at Alpha School and he had DM'd me on Twitter and he had said hey >> all roads lead back to >> all roads Exactly. [laughter] All good
26:30
[laughter] All good things all good things come from X.
26:32
And so he had DM'd me on X and he had said, "Hey, you know, I work at Alpha School.
26:40
I'm working on this new uh high school program for entrepreneurs.
26:42
You know, I want to help the kids level up their AI skills.
26:47
Would you be down to come in and do a workshop for them?"
26:49
And I already knew about Alpha School at that point.
26:52
It was I was already I kind of part of why I liked being in Austin was knowing that I could send my kids to Alpha School because to me it was and still is the most interesting thing happening in education.
27:02
It's the one school that I would most want to send my kids to and I I liked being there and it was actually you know literally one of the first thoughts going through my head was like ah this is how I get my kids into alpha school [laughter] >> and they'll discount the tuition. >> Exactly.
27:15
like I get into good graces now and then when I apply next year for my kindergartener like I'll I'll get through the application process cuz I'm already like on the end, right?
27:23
Like I was literally thinking that it was, you know, it wasn't completely selfish too motivated.
27:27
There was like a bit of that.
27:29
There was a bit of like, oh yeah, this sounds super fun.
27:31
This sounds super exciting.
27:32
Like of course I want to come do an AI workshop for these high schoolers.
27:36
In part because I was curious to see what is an alpha school high schooler like from everything I knew about the school.
27:41
So I went and I did kind of a modified version of my building with AI course for these high schoolers and was just blown away because they were they were super sharp.
27:52
A lot of them had already started working on business ideas or had already built audiences.
27:56
A couple of them like over a million followers on TikTok, right?
28:00
They were they were really sharp.
28:01
They were asking better questions than a lot of adults that I had done some of this stuff with.
28:04
and they could take feedback extremely well, which maybe stood out the most where I think there's a natural fear when working with students that you got to you kind of have to put on kid gloves.
28:15
But they were very eager to hear like this part of your landing page is ugly.
28:20
You can change the copy like this.
28:22
You know, this is broken.
28:23
You need to go harder here.
28:25
They were super receptive to it.
28:26
And so it was this really just I loved doing the workshop. >> Yeah.
28:30
>> And then >> how long was that workshop? Was it a couple hours? A half day?
28:32
What was the >> Yeah, it was like a half day.
28:34
4 hours because it was a little bit of talking and then independent work sessions and then coming back together and then independent work.
28:41
So, it was kind of like flowing back and forth over the course of an afternoon.
28:45
>> And then after we did that, Cameron and I were hanging out and talking more.
28:47
And then he told me more about what he had joined Alpha School to do, which was this new high school for entrepreneurs, um, what's now [clears throat] called Founders School, where they would promise that the students would make a million dollars by graduation or get all of their tuition refunded.
29:03
And [laughter] yeah, my immediate reaction was like, that is the worst business idea I've [laughter] ever heard, >> right?
29:12
>> Like you you realize what you're committing to here, right?
29:13
But then I thought about it some more and I thought about what I'd seen with the students and obviously I was super deep in building with AI and had seen what a lot of other teens out there were doing with AI, what teens were doing starting businesses without this kind of support and very quickly got to the point of, oh, this is actually doable, >> right?
29:32
>> right? Like it sounds insane, but you combine what Alpha's done with academics and being able to compress the whole high school day to about 3 hours, which gives you four to five hours of hands-on workshops, instruction, mentorship, support, specifically on entrepreneurship in the afternoon, and
29:50
you take that out across four years and then you add in what AI lets a teenager do and it all, you know, fit all those pieces together and you realize like, oh, this is actually, >> yeah, it makes all the sense in the world, especially if you get the right people in the room to help them, right? Because it can go the wrong way. If they
30:05
Because it can go the wrong way.
30:05
If they have the wrong support, wrong mentors, wrong guidance, it's not going to work.
30:09
But you get the right people in there, this could work, you know?
30:11
So, he just asked like, "Would you be down to like chat with me occasionally as I as I plan this out?"
30:15
And I was like, "Yeah, this sounds awesome.
30:16
Um, you know, I'd love to come in and talk to the students, be a mentor, whatever."
30:19
And so, we were just talking about it for the next two, three months while I was working on all these other AI projects.
30:24
these other AI projects. And after a few months of us talking about it, I I had kind of found something that was really taking off with the AI products and it was stuff related to OpenClaw and agents and you know side conversation and basically was in the middle of launching that when Cameron and I hung out again
30:47
and he said you know I think that for this school to work I need somebody who is like super entrepreneurial, super AIdriven, good at like quickly getting things from zero to one, uh, to be on the ground like working with the students, designing the curriculum and whatnot alongside me because Cameron's like I mean one, he's great educator. He's been building college alternative
31:09
He's been building college alternative programs for the last 10 years where he knows all that stuff.
31:13
He's not as deep on the AI side or the like hacky solarreneur side as I am.
31:17
And so he was basically like, "Do you know anyone who'd be good to come do this with me?"
31:23
[laughter] >> You're looking at it.
31:23
And I was like, and it it was literally it it was one of the strangest moments of my life because I I had not thought about it at all >> before that moment.
31:33
There was no part of me that was like, "Oh, I'm going to drop everything and come like be a co-founder on a high school." >> Yeah. >> Right.
31:41
But then as soon as he asked that >> and you know, as soon as he kind of put that seed of somebody needs to come do this with him, >> Yeah.
31:50
>> it was like, "Oh, like it's me." >> Right. [laughter] Right.
31:53
And I was like, "Oh, I I need to talk about this with my wife." Right.
31:58
>> And I I think I just went silent for a minute.
32:00
I was kind of staring at him as I was processing all of this.
32:05
>> And I think what I said was I was like, >> "It's not a no." >> Right?
32:08
And then I could see him being like, "Wait, what?"
32:10
Like, "This is an option."
32:12
>> And I went home and told go this is happening and she was like, "You have to do this, right?"
32:17
And it would it just immediately was like, "This has to happen."
32:21
And I think I I think this was a Friday and then I showed up Monday and just started working >> and didn't get officially hired for another month [laughter] >> because like you know it's a big company.
32:32
You have to go through HR.
32:32
You have to do other interviews and like negotiate comp and do all the like big company stuff.
32:37
And I was like I don't care.
32:38
Like I'm just going to show up and going to start doing this with you and like we're going to make this happen.
32:43
>> And that's and then I you know had to kind of shut off everything else.
32:46
I didn't I didn't have to.
32:47
And there was an evolution to the school that we might get into where at first I thought I was gonna like I'll still do some of my side stuff.
32:55
>> I was gonna ask that like did you see yourself doing this as another side hustle?
32:58
Like >> it it started that way because in the beginning this was going to be a program for the students in Austin, >> right?
33:07
>> And then >> the students who were already at Alpha School. >> Yeah.
33:09
The Alpha High School in Austin.
33:11
And then it very quickly evolved into this should be like a dedicated high school program.
33:16
And can you walk us through that evolution because this to when I first heard about this I was like oh Nat's going to be running programs for alpha school and then it was like no no no there's like a thousand person high school that the ambition is to build a thousand person high school in the middle of New York City and then I texted you and you were like I live in New York now >> you really burned the boats there. >> Oh yeah. >> Yeah.
33:38
I mean we we had that conversation where I decided to join beginning of February. >> Yeah.
33:43
And then we were kind of planning out the the programming for it over the next six weeks and like what would it look like as part of the high school, you know, what would we teach?
33:54
Who are the mentors that we want involved?
33:56
You know, like kind of like the program level structure.
34:00
And then I I did a workshop for the Austin students on using open claw which was you know for anybody who doesn't know it's this way of using an AI agent that kind of unlocks it and gives it superpowers in a way that you don't get access to if you're using clawed co-work or even claude code or the codox codeex desktop app or perplexity computer all these other things that are agentic.
34:25
They have you know a certain amount of agent abilities to act on your behalf.
34:29
this is like the next step beyond in terms of what it allows you to do.
34:34
It brings a lot of risks to it because you're giving it a lot of kind of unfettered access to things, but you build it right and it is the closest thing to having a human working alongside you.
34:43
And I'd ended up adopting it pretty early.
34:46
Had kind of again gotten away with very quickly building a ton of just by being excited about it, just by talking about it, like not in a malicious way.
34:54
I was just so obsessed with this >> and posting about it on X constantly.
35:00
And then the students started asking like hey can we do a workshop on this was like yeah sure that sounds great did a couple of workshops for openclaw with the alpha students and then the alpha parents in other cities heard about it and they were like wait can you come do
35:14
this with us [snorts] >> and so beginning of April we come out to the New York campus to do the openclaw workshop with the New York students and their parents and while we're doing the workshop me and Cameron start just casually talking about founders school
35:30
with these parents and they are all like that is the most incredible idea ever like you got to come do it here >> and they started you know mentioning people they knew whose kids would be a good fit it was like there was this immediate excitement and interest and possible like students who were a fit
35:47
for it that we hadn't run into yet in Austin >> that's surprising did that surprise you at all I mean it given >> it did it first >> yeah cuz like I would have thought you would have had to ship out to San Francisco or stay in Austin New York City. >> It surprised me at first, but then the
36:00
>> It surprised me at first, but then the reason it ended up making sense is that that demand is absolutely there in Austin >> in 5 to 10 years.
36:09
>> Austin is a young entrepreneurial city.
36:12
Like people are moving there >> earlier in their famil family's lives.
36:16
And so the prek, first grade, second grade, third grade demand for alpha is overwhelming.
36:22
But there aren't as many people who are, you know, come from this entrepreneurial background or this like ultra high net worth, high net worth background with teenagers who have come to Austin who are looking for this.
36:31
And so that demand, there's a bit more of that here.
36:36
And when you look at like the elite high schools that we are competing with, right, the horse mans, the exiters, those like much more of those are on the east coast than they are in Austin.
36:47
And so that it was kind of like that drove the thinking.
36:49
the parent excitement drove the thinking and then it was just it kind of became clear that like okay if we're getting this started we're going to have more demand for these students in New York City initially than we are in Austin.
37:00
Um but Cameron was living in Austin.
37:04
I was living in Austin with my three kids.
37:06
You know Joe, our principal is in Austin and the New York campus is new.
37:12
It you know New York only started last year but the New York team was really excited about it.
37:17
But it was kind of this funny thing where I think everybody arrived at the we need to do this in New York conclusion. >> Yeah.
37:24
>> At the same time independently, but nobody wanted to bring it up first immediately.
37:28
So there was like this little like dance that we were doing for about a week and then we all kind of set it at once and it was just like, oh yeah, obviously that's what we're going to do. And that was midappril. >> Wow.
37:41
>> And June 1 I moved in here. >> Wow. [laughter] All right.
37:43
So we are we are in media res then we're in the middle of this.
37:48
>> So what is it what is how is founder school going to be distinct from alpha school. >> Yeah.
37:54
>> Yeah. So I mean the core premise of alpha is that well one students should love school >> right which sounds obvious kind of when you say but it's not a given at all right and a lot of parents have just kind of accepted that their kid is going to be bored in school and that's just
38:11
part of life right and so you say that oh no the the primary the number one mission of this school is that kids will love it right that it says something right and uh one of the main ways that you allow allow kids to love school is if you give them a good reason to get the academics done besides I told you to, [laughter] right? Because normally,
38:32
Because normally, you know, you're getting academics done because otherwise you're going to get in trouble at school or get in trouble with your parents, right?
38:39
And like maybe your parents give you some money for getting A's on your report card, but Alpha kind of takes it to the max where we say like we want to make it as rewarding as possible to get your academics done.
38:48
And first we're going to compress it to 2 hours a day in K through 8, 3 hours in high school.
38:55
And we do that through an AI tutor that knows exactly where you are in reading, math, writing, science, everything.
39:02
Gives you the exact next thing you need to learn to progress towards mastery for your age.
39:05
and you're never sitting in a lecture being bored waiting for somebody to catch up.
39:11
You're never slowed down from going ahead if you're interested in a subject.
39:15
You're getting kind of like the exact right challenge for where you are and that lets you do the whole day in 2 hours.
39:22
But, you know, the the you'll have people who say like, "Oh, well then they're in front of screens and they're working with AI, right?"
39:27
And it's I I understand why people are concerned about that.
39:32
>> But then you talk to the students, >> right?
39:34
>> right? and you hear them and they and you ask them would you rather you and the the test scores are better right like we we have absolute performed >> you could argue that it's the highest performing private school in the country right for a lot of these measures um especially especially on K through 8 and
39:52
>> and you ask the kids like okay well would you rather sit in classes all day or would you rather do these two hours on your laptop or computer in the morning and every single one of them says that oh I'd rather do that you know we we used to survey our students and say, "Do you love school?" >> And that was like one of our most
40:07
>> And that was like one of our most important surveys at the end of each session, each semester, >> but we stopped doing it because 90 95% 98% would say, "Yes, I love school."
40:16
So, it stopped being a useful measure.
40:20
>> And so now we ask them, "Do you like school more than vacation?"
40:25
>> And 54% of students say, "I would rather go to alpha school than go on vacation." >> Wow.
40:31
>> And that's an insane metric.
40:31
That's that's an NPS that any business would be proud to have. >> Yeah.
40:36
And but the way that that happens is that the compressed academics are one part of it, >> but the the reward, the incentive, the benefit of that is that you're doing awesome stuff in the rest of the day.
40:46
So, it's still a full school day.
40:48
>> It's still 9 to 3:30, but the academics are done by 11, 11:30, and then you have 3 or 4 hours to do other awesome stuff.
40:57
>> And those change throughout the year.
40:59
They change by grade level, but they're focused on some kind of life skills workshop where the students are doing something fun while building some important life skill.
41:08
And they're often pretty ambitious for their age group.
41:12
So, for example, one of the ones the kindergarters do is they have a two-month session where they climb a 40ft rock wall. >> Wow. >> Wow.
41:20
>> And so, they go to a local climbing gym.
41:23
They harness up and day one they go one step up the wall >> and they're all cheering for each other because they got on the wall.
41:29
The next day they go two steps up, three steps up.
41:33
You do that over two months and by the end of it they're going 3540 ft up this wall while their friends are cheering them on.
41:39
The parents are terrified, right?
41:40
[laughter] The parents are like, "Oh my gosh, what is this?"
41:44
But then they see how proud their kid is they did it.
41:46
they see their peers cheering them on and like that's what they're spending most of their day on >> instead of sitting in a lecture hall.
41:54
And so you ask a kid, right?
41:54
Like would you rather sit in a lecture for most of the day or would you rather get your academics done and then go rock climbing the rest of the day? >> Right. Yeah.
42:01
I think the other, you know, it's interesting my when I think about alpha school, which I'm a huge fan of and I hope my daughter enrolls at some point.
42:10
Um she's taking a different tack at least through middle school, but then we'll see what happens with high school.
42:14
Um, I think some some people think it's a bet on the reinvention of education. I don't.
42:18
I think that's like one part of it.
42:20
I think the more accurate statement is it's actually a much safer bet on how kids already are wired, right?
42:28
Like I like my my daughter's creating things all the time, right?
42:32
It just doesn't happen within the four walls of her school.
42:33
And at her school, and this is not a knock on them. This is their model.
42:37
In some ways, it's actively penalized, right?
42:39
the things she wants to do to get ahead, the things she wants to do to like break the rules a little bit are not encouraged.
42:43
It feels like what Alpha is doing is actually just >> in some ways catering to the inborn instincts of children, right?
42:49
As opposed to actually like reinventing the system.
42:52
They're reinventing the system that adults created, right?
42:54
But actually, kids are very naturally wired for these kinds of environments.
42:58
>> Kids are natural learners.
42:58
They're naturally curious.
43:00
And this was a really long way of me answering the question. you started with me.
43:06
>> Well, no, but like you you seged it back perfectly because part of Alpha's, you know, ethos is that every kid is naturally motivated by something.
43:14
There's something that they are just wired for, right?
43:16
And this is kind of like there's this great Slate Star CEX article, the parable of the talents, right?
43:22
where uh it's not so much that everybody is born with some innate talent for piano or for running or for writing or whatever, but we often are born with a fascination, >> something that we just naturally gravitate towards.
43:36
And by gravitating towards something, you you want to do more of it.
43:41
It's kind of self-rewarding.
43:43
Most things in your life won't be right, but that's why you like get paid to work and do all these other things.
43:46
And so if you can find what it is a kid is just naturally drawn to do and you can free up their day to get to do a lot more of that, they will get through the academics way more efficiently and with much deeper mastery than they do in the normal system.
44:03
And so Alpha School has created all of these different schools to cater towards different students fascinations.
44:10
So Alpha is the one that most people know the know of the best, right?
44:14
Like it's the most wellknown.
44:16
It's kind of like the elite private school and Alpha's afternoons are focused on these workshops and then when you get to middle school and high school, you get to pick a big passion project that you want to dedicate that time to.
44:28
But we have other schools like the Texas sportsmies where you get your academics done in the two hours in the morning and then you spend the whole day playing sports.
44:37
>> And for a lot of kids, that is what makes them perform, right?
44:40
makes them perform, right? that is how they get through their academics because it's like oh you just got to get your two hours of math and reading done and then you can play basketball or volleyball or baseball for six hours >> right >> it's like yeah I'm going to get it done
44:53
so when was when did the thinking evolve to the point that founder school was going to be its own entity and not like simply like a track that you could do within alpha school because you're going to be admitting students who know they're going to founder school right is
45:08
that correct >> yes so it kind of evolved from this model that Alpha had started at K through 8 of okay so like sportsmies for sports right waypoint the kids are horseback riding and doing archery and rocking and doing like outdoor activities uh GT school it's hardcore on
45:26
more academics in the afternoon right and so we'd started this model at the younger ages and we said okay what are the high schools that should exist exactly so alpha school alpha high is the one where you can explore anything that you're passionate about and super interested in, right? Like it's very
45:41
Like it's very open-ended.
45:43
We have a student who is going for the Olympics and rowing.
45:45
We have students who are writing novels.
45:47
We have a student putting on a Broadway play.
45:50
We have students who are starting businesses.
45:52
And it was actually partially their idea to do founder school because the thinking with founder school is okay if you are really serious about building a business in high school and you want to be held to even higher expectations on that but get even more deeper like crazy support to go after it like this is the school for you.
46:12
And so it's kind of like it's it's stepping up the the expectations.
46:17
Obviously, we have a longer school day, right?
46:20
We >> Is it So, it's longer than the usual alpha school day. >> Yeah.
46:24
So, it ends at 5:00 instead of 3:30. >> What? Why? Why that choice?
46:26
That's an interesting choice or design choice. >> Get more time, right?
46:29
So, it's it's kind of like we are saying that you were It's basically like if you were going into an apprenticeship >> in the preschool era, right?
46:36
You're deciding at 14, 15, 16 that you're going to become a master blacksmith.
46:44
>> And nobody should be able to say like, "Oh, no.
46:46
you have to go do these other things before you can become a blacksmith.
46:49
Like if you know that's what you want to do and obviously like our our students are still being held to very high academic standards.
46:54
We're still doing all the academics.
46:55
They're still going to be in excellent shape for college.
46:58
But if they know that entrepreneurship is what lights them up and that's what they're going to be doing when they go home anyway after school, >> they can just stay with us longer.
47:07
Because the great thing about how we've designed Founders School is that there is programming and curriculum and structure, but it's also very heavily tailored to provide the exact support the student needs at where they are in their business.
47:20
So instead of a month or two months or a semester where we're doing tons of classes on Facebook ads, if we see that a student is at the point where they might start experimenting with meta ads and that is something that they want to explore, we're getting them one-on-one support with an expert who is a practitioner in the field.
47:43
somebody who's like running an ads agency or something who we are buying a certain amount of time from each week to work with our students to train them, mentor them, audit their process, and help them learn that specific skill right at the time when they need it.
48:00
>> And so they're getting this incredible amount of support for anything they might run into in their business along with the like coaching, emotional support, encouragement that is kind of like standard for alpha across both the academics and the extracurriculars. >> Got it.
48:13
And so the the audacious bet, right, is the bet that you started our conversation with, which is you will make a million dollars in revenue by the end of your four years or we will re >> gross profit.
48:23
>> Gross profit, not revenue. >> Not revenue. Yeah. >> Wow. And even more audacious. >> Yeah.
48:27
>> So how does that mean you know without giving away state secrets or anything privileged or or something you can't share?
48:32
What was the thinking around that particular set of numbers the bet that kind of promise because that's that is among other things the thing that's been getting headlined. >> Yeah.
48:41
So this was something that uh Joe came up with when he came up with the idea for the school because >> remember what I said at the beginning of the conversation.
48:49
>> Can you say just a little bit about Joe so people have context for who he is and there are people who are going to be learning about Alpha School for the first time. >> Yeah. Okay.
48:54
So uh Joe Lamont joined kind of came in as the second co-founder for Alpha School uh about 5 years ago.
49:01
Alpha was originally started by Mackenzie Price in 2014.
49:06
She ran it as a school in Austin using all these same principles of kind of direct instruction, one-on-one mentorship, spending most of the day on activities and pioneered the overall structure for the school with incredible success.
49:20
Joe founded a software company uh in the '90s called Trilogy.
49:26
uh it's grown to and he's the sole owner of it now deca billion dollar company massive successful uh tech entrepreneur and his his [clears throat] daughter ended up going to Alpha. >> Oh wow. >> Uh in Austin. >> Okay.
49:41
>> And so he kind of found out about it that way and he fell in love with the model was just amazed by what McKenzie had figured out about teaching students this way.
49:49
And then he was actually he he sold one of the first pieces of software that was called like AI. It was back in the 90s.
49:57
It was like Salesforce before Salesforce would be like a way you could describe it.
50:01
So he's been obsessed with the potential of AI for 30 years now.
50:07
And so when generative AI came on the scene, he basically went to McKenzie and said, "This is how we take what you have figured out and bring it to a billion students." >> Wow.
50:18
Because with AI we can this is how we scale it.
50:20
And so that is the like core mission of everything that we are doing at Alpha is how do we bring the best education possible to a billion students around the world and it's kind of like this Tesla model right like we are starting with the Model S with the Roadster the you know we need the expensive one first and then we're able to bring it down market to broader and broader audiences.
50:39
And so he brought in the software side and invested a significant amount of his capital and started building out the alpha that more people have heard of today.
50:47
And so he's obviously an incredibly successful tech entrepreneur.
50:51
Uh he saw the students in Alpha who were really entrepreneurial.
50:55
And between them and he they came up with this idea for the founder school, right?
50:59
The the school for entrepreneurs make a million dollars in profit or your money back. >> Exactly.
51:03
But he he knew the same thing that I said at the top of the conversation, which was that there are no good entrepreneurship programs out there. >> Right. [laughter] >> Right. >> Right.
51:12
Like, you know, there's no undergraduate entrepreneurship degree that's worth it.
51:16
There's really no graduate one that's that good either.
51:21
There are people who go to these schools and then become successful entrepreneurs, but there are really none of these schools that reliably drive outcomes in entrepreneurship. Yeah.
51:31
>> And so if you just said we're launching a high school for entrepreneurs, it's kind of like h okay, right?
51:37
Like >> there's a lot of places that are for entrepreneurs, right?
51:42
There's FBLA, there's all these things that say they're going to teach you entrepreneurship and everybody kind of knows that they're not or they're not going to do that good of a job.
51:51
But then if you say we're launching a school for entrepreneurs and if your kid doesn't make a million dollars by graduation, we are going to refund you the tuition, right?
52:01
>> Tuition is 150k a year, right?
52:03
>> So, you know, we're saying that we're going to give you back 600k at the end of four years if we don't get your student to this outcome.
52:08
And obviously, there's like caveats to this, right?
52:12
Like, you know, we're we're assessing the students each year, right?
52:13
If a student comes in sophomore year, then they're not on the guarantee, right?
52:18
Like there's all the edge cases and guarantees and things like but >> that is the core promise of the school and really that's a pressure or that's it's putting the pressure on us to actually figure this out >> right to actually make sure that we are delivering on these outcomes and not
52:35
playing startup like I was when I was in college trying to learn this for for myself and so it's this incredible forcing function and it's the only reason that anybody's talking about this >> right because We have to be insanely committed to creating the best education experience possible on this topic. One
52:54
One that has never existed before >> and that nobody has made this kind of commitment before >> and that is where all of our mental energy is going >> is like we know this is possible and we just have to really fine-tune that as we work with the students.
53:08
>> How do you avoid the undue pressure to I mean you're early innings in this, right?
53:12
So it's like it's actually fun to talk about it while it's still being figured out.
53:14
How have you thought about uh not putting that pressure on the student themselves for that kind of gross profit or money back uh burden. >> Yeah. Yeah. I Okay.
53:25
So, we've actually had a couple of parents who have said that they don't want to do the guarantee. >> Oh, wow. Okay.
53:31
Because for that exact reason. >> Okay. >> Right.
53:33
They're like, I don't want my student to feel like you're my kid.
53:35
I always say student because it's like being called kids.
53:38
Um but yeah, I don't want my kid to feel like they have to hit this or I'm going to be right.
53:42
And it's like yeah, obviously, right?
53:44
Like we don't want that either, right?
53:46
It's first and foremost an offer to the parents, >> right?
53:50
It's like it is the most expensive high school in the country aside from IMG maybe, but that's how much we're investing in the students, right?
53:57
Like there's no other school that is going to get your kid on the phone with like a top tier meta ads expert the next day when they have trouble with their ads account, right?
54:03
Like but it's a it's a huge investment and so we're saying like this is what we are willing to commit to, >> right?
54:10
U but we don't want to create, you know, unpleasant pressure on the students.
54:14
Um but it's also uh it it factored into how we ended up at the like gross profit calcula or decision too. >> More about that.
54:22
>> Well, so it's kind of like okay we we want the most aligned structure. >> Yeah.
54:28
>> Without while creating minimum adverse incentives, >> right?
54:33
And so okay, if we do we can't do valuation, >> right?
54:37
>> Because oh I raise >> right you can valuations can be made [clears throat] up every day.
54:41
>> 1% my company for Exactly. Right.
54:41
It's like, okay, we're not going to do that cuz then they might not learn anything. >> Yeah. >> Right.
54:47
Like cuz part of this is how do we make sure they learn the most, >> right?
54:50
And so, okay, then revenue >> don't really want to just do revenue either because then they could just be like incredibly unprofitable >> and they like they have made money and they've like built some business, but it's not necessarily like a good business.
55:07
>> And so we went from that to okay, well net profit then, right?
55:09
like it'll be net profit because we want them to not just like spend infinite money on ads or something and then um you know spend 10 million on ads to get a million in revenue cuz you know mom and dad funded or something like we don't want that.
55:21
Um >> but then we realized the problem with net revenue or net profit was that we would we would create other adverse incentives where we were telling the students not to reinvest in their business.
55:34
>> Oh that's fascinating, >> right?
55:36
And we're like, well, shoot.
55:36
We don't want that either.
55:39
>> We want them to just take money out in order to avoid the or their parents get back the 600k. >> Exactly. Right.
55:44
We didn't want to be going to the students and saying like, no, don't run ads.
55:47
Don't do another production run.
55:50
Don't hire an employee because we need to make this number happen, right?
55:54
And so that's how we ended up on this kind of like gross profit calculation where it's like, okay, you know, we're going to factor in a certain amount of cost of goods sold and like you probably wouldn't normally put like advertising and stuff in there, but we're going to put that in there, too.
56:04
But we're not, you know, we're not going to try to disincentivize you from like growing your team or reinvesting in the business or doing any of that because like there might be a student who builds a $10 million business in and like I that sounds insane sometimes when you say in front of parents, but I think that's fully possible in four years.
56:18
We just seeing some of the students who are applying who are already making progress.
56:23
Some of the students who I mean Zach Adagari what he's 19 and he sold Calai for $50 million. >> Wow. [laughter] >> Wow. >> Right.
56:30
Like and he was going to a normal school.
56:32
He had to figure this all out on his own. Yeah, that's right.
56:34
And >> so it's like this is possible.
56:34
But no, that was like it's and the reason that we have to put so much thought into it is that we want the best structure possible for everybody.
56:43
It's not like a trying to get out of something.
56:46
It's like uh the thing we care most about is providing the best entrepreneurial education for these students.
56:52
something that has never existed before that they would be >> they would not need to go to any of these graduate entrepreneurship programs afterwards.
57:02
Like actually one of my like personal KPIs is that they could teach a class at HBS >> when they graduate, right?
57:08
Like if they can't teach a class at HBS then like I have failed.
57:12
>> Um >> and so like that's what we're aiming for and this is how it kind of gets out there. >> Yeah.
57:17
>> Yeah. So what is the So you know I understand the part of alpha school that is about compressing an ordinary school day into the two to three hours that makes all the sense in the world like there there's so many things about that that it's almost table stakes at this point right that they because because of alpha school success by the way that's not a knock it's a they did it they
57:36
proved it you kind of accept it and if you don't accept it you're just not looking at the math you're not looking at the numbers right um what is the program design and I know you're still early with this what is the program design like for founder school specifically after you've you've checked the boxes on the the things that need to be checked with your academics in the morning. >> So [clears throat] academics are done in
57:56
>> So [clears throat] academics are done in the morning and then we have the students from basically 12 to 5 for the entrepreneurial section >> about 70% of the week is independent work time or if they're working with another student as kind of like co-founders working together >> that is uh they're working on whatever stage in their business they're in.
58:13
And one of the things that we realized really early on and really quickly was that just as Alpha School cannot rely on being able to find incredible second grade math teachers in every location like the software needs to provide excellent support.
58:30
We too at founders need to create and are creating like the best software to support an early entrepreneur wherever they are in their journey.
58:40
So a lot of it comes it starts with this three kind of these three axes that we think are the most important for them to figure out to get started.
58:49
Uh the first is developing expertise and this is another fun like tie-in for me because I spent years as like a personal knowledge management influencer went very deep on this topic.
59:00
You know how do you teach yourself things? How do you learn things?
59:04
And now AI has both given us superpowers in that sense, but it's also given us this incredible crutch.
59:11
>> People will just like sling slop, >> right?
59:13
And they might make a document about a topic and then you ask them a question about it.
59:18
>> They have no idea what's in it.
59:20
>> And so >> the thing that we start every student with is like, I know you want to go build a business.
59:25
I know you want to go work on a business right now.
59:26
work on a business right now. You don't get to do that until you show that you have demonstr that you've developed some meaningful knowledge and expertise in a subject area so that you can actually build a business here >> because the number one thing that we see
59:44
with students starting businesses is they start things related to school >> which sometimes is a good idea right sometimes like a good edtech right like that's a good business a lot of the times it's not uh or they start businesses for other teens >> who don't have like just not the right market that you want to go after. So the first thing
1:00:00
So the first thing that we do and the first thing that we're we're pushing them towards is okay start just thinking of topics that you're just interested in >> and go through this process of building expertise, building deeper knowledge, teaching yourself, being able to explain what you are learning and just see where that leads you.
1:00:15
Because if you don't have a somewhat unconventional point of view on this topic, it's going to be hard for you to carve out a real competitive advantage in almost any business that you would want to go into. So, we start them there.
1:00:32
>> And what does that look like?
1:00:32
Like, do they do they read? Do they talk to people? Do they a mix of both?
1:00:35
What does that time look like where they're developing expertise? >> So, it's a mix.
1:00:40
>> What do you say, what do you want it to look like?
1:00:41
Cuz you're still building. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:00:42
So we've actually got this is the tool that we've gone the farthest on um because it's the foundational element and it looks like a mix of reading and talking to people but then doing their own research and kind of like a kneeling you know like sharpening a samurai sword right like consolidating their opinions based on these sources into defensible positions on these topics.
1:01:03
So, a little bit like what you might do in thesis research in like a PhD program, but with the support of good technology that uses AI to challenge you and help with your research and expose you to new ideas in new directions without doing the work for you.
1:01:20
And so, you can almost imagine there's aspects of like Readwise and like Roman Obsidian um but in this kind of like narrow context like pushing them towards focusing on this one area.
1:01:32
So they're not just like sprawling out into tons of directions.
1:01:35
So that that's one part of it.
1:01:37
Uh another part is the like audience and network building because the the second big challenge of becoming an entrepreneur in high school is that >> not only do you not have any expertise and experience, you don't know anyone, [laughter] >> right?
1:01:51
Like you have no connections.
1:01:51
You might have some family connections, you have the alpha connections, but that's kind of it.
1:01:57
>> And so we're pushing them to in a healthy way get online, right?
1:02:02
predominantly X because that's where we just see the most ROI like or LinkedIn right but really X and find the people who are the experts here who know this subject area really well follow them engage with them see what they're talking about and try to thoughtfully engage with them while building a bit of that audience yourself by sharing your
1:02:23
thoughts and one of the most honest you know measures of if you are developing interesting thoughts on this topic area is if you start getting responses if engagement and not like engagement in a negative viral kind of way, but if other smart adults are thoughtfully replying to you, >> you're getting somewhere, >> right? And so we're helping them build
1:02:42
>> right? And so we're helping them build expertise and build actual like industry establishment through things that teenagers never had access to before or like AI and the internet and then social media but being used in a good pro-education pro-learning way not a slop and you know Tik Tok doom scrolling way
1:03:03
>> and then so that you know it kind of starts there and we're going to start them all there and they're going to be pissed at me because they want to you know vibe code and happen to say like I'm you you know, like you can do a little bit of that in your free time, but if you don't start here, then that stuff is never going to work, >> right? Like start here. Like start here. >> Yeah.
1:03:19
>> So, we do that and then they move into our our co-founder tool basically, which working with a mix of that and our our guides, our entrepreneurs and residents, our mentor network, all of them.
1:03:29
It's like, okay, you know, I I've developed these like points of view.
1:03:32
I've started to make some of these connections and I've talked to these people in the industry and gotten their perspective.
1:03:38
These are some of the things that I think are interesting ideas, right?
1:03:40
think are interesting ideas, right? and you know kind of exploring as many of those as possible at first and being challenged on them by the tool but also by us and by the people who they've made connections with in the field and we have kind of strong opinions on this a lot of it influenced by Joe >> because you know I've had the privilege
1:03:58
of getting to spend a lot of time with him and and learn from him how he thinks about business and you know technology and opportunities and we've actually built a lot of that into the product right and so the students are almost getting this direct support from him through the tools and from him actually like coming to the school and working with them >> um >> as they start to like form these ideas. And so it just kind of helps them move
1:04:18
And so it just kind of helps them move through this process of getting to the validation phase of oh you came up with something that was a good idea that is a good plan to get to a reasonable scale and a reasonable amount of time and you have validated it.
1:04:30
You've made some kind of MVP some basic version.
1:04:32
you've charged money for it, right?
1:04:34
And now you are set up to do the flywheel, right?
1:04:37
Of like, okay, now you're going to try something and see if it works.
1:04:41
You're gonna hit a bottleneck and you're gonna ask us for help of getting through that.
1:04:45
And we're going to be checking in with you every single day during our standups, during your internal reporting to figure out where those challenges are and get you the exact support you need for whatever that next step in your business is. >> Got it.
1:04:57
Is it businesses in general when you think about the model?
1:05:00
Are you thinking about businesses where they are gonna have to hire people >> eventually? >> Eventually.
1:05:05
>> I mean, I love that idea.
1:05:05
[laughter] Like I I mean, yeah, if if if we have a 16-year-old who has a team of 10 people who are in their 20s, 30s, 40s, I mean, oh my gosh, that would be incredible.
1:05:17
>> But I mean I mean it's seriously like are you anticipating that I guess at the beginning you're saying a lot of these businesses theoretically are things that could be run with small teams or one person? >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:05:27
I I would prefer >> that their ideas >> allow them to get to that million dollar mark >> without hiring anybody, >> right?
1:05:37
>> So ideally they're, you know, clever use of AI, good pricing strategy, good market opportunity, right?
1:05:42
Like that's completely reasonable these days.
1:05:44
And so that's what we would nudge them towards.
1:05:48
I wouldn't want them to try to do, you know, like uh a a a dog like waste pickup service where you need to hire a bunch of people at minimum wage and kind of like monitor them.
1:06:02
Um one for the legal logistics because they're minors.
1:06:07
>> They're minor, [laughter] >> right?
1:06:08
Which does introduce a lot of real challenges.
1:06:10
I mean they, you know, they can't open bank accounts, they can't like sign legal forms, right?
1:06:14
And so it's a conversation we have to have with the parents too of you know, hey, you're cool with this, right?
1:06:20
Because they're going to be building a business and your name is going to have to be on it as well.
1:06:23
And they're they're all cool with it, right?
1:06:25
But it does create these weird bottlenecks where, yeah, you do kind of have to bias towards software, certain tech, like e-commerce, some things where it's a little bit easier to get some of that initial scale than if you have to go immediately hire because also a lot of people in their 30s probably don't want to work for a 16-year-old.
1:06:43
Of >> course not, >> right?
1:06:44
I mean, occasionally you'll meet one you know, yeah, I think we're also in a brave new world of that.
1:06:48
I think I you could see a universe with that in which that's okay.
1:06:52
>> One question I have, I mean, among other questions is, are you screening?
1:06:54
How are you doing the screening and selection process?
1:06:58
I mean, this is actively happening now.
1:07:00
So, how do you admit a class of people that you think are going to thrive in an environment like this?
1:07:05
>> Yeah, you know, it's it's something that one we had to put a good a lot of thought into and are obviously going to keep refining.
1:07:10
And for this first class, we set the max at 20.
1:07:12
I think it'll probably be 10 to 12 because we're being, you know, one obviously very selective with it and we wanted it to be a small enough initial cohort that we could all be really hands-on with every student while we like, you know, run this first year of it.
1:07:27
And so the first thing that surprises people is we don't ask for a transcript >> because it doesn't matter that much what what your grades were because basically every student who comes into alpha, no matter what grade school they went to, they're anywhere from one to gosh 5 years behind on reading or math or these core subjects and not fully behind, but they have kind of holes in their knowledge that we need to fill in.
1:07:51
And so >> it doesn't tell us that much.
1:07:54
It gives us some idea of how gritty you are, what your grades were.
1:07:58
But even for that, it's not a great measure for that.
1:07:59
What we have is our challenge.
1:08:01
And so there's a first round of the application which kind of just gets you in the door.
1:08:06
Short answers on why you want to do this, what you've done, entrepreneurship, you know, hardest thing you've ever done, those kinds of things.
1:08:12
But then you get a challenge where over the course of two weeks, you have to go through a baby version of the process I've just described. >> Wow.
1:08:20
>> You have to come up with an unintuitive position on something.
1:08:23
Yeah, >> you have to put together like an MVP of, you know, how you would do that.
1:08:28
You have to go try to sell it to at least 20 people who are not your friends and who are not related to you.
1:08:35
>> And then you have to make a video and do a write up on everything you did and everything you learned and send us all the links so that we can go look at it.
1:08:42
>> And they don't, you know, now I think more people know that this is the challenge, but for everybody in the process right now, they didn't know this.
1:08:48
So, they didn't really have time to prepare for it.
1:08:49
And so you learn a lot about a candidate when they have that deadline to go do this.
1:08:53
And you know, some people just disappear at that point of the application and that that tells us everything, right?
1:09:00
It's like, okay, cool, right?
1:09:01
Like this isn't the right program for you.
1:09:02
But then other students just I mean blow us away, >> right?
1:09:07
Like >> we we had one student who um who who was uh who enrolled and he uh he was having a lot of trouble getting sales during the the sales part of the process.
1:09:18
And so he ended up getting the D-list for his entire school and emailed everyone like pitching his app to them and he got in trouble to like go to the dean's office but then he's telling me and I'm like you're like amazing that's incredible. >> Exactly. Exactly.
1:09:36
[laughter] Um >> and so those are you know those are the kinds of things we're looking for.
1:09:40
It's like are you fully committed to this?
1:09:43
And then in lie of the transcript we have um what's called a CCAT which is a cognitive aptitude test.
1:09:47
And so a lot of people don't know this.
1:09:49
Alpha makes every employee take this same test.
1:09:51
And if you are below the 85th percentile, you are not eligible for any role at the company. >> Wow.
1:10:00
>> So every single person at Alpha, the guides, the admin, the like everyone has to be in the top 15% on this like cognitive aptitude test.
1:10:09
And that's actually I mean it's incredibly reassuring for an education institution.
1:10:15
you know that every single person interacting with your kids like is at this level.
1:10:19
It's great for working there because you know that everybody passed this and so we just used the same thing for the students one because we were doing admissions kind of last minute.
1:10:27
We opened it in May or September and so I didn't want to make them go like do an SSAT uh and it's only 15 minutes. >> Okay. Oh wow. It's a 15-inute test. >> It's a 15-inute test.
1:10:37
So it's, you know, it's quick, but it's 50 questions and, you know, it's a mix of math, reading, kind of like, uh, spatial awareness, like similarish questions to like an IQ or workplace competency test.
1:10:50
Um, and so we have them take that in lie of looking at like transcripts or other standardized tests. >> Got it.
1:10:57
You know, we're we're going to we could talk about this for a couple more hours.
1:11:00
I want to be respectful of your time.
1:11:02
What do you how do you treat summers?
1:11:04
Um because this is a you're you're enrolling kids into a four-year program presumably, right?
1:11:08
And so what are you doing with the like a business doesn't stop just the summer starts, right?
1:11:15
How have you thought about that?
1:11:16
>> We'll keep school hours during the summer for them to come in and work on campus and we'll just not do the academic portion, right?
1:11:23
So and and Austin actually keeps their school open all summer, too.
1:11:27
This was this was the students idea because they loved going in and hanging out with their friends. >> Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:11:32
And so we'll do the same thing here.
1:11:34
We we'll say, "Yeah, like we encourage you to keep working on this over the summer.
1:11:38
We'll be here to provide all the same resources and support."
1:11:42
Oh, but I didn't even finish talking about what the rest of their day looks like.
1:11:45
It's that it's that 70% working where they are in their business with us and the apps and the tools, but then we're going to have um workshops each month on different themes.
1:11:56
>> So we'll do a month of leveling up everybody's AI skills. >> Okay? >> Right.
1:12:01
a month of leveling up everyone's sales skills, a month of copywriting, right?
1:12:05
Like some of these core business concepts.
1:12:07
We'll do probably like two well, yeah, it'll be two workshops a week of about like one and a half to two hours of going deep on this one skill for this month with kind of an adaptive structure so that you're not having to learn beginner material if you're a little bit more advanced, but it creates like more community time, right?
1:12:24
Interact, you know, working with each other instead of like just working alone on your business.
1:12:27
And it gets it lets us like help them develop these skills they might not get as much exposure to um until they need it. >> Right.
1:12:34
And then the last part of the week is pretty much every week we'll either have a, you know, elite S tier top entrepreneur, founder, executive coming in and speaking to the students, especially about their early journey, like their early days, how they got started, you know, what they learned, what they did, doing lunch with a few of them, you know, looking at their businesses, giving them feedback, giving them some of that exposure, uh, as well.
1:13:00
or it'll be like a roundt discussion on a book or something, right?
1:13:03
So, we'll probably have him read the founders.
1:13:05
>> I was going to say, sign me up because a lot of it's funny you're you're talking and a lot of what I went deep on in that book were the high school years of the people that I was writing about.
1:13:15
So, it was Reed Hoffman, it was Elon Musk, it was Peter Teal, it was Max Levchin, it was David Sax.
1:13:19
I would go and I would start my discussions with them way before PayPal ever started.
1:13:24
Like the first conversations were usually around high school and college because you find that in many cases they are living their version of founder school, right? They all Exactly. Yeah.
1:13:35
They cobbled it together often at great personal risk and and in the face of a lot of parental pressure and stuff.
1:13:42
pressure and stuff. Um, there was one person you're you're you're telling a story that reminded me of a gentleman that I interviewed who was I think like the fifth or sixth employee at PayPal and he was on the engineering team and his name was Tom Pitel and he was like
1:13:56
this famously this like vagabond with with very dubious footwear like his shoes were like ratty um but he was a genius level coder and he didn't you know it was sort of it was interesting and somewhat like um you know you would admire people who dropped out of college. He actually dropped out of high
1:14:11
He actually dropped out of high school and he decided his he was just going to take it take the show on the road.
1:14:16
He was writing code I think for video games.
1:14:17
Um and he dropped out of high school and started working right then and just continued that found his way to PayPal.
1:14:25
Had no interest in being an employee but somehow you know the team kind of coaxed him into it and that was how he got his start and he was the ultimate example of what you're talking about.
1:14:34
Uh and without without any of the support or the structure or anything.
1:14:36
I mean, again, going back to why we believe this is possible is that people have been hacking versions of this together with way less support.
1:14:43
Nobody really doubts that a Stanford sophomore >> could drop out and start what becomes a billion dollar business, right?
1:14:52
And so it's like, what are they getting at Stanford?
1:14:54
Like one, there's the selection effects.
1:14:57
>> Two, it's some amount of network, right, that you get from like being there and meeting the people who are coming to visit campus and maybe a couple of the classes.
1:15:04
But a lot of it is just that like, oh, okay, like a 20-year-old can do this.
1:15:08
A 19-year-old can do this.
1:15:08
So, a 16-year-old can definitely start a million- dollar business, right?
1:15:12
It's eminently reasonable.
1:15:14
It's just no one's tried before, >> right?
1:15:16
Well, and no one no one I think has sort of set I think one of the things that that Alpha School has made possible is you've just expanded the Overton window on what is possible in education, right?
1:15:26
A lot of it is like you just you've asked the unreasonable question.
1:15:29
You have said, "Well, what if this could be true?"
1:15:30
and then it becomes true as a result of simply asking and then selecting the students and building the programming.
1:15:36
Like a lot of it I think is is pushing the boundaries on what it seems crazy but is actually not all that crazy.
1:15:44
>> No, I I think that people generally dramatically underestimate especially teenagers. >> Yeah. >> Right.
1:15:50
Because we have infantilized teenagers for a long time, right?
1:15:52
you're you have to go to this place and follow this bell schedule and do what we tell you to do and then you you know now you have to like stay close to home.
1:16:00
have to like stay close to home. you don't get to travel out very much in most places like we've gotten afraid of all these things and then you go to college and like there you have to follow these rules too and so you know we we think of a 14 15 16 year old as less capable than they are and obviously they're still children right and like they still need support and they need encouragement they need a certain amount
1:16:20
of guard rails but also sometimes you just have to like get out of their way and tell them that like I believe in you and give them like just the right little nudge to get them started and then they just do these incredible
1:16:32
Like there was one student at Alpha High when I was doing the OpenCloud workshop and I I just I kind of asked them I asked the group at one point I was like where do you think you fall nationally on AI competence? Like are you top 10%? Like are you top 10%? Are you top 1%? Are you top 20%?
1:16:48
You know where do you where do you all think you fall?
1:16:52
And the consensus was like top 10%.
1:16:53
And this was towards the end of the open cloud workshop.
1:16:56
And so I was like, "No, guys, you don't understand. You're like top 0. 01%.
1:17:02
People will pay a lot of money >> for you to help them >> like implement this stuff and do it."
1:17:09
And I could I could tell some of them didn't believe me, some of them believed me.
1:17:12
But then I put it out there.
1:17:12
I was like, "If you want, you know, if if you want to like test me on this, like I will intro you to somebody who would probably pay you to help them with that." Yeah.
1:17:22
>> And one student took me up on it and I introed him to somebody who was like trying to learn how to do openclaw and stuff >> and he made 250 bucks for like a 2hour call with him and he was to the moon you know he'd never made money doing
1:17:36
something like this before and he was obsessed with the tech and so it was like oh my gosh I can make money doing something that I really like and then >> we were debriefing we were debriefing afterwards and I was like awesome like you know super happy for you super glad. was like, "Next time you do that, try
1:17:48
was like, "Next time you do that, try charging four times as much."
1:17:49
[laughter] >> And you could just seeing, right?
1:17:53
Like, you know, his eyes like, "Seriously?" >> That's amazing.
1:17:57
>> Uh, and then he did and they were just like, "Yeah, sure." Right?
1:17:58
And so they paid him a,000 bucks the next time he did it, right?
1:18:02
And it was just like it was and after that he just started getting referrals and his business was kind of like and I did nothing after that.
1:18:07
And I think he made like north of 10 grand off of doing this over the course of that spring.
1:18:11
and all I had to do was like one little nudge >> and you know one intro and then kind of like get out of the way.
1:18:19
>> It's like it it just kind of like got to give them the opportunity I think. >> Yeah.
1:18:22
I think the other the thing you made me reflect on is something you said at the very start of our conversation which is the difference between being entrepreneurial and doing entrepreneurship because you had this line where you talked about you were entrepreneurial in deciding that you could like make $250 an article or $150 an article and use geographic arbitrage to go live somewhere where that would actually allow you to live a life.
1:18:43
And that was that required a an entrepreneurial frame of mind even if it wasn't like big e entrepreneurship in the conventional sense.
1:18:52
And I think that like as I think back to my own high school years, so my my first businesses were I built uh customuilt computers for people, right?
1:18:59
And and I had I was doing the other parts of like a traditional academic life, right?
1:19:04
Getting the grades, went to Duke, all of that stuff, right? Did well on the SATs.
1:19:08
But what I realized was that actually it was in building businesses and just hacking things together that I actually used those same techniques to hack my education, right?
1:19:17
whether it was designing my own major or this is totally random, but I became obsessed with how you could hack the SAT.
1:19:23
So, at one point, what I did was I did like a super deep dive on all these obscure forums like online about different ways people had hacked the SAT.
1:19:31
One of the things that you discover is, at least in my stone age era, when you had to fill it in by hand and you were circling the bubbles, >> if you if you put one black mark through the middle of the letter, it counts for that answer.
1:19:45
Instead of shading the circle, that can seem like a really small thing, except when you shade a circle, it takes like 3 to 4 seconds to shade the circle.
1:19:53
If you do the single black vertical line through like multiple choice answer A, you get you that's 1 second.
1:20:00
So the difference between one and say 5 seconds or 1 and 4 seconds is like 3 to 4 seconds total.
1:20:06
But you multiply that across the entire test and you have gained back minutes like that you can actually use to like do the test faster because the only reason the SAT is hard is because the time pressure given infinite time everybody would be able to get a perfect score theoretically, right?
1:20:18
But the the time pressure is what matters.
1:20:20
And so once I figured that out, I was like, well, I'll just do the vertical line thing, gain back two to four minutes per section, and that gives me all the time I need to then like check answers or go back and do whatever.
1:20:31
And it was, but I don't think I would have had that ability if I hadn't been also just trying to hack things together on the side, whether it was on the internet or in real life with computers.
1:20:39
And it it seems to me that what you're giving these I hate to say kids, the students, right, is the gift of that entrepreneurial cast of mind.
1:20:47
The same one that would have led you to be like, I can do Thailand at $150 an article for Zapier and make it work. >> Yeah.
1:20:54
Well, I think that some people are certainly wired this way.
1:20:56
And you know, we I actually don't know the answer of if this is something that like develops or if it's something that you're born with, but either way, >> we might find out. >> Yeah, I know. I know. Right.
1:21:05
Um >> there's a lot of students who think this way and feel this way. Yeah. >> set of rules.
1:21:20
And this is the one thing I didn't expect, but it has ended up being incredibly like rewarding and meaningful from doing this even at this early stage is talking to some of these students and these parents and then them kind of saying like we never thought that there could be a school that said like this is okay. >> Wow. >> Right.
1:21:40
That like you know we're like you're like you're you're a good kid, right?
1:21:46
Like you're not you fit in here, right?
1:21:48
Like this is a space for you.
1:21:48
Um, and that's been really cool to see, too, cuz it's like I didn't have that, >> right?
1:21:54
And I think a lot of kids don't have that.
1:21:56
>> And, uh, I think even just like getting a lot of students like that in one room together, >> is going to be pretty incredible.
1:22:01
So, >> you uprooted your whole life with this and in some ways you went from you you made the same transition I did, which is I never thought I'd have a job and then I decided to run a book publisher, right?
1:22:12
What's it been like just transitioning back to you?
1:22:13
transitioning back to you? what's it been like moving from Austin to New York but then also deciding like no I'm going to be a part of someone else's ecosystem for a while and and develop this and design this but it is bigger than me I mean this gets back to the question of
1:22:27
commitment but does this how has that been for you >> it's been I mean it's been great actually it you know I've always been interested in this topic in education the very one of the first entrepreneurial things I did after college was a podcast for kids who like didn't fit in in the normal college
1:22:44
education system and trying to like tell their stories and connect with them and I you know one I sort of just assumed I would never do anything in education >> and >> like it it had never felt like something that I actively wanted to go after but had always been interested in and was hopeful that somebody would
1:23:04
>> and so and now you know if I were going to say like oh I want to make a school for entrepreneurs right like obviously it should be part of alpha right like it just makes so much sense and to the extent event that I had, you know, admonitions about joining a big company. It's really, I mean, it's like a
1:23:19
It's really, I mean, it's like a startup.
1:23:20
I mean, the pace that it moves at is incredible, right?
1:23:22
We we had 25 schools last year.
1:23:25
We're going to have at least 40 this year >> and, you know, a lot more next year.
1:23:32
So, it's growing like crazy.
1:23:35
And then you know we at Founders School like me and Cameron it just feels like we're co-founders on a startup that you know thankfully is wellunded and has a lot of support around it but we you know we we we get to control our hiring pipeline and design our application process and our curriculum and like it has to fit the alpha ethos and everything but we have a lot of freedom to be very entrepreneurial with it.
1:23:57
You know we're not like >> clocking in so to speak, right?
1:24:01
Like it's it's >> it wouldn't work if you were >> Exactly.
1:24:04
So like I think all the things that I was afraid at about like taking a job. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:24:09
Just like haven't haven't realized.
1:24:11
Um and instead it's just been like incredibly fun.
1:24:13
like incredibly fun. And and going back to the you know the thing that I was talking about at the very beginning of like wanting to work on something big and something long term and you know really fully commit to something like you know I thought that that had to be something >> 100% my own >> but you know maybe that was also at least for this phase of life for where I
1:24:33
was like the thing that was holding me back in some sense where like I'm learning so much >> from being in a bigger organization like this from not having some of the immediate uh like profitability pressure that I would have had on my own solarreneurship things from getting to work with Joe and seeing how he thinks about business and learning from him. It's like
1:24:53
It's like >> I it makes me feel like I was it was actually a big limiting belief for me >> to think that >> I have to always work for myself like I have to do this alone.
1:25:03
Um, and like I'm just I'm super glad that like I'm doing this cuz I mean it's >> it just the interest has been incredible and like seeing these students applying and you know it's like it's so much fun.
1:25:15
I'm having such a great time with it.
1:25:17
>> So >> well I I wanted to talk to you about many many other things but also this conversation has been utterly riveting in this sense and I think we ought to actually try to have your students on infinite loops >> coming up in the year ahead.
1:25:27
So, as they are going through the process, I think it would be a lot of fun to see what they're building, how they're building it, how the school is maturing and evolving.
1:25:34
And I hope we can we can do that.
1:25:36
As you know, having been a repeat guest, you know, we ask a question at the end of every episode.
1:25:40
You've got you you can't um you've got the ability to basically incept an idea into everybody, two ideas into everybody's minds, right?
1:25:50
Two thoughts, whatever they are.
1:25:50
Um you can't use it for violence.
1:25:53
You can't overthrow governments.
1:25:54
I mean, unless you you might Yeah, I think I think we could actually sanction that one.
1:25:57
But you you basically get to be emperor for a day and do this and everybody will wake up the next morning with these two ideas in their head, right?
1:26:05
And now it's an interesting question for you as a guest because you actually are like bolting young minds, [laughter] right?
1:26:13
But what are off the top of your head, what are the two ideas that you would incept in everyone's mind or two thoughts, quotes, anything?
1:26:19
Obviously, it's naturally going to be topical because this is what I keep thinking about so much this is based on.
1:26:25
But the the first one that I do think of is what I said earlier.
1:26:29
It's like take teenagers seriously.
1:26:33
Like I talked about this with Chris Powers when um I was on his podcast a couple of months ago, but it it the more that I have thought about this and explored this idea, the more it actually does feel like there might be way more problems than we expect that stem from expanding childhood >> as far as we have. Right?
1:26:53
So, you know, if if you if we go way back, something like Founders School, you actually find versions of it in Maria Montasauri's writing because she talked about like, okay, the the childhood school is this kind of like core life skills, you know, the the the cleaning and the cooking and the things that like everybody should know how to do to like operate as an adult and the the manners and whatnot.
1:27:15
Then and she never got to realize this because of challenges with how society was changing at the time and resources.
1:27:22
But her vision of later stage education was this erdkinder where you were doing a bit of academics but then you were working on a farm or in some kind of apprenticeship and you were getting these like hands-on skills because she didn't think that teenagers should be stuck in a classroom, >> right?
1:27:37
And you look at basically every society preodern age had these significant moments where like you transition into adulthood in a sense around like 14, right?
1:27:47
You know, you think about uh like a bach mitzvah and a bar mitzvah, right?
1:27:52
Like it's around that age.
1:27:53
A confirmation is around that age.
1:27:54
You visit tribes in Kenya and the Masai Mara and guess when they're like adulthood, you are now a contributing member of this tribe is like it's around that 14 age, right?
1:28:04
And I actually think that a lot of the the kind of like things that we assume are going to be bad about childhood, right?
1:28:11
Like might be because kids hate school.
1:28:14
And some things that we assume might be bad about having teenagers might be because they're capable of doing more adult things, being more of adults, but then being heavily constrained by their environment.
1:28:26
And so they are naturally going to lash out against the things doing the constraining, right?
1:28:30
The school and the parents and like society, right?
1:28:34
And so it like alpha has done a good job of this question of like what if we took students and especially teenagers seriously and gave them this freedom and now we're kind of like taken to the extreme here where it's like no what if we trusted you as much as like a 30-year-old to do a business and >> I I feel like there's a lot of unexplored opportunity there and and you know we take it a step further.
1:28:57
These are different things to be really clear, but people who, you know, people getting married much later, people starting families much later, uh, the like aging population, the I I think that we've just like kind of extended childhood further than we should >> in and it can sound dangerous sometimes to say that because you don't want to like force kids to grow up too fast.
1:29:19
I'm not advocating for that either, but I am advocating for like if somebody shows the ability to be treated like an adult, to be taken seriously, like we should figure out how to take them seriously. Yeah. Exactly.
1:29:31
And uh yeah, I'm just I'm excited to see where that goes. >> Yeah.
1:29:35
And actually, it's interesting you're when I was prepping for this, I was looking back at some of the things that Marina Monasuri was writing and thinking about.
1:29:43
thinking about. I think of her as like far even though the brand Montasauri is as well as well known as it known as it is a lot of her ideas and thinking and her as a person she's vastly underrated compared to other like she's so cool and she was I mean my favorite one of my favorite stories is like she was one of
1:29:58
the first women admitted to study medical school in Italy and they wanted to wash her out they wanted her to quit so they would make her carve cadaavvers alone where the male students all got to be with each other car like she had to actually do that on her own because they thought it scare her off of medical school. And it did the exact opposite,
1:30:14
And it did the exact opposite, right?
1:30:16
She was burned in effigy in different countries because people thought her ideas were too heretical.
1:30:21
And now like everybody and their brother pays gobs of money to get their kids into into monastery or monastery type environments.
1:30:26
And a lot of her ideas are being validated by science in 2026 in a way they weren't, you know, even 50 75 years ago. Yeah.
1:30:33
Um, and so I take I take that with a lot I take that very what you said very seriously because I've it is it is the case like a lot of her I think there are echoes in what you're trying to do and what she was trying to do. >> Yeah.
1:30:44
And there's there's this book that got really popular a few years ago called Hunt Gather Parent that talked about kind of like tangential and similar ideas where like the the most enduring idea from that book that you hear parents recite most often is that how you treat a child who wants to help at early ages decides how much they like contribute and feel autonomy and agency throughout a lot of the rest of their life.
1:31:11
And so one of the like main thing that the book advocates for, which is basically the same thing that Monasuri says, is that if a kid thinks they can do it, you just let them do it.
1:31:18
It doesn't matter if they're going to break the egg or if they're going to take four times longer or if they're going to like fall off the ladder, assuming it's a reasonable height, like you let them do it.
1:31:26
And the hunk gather parent argument was like, if you tell a kid, "No, you can't help me wash the dishes when they're offering," then they will just learn that.
1:31:35
and then suddenly they're a 12-year-old who won't help when you ask them to because they've kind of like developed that way.
1:31:40
But she was, you know, in in that book she was going to a lot of more like traditional cultures.
1:31:46
And that was one of the big differences she noticed was that they were letting the kids do stuff that they were bad at and were actually slowing things down and obstructing progress because they had internalized this lesson that like if you just let them >> then they will eventually figure out how to be very helpful and like these rewards will, you know, come. Exactly.
1:32:04
Uh, it's just it that is such a fascinating idea that I feel like has been lost.
1:32:08
But going back to like raising kids in the city, it feels like we get some of that here because like, you know, my kids are riding scooters through the streets now, through the sidewalks at least.
1:32:18
And the other day >> we were at coffee uh or like I was at coffee with my two older girls and my wife and I had taken the youngest one home which was, you know, around the corner.
1:32:28
So it was like around a block.
1:32:30
>> And my two older girls, they're four and three.
1:32:31
They were like, "Can we go see? Can we go to mommy?"
1:32:34
And I was still in the coffee shop and I was just like, "Sure, go ahead."
1:32:36
And so they scooted down the block and they did the turn and they went to the house and I, you know, I called Coette and I was like, "Hey, by the way, like >> yeah, make sure that they actually show up, please."
1:32:46
Um, but then, you know, she texted me a minute later a picture of them at the door and I was like, "Awesome." Right?
1:32:50
Like we got that little opportunity for autonomy and independence that >> I mean, I think sadly some people probably wouldn't even let like their nine or 10-year-old do, >> right?
1:32:58
And in areas that are more, you know, where commuting and everything happens by by car, it's a little bit easier.
1:33:04
It's a lot harder because you can't get away with it in the same way.
1:33:07
>> What's your second idea that you would incept everybody with?
1:33:08
Your first one was a real banger.
1:33:10
The second one [laughter] was great.
1:33:13
>> Um gosh, yeah, the second one is a lot of pressure.
1:33:16
>> Um I'm trying to find the right phrasing for it because what we were talking about earlier with doing things that are entrepreneurial, even if they aren't like biggie entrepreneurship, right?
1:33:27
like that really is agency.
1:33:30
>> And I think what that comes I think what that's downstream of is just this idea that the world is a lot more malleable than you tend to assume.
1:33:38
This was like another just big red pill moment.
1:33:42
I feel like for me as a child of I don't remember what it was, but there was some point when I realized that there wasn't really such a thing as rules, >> right?
1:33:52
Like there's the way other people want you to do things.
1:33:58
>> There's the way that you should do things to be like a good member of society and then there are things that you are told to do or should do or how it's done that if you don't do it there's literally no consequence or if you don't do it there's a very acceptable consequence >> or that everybody's just kind of like doing because everybody else is.
1:34:15
And so kind of like whenever you encounter something like it could be, you know, in work, a personal life, like in society or whatnot of how something works or what you're supposed to do, >> it's I mean it's literally a suggestion, right?
1:34:29
Like it's an idea >> outside of very few things. >> Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:34:32
And I mean it's like that mindset, you know, it can obviously go in bad directions, right?
1:34:39
But, you know, it's like we [laughter] we had a couple of fifth [snorts] graders at Alpha who were super into robotics.
1:34:46
Like they're and they're really sharp, right? Like they're incredible.
1:34:49
And they came up with this idea for like a robotics security related startup.
1:34:55
>> And they emailed the FBI to pitch them on it. >> Wow.
1:35:02
>> And you know, it was fine, right?
1:35:02
Like like nothing bad happened obviously, right?
1:35:06
But, you know, if you asked anybody like, "Hey, can you just email the FBI like your startup pitch?"
1:35:10
They would say, "No, you can't do that." But you can. [laughter] Yeah.
1:35:14
And you can as a 10-year-old, right?
1:35:16
Uh, and to be clear, I'm not, you know, that's not something I would encourage our students to do.
1:35:20
But, like, >> there's something really admirable about that, too. Absolutely. All right.
1:35:23
I mean, that's going to take them far. Yeah.
1:35:26
>> Um, and so there I think it's it's so easy to get frustrated by things not being the way you want to be or feeling like trapped or like you don't have options, but like you pretty much always have way more than you think you do and you kind of have to just be willing to look for them.
1:35:42
>> And reality is valuable. >> Reality is valuable. >> Yeah. Well, Nat, thank you.
1:35:44
We're going to have you and your students on over the next few years and see how this progresses and continue to develop, you know, and and I I'm I'm personally very excited about it.
1:35:54
I'm excited for you like as a friend.
1:35:55
I just want to see how this affects your life.
1:35:57
Um, and I, you know, I can't wait to have further conversations about this as well.
1:36:02
I >> I'm super excited, too.
1:36:03
And serious offer, you know, we're we're doing these kind of like book club things with the students. >> I mean, it's a given.
1:36:08
I I Eric, the book is called The Founders. >> Exactly.
1:36:12
[laughter] Well, and Eric's Eric's going to come do one for like Book of Elon, you know, you should come do one for Founders.
1:36:17
>> It's a hop across the river. >> Exactly. It'd be super easy. That'd be a lot of fun. >> Amazing. All right. Thank you. Talk soon.