31–40 of 142 posts
Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. And said debt has exploded in recent decades with no corresponding improvement in outcomes. Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. If their students don't get a job, Lambda doesn't get paid. Why is a better model being attacked like this?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. We're not talking about colleges. The fact other scams exist in the world has zero bearing on whether one specific company is scamming people. > Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. They align themselves with their investors. That's their fiduciary duty. If you want to u…
If ISAs don't pay out, then hedge funds will not be willing to pay as much to buy them. So at least on that point, the mere fact that they're sold off doesn't cause any misalignment.
Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. And said debt has exploded in recent decades with no corresponding improvement in outcomes. Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. If their students don't get a job, Lambda doesn't get paid. Why is a better model being attacked like this?
I highly recommend reading Vincent Woo's piece about Lambda to understand the criticism better with actual evidence. https://vincentwoo.com/2020/05/19/on-lambda-school/ It's also arguably not an equivalent comparison. Many people attending these bootcamps have already graduated college and tend to forgo work to attend - there is a huge opportunity cost even if they don't directly lose money. I have no reason to belie…
Colleges are predatory, putting kids deep into debt that they may never be able to repay and can't even remove with bankruptcy. And said debt has exploded in recent decades with no corresponding improvement in outcomes. Whereas Lambda aligns their interests with the student. If their students don't get a job, Lambda doesn't get paid. Why is a better model being attacked like this?
I highly recommend reading Vincent Woo's piece about Lambda to understand the criticism better with actual evidence. https://vincentwoo.com/2020/05/19/on-lambda-school/ It's also arguably not an equivalent comparison. Many people attending these bootcamps have already graduated college and tend to forgo work to attend - there is a huge opportunity cost even if they don't directly lose money. I have no reason to belie…
It's clear that Austen lied in the past about outcomes and the company perhaps preferred growth over customer experience early on. However college education is so broken in the US that any alternative can look good in comparison.
Long term I'm bullish on Lambda, they're in a rapidly growing market, signing good partnerships like this, and I think they can continue to work on their training quality.
Just don't trust the marketing. ;)
Lambda School seems questionable for a few reasons I was already aware of as a semi-habitual hirer of bootcampers: trying to scale too fast & degrading the product, possibly disaligned incentives if ISAs are sold off immediately, etc. If I weren't aware of these issues, this tweet/thread would not have taught me about them. However -- "Naturally they're partnered with Amazon"...to get people jobs as programmers at Am…
> an Amazon FC job @$15/hr + healthcare is a "holy shit amazing" job. This is true tons of places. It's double minimum wage! Affordable healthcare! I don't disbelieve you, but the fact that this "holy shit amazing" job in a highly-skilled and in-demand field pays less than I was earning at McDonald's when I was 14 makes me extremely concerned about what Americans have been convinced is normal.
https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Dublin-Ire...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are implicitly comparing it to colleges and every other competitor. That's what relative words like the way "predatory" is used here mean. Predatory relative to the rest of the field. It doesn't really have an absolute meaning.
I haven't reviewed their numbers recently but the historical criticism is that you end up paying more money for Lambda yet their placement rate was lower compared to similar bootcamps.
HN constantly attacks Tesla and Elon so you shouldn't be surprised. In fact, I've associated negative attacks from HN as an indicator that the company/person being attacked is probably doing something good.
Lambda School seems questionable for a few reasons I was already aware of as a semi-habitual hirer of bootcampers: trying to scale too fast & degrading the product, possibly disaligned incentives if ISAs are sold off immediately, etc. If I weren't aware of these issues, this tweet/thread would not have taught me about them. However -- "Naturally they're partnered with Amazon"...to get people jobs as programmers at Am…
> an Amazon FC job @$15/hr + healthcare is a "holy shit amazing" job. This is true tons of places. It's double minimum wage! Affordable healthcare! I don't disbelieve you, but the fact that this "holy shit amazing" job in a highly-skilled and in-demand field pays less than I was earning at McDonald's when I was 14 makes me extremely concerned about what Americans have been convinced is normal.
“Amazon Can Only Claim Their Jobs Are Decent Because American Work Has Gotten So Miserable
Amazon maims its workers and drives wages down, yet the company still attracts job applicants and claims to provide “good jobs.” Those claims were strong enough to play a role in the defeat of a union effort in Bessemer, Alabama — but that says less about Amazon than it does about the miserable state of the labor market.“
Source: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/04/amazon-bessemer-alabama-u...
HN constantly attacks Tesla and Elon so you shouldn't be surprised. In fact, I've associated negative attacks from HN as an indicator that the company/person being attacked is probably doing something good.
It's fascinating to me how much crabs-in-the-bucket syndrome this place has acquired over the past few years. It's hard to think of successful people HN doesn't hate.