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Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

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Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#91

Post by 908B64B197 »

agd wrote: post #35

As someone who used to work in this industry, I'm kind of torn on Lambda School. 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, an…

> However college education is so broken in the US that any alternative can look good in comparison.

How exactly?

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#92

Post by 908B64B197 »

sellyme wrote: post #17
potions wrote: post #5

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's secret recipe for FCs is that they managed to remove almost all onboarding costs. Training literally takes an hour. So they don't care about turnover; all they need is to keep attracting enough folks that they can run at full capacity.

I guess the 15$/h figure is the equilibrium point for that. It's probably a little bit below the costs to completely automate these jobs.

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#93

Post by zests »

Tarsul wrote: post #48
beckman466 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

thanks for that link. "More than 53 million people— 44 percent of all workers ages 18–64 in the United States— earn low hourly wages", which is defined as earning 2/3 of the median male worker. The median hourly wage for those 53 million people is $10.22. One might argue about semantics but these stats are devastating nonetheless.

What a weird stat. I've never seen anyone take a fraction of a median like that. I can't think of any reason to create such a strange figure besides being dishonest.

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#94

Post by chris11 »

908B64B197 wrote: post #90
potions wrote: post #5

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…

Few things I can't figure out from a tweet. 1 - Is Lambda going to train engineers already hired at Amazon and is just going to provide an onboarding bootcamp for new hires? Doesn't sound like a bad idea considering Amazon's scale and the amount of internal tooling they must have. 2 - Is Lambda going to supply bootcamp-grads programmers to Amazon? 3 - What do they mean by "Back-End"? Is it Software Engineering roles…

I'm not sure. From Lambda's website it looks like they are just releasing a program co-developed by Amazon. It's modeled off of an internal training program Amazon has. I didn't see any statements about interviewing or working at Amazon. I think Lambda would brag about a program that was designed to get students jobs at Amazon. I don't think there's any guarantee of a job or interview.

https://lambdaschool.com/the-commons/lambda-school-launches-... https://lambdaschool.com/courses/backend-development

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#95

Post by omarhaneef »

Jasper_ wrote: post #80
ec109685 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the charitable explanation is that they needed the funds now versus after the student gets their job.

So they're incentivized to inflate their graduation rates to sell off the ISAs to investors who don't know better, since they need the cash now. Investors are left with a bill of goods: ISAs that will never pay out. Add in some securitization and tranches and baby, you've got a 2008 financial crisis goin'!

At this particular point in time, I suggest this is a vote of confidence.

This is a new asset class, investors are going to dig deep and understand it. They will certainly have access to more data and analysis than the average student.

However, if the government were to start to guarantee the loans and the volume hit an impossible level, and people got used to minimal defaults for 20 years then that would lay the groundwork for the type of disaster you suggest.

(I am not affiliated with labda or any of its investors)

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#96

Post by peter_retief »

peter_retief wrote: post #6

Oh no I actually thought it was a really good idea to give people a chance to work hard and get a better life. I still dont completely write it off as a bad idea. I mentioned it to my son but he was sceptical.

I deleted this comment but it seems to be lingering?

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#97

Post by 908B64B197 »

chris11 wrote: post #94
908B64B197 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few things I can't figure out from a tweet. 1 - Is Lambda going to train engineers already hired at Amazon and is just going to provide an onboarding bootcamp for new hires? Doesn't sound like a bad idea considering Amazon's scale and the amount of internal tooling they must have. 2 - Is Lambda going to supply bootcamp-grads programmers to Amazon? 3 - What do they mean by "Back-End"? Is it Software Engineering roles…

I'm not sure. From Lambda's website it looks like they are just releasing a program co-developed by Amazon. It's modeled off of an internal training program Amazon has. I didn't see any statements about interviewing or working at Amazon. I think Lambda would brag about a program that was designed to get students jobs at Amazon. I don't think there's any guarantee of a job or interview. https://lambdaschool.com/the-co…

> they are just releasing a program co-developed by Amazon

Ahh, so getting devs familiar with Amazon's product offerings.

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#98

Post by austenallred »

ibeckermayer wrote: post #78
austenallred wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cash to train students needs to come from somewhere. So in Lambda School's case that's either VCs or some other investors. Instead of running the entire school on venture capital, which wouldn't make sense (VCs need a huge return per dollar), we use an advance from investors based on the future value of an ISA to offset the cost. If we work with investors to say that an ISA will be worth $x, we can borrow $x minu…

You seem to be implying that you’re borrowing against the ISAs whereas the article claims you’re selling them.

It’s only a “sale” in the sense that it’s sold to a special purpose vehicle that we own 100% of.

The article is wrong in many different ways, this is only one of them.

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#99

Post by splistud »

runno wrote: post #83
seriousquestion wrote: post #7

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?

College debt will be forgiven in this administration, so you have to be really dumb to pay for Lambda school, which isn't backed by the government and isn't going to be forgiven. Lambda preys on the dumbest of the dumb, only dumb people are paying for school with their own money.

Here's another dumb thing: believing politicians that tell you what you want to hear.

Re: Lambda School is a predatory bootcamp that lies about students outcomes

#100

Post by austenallred »

sandofsky wrote: post #75
austenallred wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't how any of this works. There has been a constant allegation that Lambda School sells its ISAs and therefore no longer has incentives that are aligned with students. The assertion is that, in “Big Short” style, we sell off all the risk of our students being placed to someone else and don’t have to care about outcomes. Nothing could be further from the truth. When Lambda School finances ISAs here’s how it wo…

The original poster said, "If their students don't get a job, Lambda doesn't get paid." Absolutely nothing in your reply changes the fact Lambda is paid before the student gets a job. You're trying to change the topic to something you can wiggle through, and I refuse to engage. You were caught on tape lying about this, and I have no reason to believe you've stopped lying. https://soundcloud.com/vwoo/interview-with-au…

I’m responding to the assertion generally. The format of ISA financing has become more sophisticated over time, but the fact that our interests are entirely aligned with our students has never changed.

If I take out a car loan for $20,000 I have not been paid $20,000.

I have never lied about this. Not once. My words are taken out of context to try to make it seem like I lied, but I did not.

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