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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

#101

Post by austenallred »

Jasper_ wrote: post #79
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…

Doesn't that incentivize you to graduate as many students as possible, even poor quality ones, so that you can recoup the costs of as many past ISAs as possible and sell them off quickly? Otherwise, how does a student that doesn't land a job and whose ISA will never repay fit into this model?

If every student were free yes, but that would incur further “debt.”

Also every student is quite expensive. We gain nothing and lose a lot by enrolling students who don’t get hired.

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

#102

Post by austenallred »

sandofsky wrote: post #88
toomuchredbull wrote: post #86

How is it predatory if they don't charge any money upfront?

Some students pay up front. But if you want to focus on the ISA, the terms are for five years. If the program delivers no value, you only get out ahead if you decide to give up programming until it expires. Imagine the program failing you, you decide to pursue an associate's degree, and still owing them money.

Imagine a degree failing you and owing money plus interest literally no matter what happens

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

#103

Post by cornel_io »

mszyndel wrote: post #32
cornel_io wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

_laughs in 2008 subprime mortgages_

I take your point, but also don't think that the repackaging of shitty loans into bundles that are somehow magically considered less shitty is happening at that scale anymore. And frankly, ISAs are a lot less shitty than home purchase loans to unemployed people who have near zero likelihood of paying it back unless that home goes up in value. Even if it was happening, there's no incentive towards an upwards price spiral in the code bootcamp space at the current demand levels (and the elasticity curve is very different in scalable bootcamps as compared to housing).

Had the dumb manipulations not happened, loans are actually quite straightforward to value, so I would be shocked if whoever was purchasing the ISAs didn't have at least a "much better than HN" view into what they should properly be worth.

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

#104

Post by austenallred »

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…

It’s 2. Amazon needs to hire more backend developers. Though students aren’t guaranteed a job at Amazon, and can work any number of places with that skill set.

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

#105

Post by austenallred »

effingwewt wrote: post #84
sandofsky wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thank you! Allred constantly lies through his teeth and it makes me fucking rage. He spouts the same bullshit over and over. Lambda isnt free for the students, they pay, and here's Mr Disingenuous to claim he needs to get money to train students 'from somewhere' And not to mention he uses students to teach students! He can't even keep 'teachers' on board! Edit- males->makes.

We have nearly 200 full-time employees including many, many instructors (not to mention contractors). This is just not true.

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

#106

Post by austenallred »

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…

I absolutely never lied about outcomes. The author of the story conflated multiple numbers (one graduation -> placement, one enrollment -> placement) and pointed out that they’re different. He was looking at different points in the funnel, as our audited outcomes reports show.

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

#107

Post by austenallred »

sandofsky wrote: post #42
hobom wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your tweet is in bad faith. Whatever the CEO thinks of Amazon warehouse workers' salary and working conditions has no bearing on the quality and outcomes of the lambda school curriculum. This Twitter style argument of "Look at this person having awful opinions" really does not contribute to anything. If you find lambda school to be predatory, then it's better to just provide evidence for that.

> If you find lambda school to be predatory, then it's better to just provide evidence for that. I literally just cited three links full of examples.

You are the source of one of the articles citing the many things that Lambda School grads should know for a basic interview that we don’t teach.

In the past I have offered a bounty for you to point out even a single one of those things and you have never been able to do so.

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

#108

Post by effingwewt »

austenallred wrote: post #105
effingwewt wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! Allred constantly lies through his teeth and it makes me fucking rage. He spouts the same bullshit over and over. Lambda isnt free for the students, they pay, and here's Mr Disingenuous to claim he needs to get money to train students 'from somewhere' And not to mention he uses students to teach students! He can't even keep 'teachers' on board! Edit- males->makes.

We have nearly 200 full-time employees including many, many instructors (not to mention contractors). This is just not true.

As opposed to how many students? This is very much true, you are a known, proven liar, and your 'bootcamp' is beyond predatory.

You lie about placements, you lie about your number of instructors, I will take the word of every one of your students over the PR speak you spout repeatedly.

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

#109

Post by sandofsky »

austenallred wrote: post #102
sandofsky wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some students pay up front. But if you want to focus on the ISA, the terms are for five years. If the program delivers no value, you only get out ahead if you decide to give up programming until it expires. Imagine the program failing you, you decide to pursue an associate's degree, and still owing them money.

Imagine a degree failing you and owing money plus interest literally no matter what happens

Again, you're trying to change the topic. We are not talking about colleges. We're talking about whether ISAs can fail, and they can.

But to answer your question, I have two relatives that successfully discharged their student debt due to financial hardships. ISAs have no similar process, short of hiring a lawyer and hoping for the best.

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

#110

Post by austenallred »

sandofsky wrote: post #109
austenallred wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a degree failing you and owing money plus interest literally no matter what happens

Again, you're trying to change the topic. We are not talking about colleges. We're talking about whether ISAs can fail, and they can. But to answer your question, I have two relatives that successfully discharged their student debt due to financial hardships. ISAs have no similar process, short of hiring a lawyer and hoping for the best.

We have a hardship process as well. If there were a way to design a perfect financial instrument we would - we get as close as we possibly can.

You have to construct a chain of what-ifs to generate a scenario as bad as what is the default everywhere else (and it’s still better), yet you are constantly yelling about how evil we are. Perhaps just re-examine your priors?

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