Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every time I’ve seen a company bought by private equity, it spells the beginning of the end. The strategy always seems to milk every last drop of cash from the business, without any long term sustainable plan. As an anecdotal case, I visited Sea World over the summer and half the concessions and shows were closed. It was still expensive and crowded and and there were service bottlenecks everywhere. Long lines for a b…
It's an issue in market information where regulation can't really work [1]. Vendors have a brand. They establish the value of the brand such that purchasers have a signal that they aren't going to be ripped off. For example you can be pretty sure coca-cola isn't going to cut costs to the point where they don't care about putting poison in the bottle - and you don't need regulation to know they won't do it. Zeus-Cola?…
Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
281–290 of 412 posts
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can't people choose to refuse medical help? The only reason I see expenses really causing massive debt is if you choose to accept/request medical procedures you can't pay for. While it's morbid to consider the idea of just letting yourself die because you don't want to go into debt, it still is a choice... isn't it?
> While it's morbid to consider the idea of just letting yourself die because you don't want to go into debt, it still is a choice... isn't it? No. I'm glad I could clear up this very difficult topic for you.
I understand if you are unconscious, you can't decide, or in a coma. But what if you are lucid and asked by a doctor if you want a procedure or not?
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interestingly enough, all of these comments could have been said about my experience at $BOOTCAMP that I attended and then was later hired at as a mentor. The degradation of quality from the removal of human presence is a common narrative, and the students react to it so much more than management ever realizes. > at no point did I feel like Lambda at its top level prioritized student wellbeing over PR, costs, or metr…
Every time I’ve seen a company bought by private equity, it spells the beginning of the end. The strategy always seems to milk every last drop of cash from the business, without any long term sustainable plan. As an anecdotal case, I visited Sea World over the summer and half the concessions and shows were closed. It was still expensive and crowded and and there were service bottlenecks everywhere. Long lines for a b…
I regularly work with PE firms.
You can't paint the whole industry with one brush stroke. I've seen more than a handful of companies get bought by PE to become very successful for everyone involved (PE, management, customers)...and the opposite.
That being said - it's very common to see companies in the large cap space ($5B~$10B in enterprise value) to be repositioned to match the market dynamics or financially engineered. While you might have had a poor experience, the rest of the market may have been willing to wait in 15 minute lines for $10 bottles of water.
If you disagree with PE, the easiest way to "stick it to them" is to vote with your wallet. Simply stop going to Sea World and you'll see PE change their tune pretty quickly.
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#284In their eagerness to disrupt traditional education, all these programs forgot that the one single thing that makes traditional university education succesful is teaching people with aptitude and drive. To get accepted and graduate from a reputable university you have to get good results in standardized tests and work your self through multiple courses for at least 3 years. That by itself doesn't mean anything but th…
> (if someone will buy the school a building to get you into your college of choice). If this was really widespread surely the campuses would have (literally) thousands of donated buildings?
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#285I used to work as a technical recruiter and made several hires out of coding bootcamps (though never from Lambda, which didn't exist at the time). One rule of thumb that we drew after many trials was that, if a candidate coming out of a coding bootcamp did not have a math or science background prior to that bootcamp, they probably would not pass our interview process. That is, people with a certain intellectual found…
I think this is a far assessment. There is a certain level of mathematical aptitude that is essential for being able to be successful at programming. Maybe no in the strict sense of math but in understanding how different structures and concepts are able to relate to each other. However in the strict sense of math, there is a requirement there. I also posit that as bootcamps grew - the quality control and quality of…
It doesn’t feel necessary at all where I am now.
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#286Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worse than just lost startup opportunities. I think healthcare in the US is riddled with ways to "accidentally"* spend the entire accumulation of your wealth, leaving absolutely nothing to the next generation. Long term care is needed by a lot of folks over the age of 65 (~70% of adults age 65 will require at least partial long term care). Even "reasonably cheap" care (in my experience, roughly the same quality…
> I think healthcare in the US is riddled with ways to "accidentally"* spend the entire accumulation of your wealth, leaving absolutely nothing to the next generation. That's not true, the money isn't just lost. The money is passed to the children of the person who extracts the money from the sick people. It's by design.
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every time I’ve seen a company bought by private equity, it spells the beginning of the end. The strategy always seems to milk every last drop of cash from the business, without any long term sustainable plan. As an anecdotal case, I visited Sea World over the summer and half the concessions and shows were closed. It was still expensive and crowded and and there were service bottlenecks everywhere. Long lines for a b…
> Every time I’ve seen a company bought by private equity, it spells the beginning of the end. I regularly work with PE firms. You can't paint the whole industry with one brush stroke. I've seen more than a handful of companies get bought by PE to become very successful for everyone involved (PE, management, customers)...and the opposite. That being said - it's very common to see companies in the large cap space ($5B…
Yep, I can definitely believe you've worked with PE firms.
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's the issue. The issue is that the United States provides such a poor safety net for those with health issues that one person's failing health destroys the economic potential of one or more people around them. From a sheer utilitarian perspective, healthcare and safety nets are positive ROI. Imagine the job-producing startups that don't exist because "how do you pay for insurance?"
It's worse than just lost startup opportunities. I think healthcare in the US is riddled with ways to "accidentally"* spend the entire accumulation of your wealth, leaving absolutely nothing to the next generation. Long term care is needed by a lot of folks over the age of 65 (~70% of adults age 65 will require at least partial long term care). Even "reasonably cheap" care (in my experience, roughly the same quality…
Re: Lambda School leaked documents show poor performance over the last two years
#290So, I learned to code at an odd program at Univ. of Texas - Austin, essentially a bootcamp for coders that began in the 1970's and still runs today. They take about 9 months to get you to a beginning programmer level, then you program (for UT administration) up through a kind of apprenticeship. It worked very well, and the washout rate has historically been about 10%; that is, 90% of those initially admitted go on to…