Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lambda School fined $75k by CA for operating without state approval [pdf]

bppe.ca.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 364 posts

Re: Lambda School fined $75k by CA for operating without state approval [pdf]

#171

Post by MisterBastahrd »

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #149
QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the government makes you waste a a day filling out paperwork to prove that your dog food doesn’t contain human remains, don’t blame the regulators. Blame the guy before you who made a buck by vertically integrating his cannery and his morgue.

Nah, blame the regulators too for thinking that filling out paperwork is likely to meaningfully dissuade someone from using human remains to make dog food. It was probably sufficient to explain to that one guy why that was bad.

It's not there to dissuade you. It's there to provide a paper trail in case you do something stupid.

Re: Lambda School fined $75k by CA for operating without state approval [pdf]

#172

Post by wildmusings »

austenallred wrote: post #65
merpnderp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25 lbs of paperwork to register an online school? Sounds less about protecting students and more towards protecting incumbents and cronies.

The real fun ones are where we have to submit the curriculum for approval every time we make a change (considering we make small tweaks to curriculum every day - they did not plan for that use case). Good thing there are APIs for printing and mailing changes to a diff :)

I wonder if there’s a First Amendment claim there.

Re: Lambda School fined $75k by CA for operating without state approval [pdf]

#173

Post by SilasX »

duxup wrote: post #56
TimTheTinker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not directing this at you, but to all - this is a concrete example of why you shouldn’t blindly trust legal (or medical, or spiritual) advice. Ask questions, make sure you understand, and think critically. No one is infallible.

Reminds me of this story: https://a16z.com/2014/02/06/why-i-did-not-go-to-jail/ TL;DR, A widely respected CFO makes a suggestion regarding stock and being competitive as far as employee compensation. CFO says that they have done the same thing at numerous companies. The CEO is not very knowledgeable and asks the general council (who unlike a lot of places at the time reports directly to the CEO, not the CFO) to weigh…

Yes, but it also affirms what the parent was saying: if something doesn't smell right, get a second opinion. In this case, Horowitz got advice that said "do this thing that gives free money, even though no one else does it". That seemed too good to be true, and that's what triggered his insistence that the general counsel look at it.

Re: Lambda School fined $75k by CA for operating without state approval [pdf]

#174

Post by cortesoft »

Someone1234 wrote: post #78

After reading this thread and considering it, the regulations seem fine, but lack of consistency between states seems to be a large pain-pont. I realize California isn't just "any" state but needing to seek unique approval from up to all 50 states just to run an online school seems like a really high (and expensive) bar. It would be nice if more states cooperated on things like this. Then you seek approval from the c…

It looks like the regulation only applies if you have a physical building in California. Since Lambda school is based in California, they have to abide by the law.

You don't need all 50 states approval to run an online school, but you will need the approval of the state that you are actually in.

Re: Lambda School fined $75k by CA for operating without state approval [pdf]

#176

Post by gruez »

randyrand wrote: post #140

Looking at the text of the fine, you can't charge money to teach people things ("offer education" in their parlence) in a physical location without state approval. Could that be any more broad? Education is often just verbal and written communication between people. Seems like a first amendment violation.

>you can't charge money to teach people things [...]

>Seems like a first amendment violation.

The key phrase here is charging money. Commercial speech has always been more strictly regulated than other forms of speech.

Re: Lambda School fined $75k by CA for operating without state approval [pdf]

#177

Post by jjeaff »

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #149
QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the government makes you waste a a day filling out paperwork to prove that your dog food doesn’t contain human remains, don’t blame the regulators. Blame the guy before you who made a buck by vertically integrating his cannery and his morgue.

Nah, blame the regulators too for thinking that filling out paperwork is likely to meaningfully dissuade someone from using human remains to make dog food. It was probably sufficient to explain to that one guy why that was bad.

Or have one page with a single checkbox that says "I understand it is illegal to use human remains in dog food"

Re: Lambda School fined $75k by CA for operating without state approval [pdf]

#178

Post by pl0x »

austenallred wrote: post #155
projectileboy wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems exceptionally unfair. They’re very up front about what they charge, how they charge it, and whether or not you even pay anything at all. I got a lot out of my overall college experience and so I probably wouldn’t opt for it, but if one of my kids was only interested in software development, I would suggest they attend Lambda School with no reservations whatsoever.

People who don't like the idea of capitalism in general tend to not be huge fans of Lambda School. But we only get paid $30k in the case where you get a software engineering job after Lambda School that pays $85k+. Everyone else pays less, and absolutely no one pays more than $30k. Our upfront tuition for the nine-month, full-time course is $20k if paid upfront.

This is distasteful coming from the founder of this institution.

Re: Lambda School fined $75k by CA for operating without state approval [pdf]

#179

Post by wnevets »

merpnderp wrote: post #49
austenallred wrote: post #11

It’s true. Our counsel informed us that we didn’t need to register. Counsel was wrong. Now we have new counsel :) We’ve submitted all the paperwork and have worked closely with California. This all happened a long time ago. I’m not sure what the right level of regulation is (it’s hard taking care of 50 states at once - one state registration was 2,277 pages and weighed 25 pounds https://twitter.com/austen/status/1153…

25 lbs of paperwork to register an online school? Sounds less about protecting students and more towards protecting incumbents and cronies.

With scams like trump university out there are we really complaining about some paperwork? If a school isn't capable of handling that paperwork, perhaps they shouldn't be school.

Re: Lambda School fined $75k by CA for operating without state approval [pdf]

#180

Post by nokcha »

gruez wrote: post #176
randyrand wrote: post #140

Looking at the text of the fine, you can't charge money to teach people things ("offer education" in their parlence) in a physical location without state approval. Could that be any more broad? Education is often just verbal and written communication between people. Seems like a first amendment violation.

>you can't charge money to teach people things [...] >Seems like a first amendment violation. The key phrase here is charging money. Commercial speech has always been more strictly regulated than other forms of speech.

"Commercial speech" refers to advertising, or more precisely, speech that "proposes a commercial transaction". It does not refer to speech that is charged for. Newspapers and books are fully protected by the First Amendment even though people pay for them.
Post reply on HN