Interesting ‘Life imitates Mesh’ moment – Lambda School went from ‘hottest start-up in Silicon Valley’ to ‘another failed con job’ in a little under seven years. Heartbreaking loss for all those who pinned their financial dreams on Lambda’s success, but there’s more to the story.Let’s take a deep-dive on this lovely Monday morning:
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me catch you up. Lambda School – eventually renamed Bloom Institute of Technology – is a coding bootcamp providing for-profit schooling. Launched in 2017, it gained attention for being a coding bootcamp that offered income share agreements as a method of financing. If you’re looking to get into tech, if you don’t have the resources for student loans, Lambda’s value proposition is simple – we don’t make a dime until you do!
How Things Went Wrong
Things sounded great, on the surface. Lambda offered students ‘a chance at a life they never had.‘ Also – ‘programs like Lambda are Silicon Valley’s answer to the problems of mobility and educational access. In the US, where student loan debt is at $1.5 trillion, schools that allow students to defer tuition can fill an important educational gap.’ Who was going to say ‘no’ to that??
The government was, and with good reason. According to Forbes – ‘the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) classifies ISAs as loans, noting that any group suggesting they are not loans is misrepresenting the truth. There have also been well-publicized cases of ISAs costing students more than if they had just taken out a student loan. Purdue University had one of the first ISA programs, one that it advertised heavily as an innovative way to help students pay for college. However, the program was abruptly shuttered last year after reports of students struggling to pay what they owed emerged.’
So yeah, Lambda’s another predatory capitalist scam – taking advantage of vulnerable people in exchange for millions of dollars. When I first read the story, I was struck how remarkably similar Lambda sounded to to Miramar Technical High School in Mesh. The story of Miramar and Doctor Gray is a cautionary tale to all the young kiddies out there: ‘Beware the Techno-Hucksters for they are ravening wolves.’ – Jackson 7:15.
Techno-Huckster: Stranger Danger
Who’s a techno-huckster and why are they dangerous? There’s an ocean of data to discuss, so let’s stay on the surface – techno-hucksters have driven some amazing innovation in the past fifty years, and often at the cost of their own relationships, reputation, and humanity. Your heroes of the techno-huckster archetype are: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg. Your villains of the techno-huckster archetype are also: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg. Now we can add people like Elizabeth Holmes, Stockton Rush, Austen Allred and Ben Nelson.
The dark side of being a techno-huckster is simple: hubris pays. You can spend your entire career ‘faking it ’til you make it’ and drawing a comfortable living while doing so. Kids getting their start in information technology need a roadmap for recognizing a techno-huckster – and their own power to defeat them – when they arrive.
Mesh As Rescue Plan
Roman – the hero of Mesh – reminds me of every vulnerable smart kid who needs support in order to achieve his complete potential. Like Lambda, Miramar High School sounds perfect on the surface. It’s set up as a ‘genius incubator’ for smart kids, funded by its mysterious billionaire founder Dr. Gray. Kids graduate directly from Miramar to seven-figure salaries. Roman’s a smart kid – languishing in the dystopian suburbia of future Sacramento – he can hardly believe his good luck.
Then, the murders began.
Not actual murders, of course – this is a kids book after all – but you never know. On one side, you’ve got a narcissistic sociopath with all the money in the world, zero scruples, and a robot army. On the other, you’ve got an army of super-smart, pissed-off kids. It’s a fight to the finish for a future we can all be proud of. That’s the roadmap I want to give to kids as we dip into the dystopian future of 2024.
Lambda School – Roadmap for Failure
Let’s say that Austen Allred and Lambda School had good intentions at first. If that were true, they saw where this was going back in 2019, when the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) ordered the school to cease operations and submit a closure plan. Did they stop? No, if anything, they kept going. That was a gut-check moment, a moment where they could have said “Iceberg, right starboard rudder!”
But they kept going. That’s what made them Techno-Hucksters, that’s what makes them a liability, that’s what makes them part of the problem. The future can’t be built by people who refuse to plant trees unless they get to own all the shade. Modern robber-barons keep trying to simultaneously build and outrun their legacy – it ain’t working.
The difference between me and a guy like Austen Allred is, I don’t want to be rich. Kids need something to believe in. If I can show them how to believe in THEMselves, if I can teach them to fish instead of giving them fish, that’s my reward. I don’t want to live in a mansion, I want to live with myself.
Wrapping up – Lambda School is/was a failure for boring, stupid reasons. I wish sometimes that life didn’t imitate Mesh, but as long as it does, I’d like to help write a happy ending.
