
Launch HN: Modern Labor (YC W19) – Paying People to Learn to Code - asd33313131
Hi HN,<p>We are Modern Labor (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;modernlabor.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;modernlabor.com</a>). We pay you to learn to code. We take people with little or no software skills and pay them a livable wage[1] for 5 months while they learn to code, using our content, most of which is open source. In return graduates pay us 15% of their income for 2 years if they are earning over $40,000.<p>The company is born out of a phenomenon I’ve been fascinated with for a long time: many people wake up every day at 7am to work at a low-paying job but they often have difficulty completing a class that might help their future. For some people, it might just come down to money. A job pays now, a class pays off in the future and only maybe. For many reasons--time, energy, motivation, financial pressures--many choose or are forced to choose the job that pays now and their long-term income sometimes suffers as a result. So we had an idea: Why don’t we just pay people to learn? So that’s what we do: we pay people, now, to learn an in-demand skill.<p>I remember back when we were building Leif, a startup we sold last year. I told Dickie, one of our co-founders, if I only had an extra $10,000 I could build out the product to an acceptable quality for a couple months. Otherwise I had to work. He ended up giving the money. We sold the company the next year for a good outcome. That couple months of being able to focus made a big difference in the quality of the product and I think ultimately on how successful we were with customers. We think Modern Labor can give people enough time to make a real change in their lives.<p>Our program isn’t for everyone. It’s full time. We pay $2000 for 5 months. Sometimes that’s more than enough to live on, sometimes it’s not, especially in the Bay Area. Nearly impossible with a family. You need the right to work in the US. The program is mostly self-directed and online. We guide students with a learning pathway and code reviews, but it’s ultimately up to them. If they don’t do their lessons, we don’t pay. It’s far too short for some people. Right now the curriculum is JavaScript (React, Redux) and Python and focuses on the web, which is only one sliver of the software universe. Most of the content is open source. Some of it’s from places like Freecodecamp, which is available for free. If you have money, you don’t need us.<p>15% of gross income is a lot. Why so much? It comes down to simple risk&#x2F;return: returns must be adequate given the risk. If it sounds a lot like Lambda School (YC S17), you’re right. Our former company Leif arranged financing for them. We discovered Austen (CEO) here on HN. It’s a big space, though, and our program is different from theirs. We have fewer mentors and our focus is on giving money to students.<p>How many people will do our program? About 50,000 people pay to attend coding bootcamps in the US each year. We believe, and may be wrong, that a lot more people will choose learning when we pay them to do it.<p>Thank you HN -- HN was the first thing people told me to read when I was learning to code and it’s been a big part of my life ever since. Happy to answer any questions and looking forward to hearing your ideas and feedback!<p>[1] Right now it’s $2000&#x2F;month
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psadri
This is a cool idea and I’m all for it. However, I’d like to observe that
software seems to be one highly skilled profession that is trying to eat
itself. All other skilled professions try to protect themselves by limiting
supply. That’s why you need 10+ years of medical school + residency to become
a doctor. Same with law school etc. Not saying I agree with them, but just
pointing it out.

~~~
yingw787
I think level of safety is higher for other professions; if you mess up as a
doctor somebody dies, if you mess up as a lawyer an innocent person goes to
jail.

If you mess up a CRUD app as a junior full-stack developer, prod is broken
until somebody fixes it. And you can learn enough to not break prod pretty
quickly on the fly. It's a very reversible mistake in comparison.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
That is exactly why I required all of my software engineering students to
write a research paper on software flaws that injured or killed people. I wish
I could be more confident that all companies producing products that can harm
people spent the time and money necessary to discover and remediate all
defects but corners are cut all too often and the lure of cheap labor is just
too tempting to resist.

Maybe Boeing and Airbus will never have an Ada developer make an error that
kills a plane full of people but there's already a push for javascript to be
used in embedded systems and I'm sure it's coming from someone seeing the
large numbers of javascript programmers coming out of coding boot camps and
similar programs.

~~~
afarrell
> spent the time and money to remediate all defects

Surely you mean to design systems with modularity that helps RAM-limited
brains made of meat to avoid defects and defense-in-depth which reduces the
impact of defects.

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faitswulff
This is actually very similar to the apprenticeship system that my dad went
through in order to become an electrician. They essentially paid him to train
through apprentice to journeyman.

That said, it was through a union and they have certain guarantees about the
level of pay and conditions that are acceptable for work, and the usual
benefits of collective bargaining. What are your thoughts on software
developers / engineers and unionization?

~~~
asd33313131
That's similar what we're going for, apprenticeship. We think that hands-on
projects help people learn very fast. Some of the projects are from us
(specifically designed for learning), and some of them are real-world.

As for unionization, I am not sure. The demand is high enough for software
developers that we are willing to take risk to not get paid back if they
earning below $40,000. So we don't guarantee a salary but we make sure they
don't pay us if they are aren't earning enough.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Love this, fwiw. I'm in the UK, or I'd be on it.

Anyway, is it literally $40k you pay 15% ($6k), below you pay nothing?

Is there any sort of tax saving, do "graduates" pay tax on the full amount but
pay out 15% to an "educational trust"?

Are you a non-profit?

~~~
asd33313131
Under $40k, nothing owed.

We are for-profit. We think that model can help us scale faster than the tax
advantage of the non-profit can help us. Larger non-profits can play a role in
the future of this market though, with various guarantees and cheaper capital.

~~~
ASpring
Have you considered bracketing it or is this a purposeful marketing point? If
a graduate is offered 2 jobs at 39k and 50k, would they make more at the 39k
job in the short term?

~~~
asd33313131
Marginal rates (brackets) are a good idea. Right now, too complex for the
capital markets around this product and we think (possibly) for the customer,
so we're sticking to the flat rate.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
You certainly know more about this than I do (running a company and all that),
but the situation described in the GP strikes me as a likely real-world
scenario, and a bad outcome for both you and the customer.

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alexpetralia
For some reason, the name "Modern Labor" immediately associates in my head
with terms like "slave labor" and "child labor". Perhaps that is just me. But
I can't help but feel a slight revulsion to the name just hearing it. Sorry
for the criticism - mostly just voicing my opinion in case anyone else shared
it and it is actually worth giving a second thought to.

~~~
asd33313131
We're not tied to the name. If it ends up being a major issue, we will change
it for sure. We think of it more along the lines of "Labor party" or "labor
rights" or "labor market" than what you mentioned. Perhaps this theory is
wrong though and we'll need to adjust.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
If I search for modern labor, I get you (great!), also on the first page are
"Modern day child labor", "how business can tackle modern slavery and forced
labor", "what is modern slavery"; the rest are relatively benign. I'm not sure
that's too helpful.

My _first_ association would be for a newly modernised incarnation of a Labor
Party, just like Tony Blair gave us New Labour.

I'm from the UK, so my first impressions may not be thought relevant. :)

~~~
asd33313131
I think it has something to do with the UK search results/expressions. The US
one (the one I see, from our IP) is about "modern labor economics" and "modern
labor market"

~~~
NeedMoreTea
That was the benign ones. I used US spelling and every result was a US site.
Maybe not representative of results if I were on a US ip.

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ozanonay
Congratulations, this is great! I'm glad you'll be reaching an underserved
group.

I hope, though, that you'll be honest with your students about what your
program will deliver.[1] While it's currently still possible for many non-
programmers to achieve upward mobility just by learning to code, there's a
huge skill gap between those who can cobble together a few libraries to make a
website, and those who understand theory/systems well enough to build
something novel.

While compensation levels for both groups are currently still comparable, the
steadily increasing supply of bootcamp grads and self-taught engineers could
result in a pronounced bimodal distribution in a matter of years. Some subset
of folk will have the motivation and resources to make the jump;[2] others may
end up in end-user programming roles that pay poorly or aren't fulfilling.

Somebody entering your program should have a realistic view of what it takes
to reach the parts of our industry that they hope to find themselves in. If
they know that Modern Labor is step 0, and see themselves on a long road of
learning and growth, they're likely to do very well!

[1] I wouldn't have worried about this, except that I've seen some bootcamps
tell their students that they should consider themselves "senior" upon
graduation, and that their skills are comparable or superior to graduates of
top computer science programs.

[2] I run [https://bradfieldcs.com](https://bradfieldcs.com) and maintain
[https://teachyourselfcs.com](https://teachyourselfcs.com), both of which aim
to help such folk make the jump. As much as I try, many people aren't
interested or driven enough to start, let alone persist for the years that it
takes.

~~~
asd33313131
Great point, right now we're trying to filter for that desire to be in the
field for a while, but ultimately I think we will add a lot of material that
gets people ready for the long road ahead of learning. We see ourselves right
now as a way to get a foothold, and climb from there.

------
austincheney
Some junior developers I have worked with are grossly incompetent even with a
CS degree from well respected schools because they treat their education as a
trade school, ignore the standards that govern their profession/technology,
and are utterly reliant on unnecessary abstractions to write any code at all.
The negligence is so common it has names like imposter syndrome.

I wonder if an educational program like this is far superior. I would be
curious to hear about the results.

If you are teaching JavaScript and client-side skill I recommend teaching the
standard DOM methods and how to efficiently “walk the DOM”. It is becoming a
lost art, but there is no alternative. The DOM methods remain the only true
standard to access markup as everything else is an abstraction that compiles
down to that at an incredible performance cost. It’s little things like that
that add up over time that crush an application and complicate what are
otherwise quick and simple architectural decisions. I am biased because that
kind of standards based approach has made me more employable.

~~~
filesystem
I'm confused on who or what misled you to believe that imposter syndrome only
exists within the CS bubble. It's a human phenomenon. Sometimes it is
purposefully fueled by junior developers being talked down to be senior
developers who at best feel threatened of being exposed (do I really deserve
to make double what a junior dev makes?) or at worst are simply misanthropic.
Many of these senior developers are surely skilled at walking the DOM but due
to their toxic attitude must be managed with kid gloves like so:
[https://hbr.org/2016/10/how-to-manage-a-toxic-
employee](https://hbr.org/2016/10/how-to-manage-a-toxic-employee)

~~~
austincheney
> I'm confused on who or what misled you to believe that imposter syndrome
> only exists within the CS bubble.

There is a big difference between lacking confidence and feeling like an
imposter versus a fraudulent qualification. This is solved in most industries
through licensing/certification. If you want to practice medicine, law, or
nearly anything else you need a license. You need a license to be a truck
driver. With such licensing comes testing, a validation of experience,
background checks of your professional employment. Software has none of this.

That being said how do you identify if a potential software applicant is a
fraud to the skills they claim to possess? You really don't. You interview
them and hope to separate the capable from the incapable, but often it isn't
clear until after they are hired and spent some time on the job. The second
order consequence is when you hire only weak developers that weakness is the
new (lower) baseline of acceptable competence.

> Many of these senior developers are surely skilled at walking the DOM but
> due to their toxic attitude

I think that is a gross generalization to suggest that somebody has enviable
valuable skills they are therefore toxic. They could be, in fact, abrasive. It
could also be that the people without the valuable skills are defensive and
insecure. The best way to answer this is if everybody in that scenario had the
valuable skills would the toxic nature still be present? In my experience
toxic people remain toxic even when the environment changes.

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jedberg
I have a product idea for you. You could offer me, as an employer, a part of
what they pay you as an incentive to hire your graduates. Essentially I'd be
getting a discount on my employee costs for the first two years in exchange
for helping your program be more attractive because you'd be able to show a
higher post-graduation hire rate.

I'm still working out the ethics of this in my head though. Is this ethical or
exploitive? I think the answer depends on the employer. I feel like it's good
for the student, since after two years they will have had a chance to learn on
the job at a discount to me, and if I've done a good job training them
further, they'd be valuable enough to me to keep on board without the
discount. But I worry that an unethical employer might only keep them two
years and abuse them and then cut them loose when the discount runs out. So
you'd have to prevent that somehow.

~~~
duopixel
That sounds like a very convoluted way to ask for what is in essence a
discount.

~~~
jedberg
It's a discount for the employer but also good for the future employee. As an
employer I'd be willing to spend more time on training knowing that I'm
getting a discount from market rates, and the employee wins because at the end
of the two years, their base pay is higher to calculate raises against or to
take to their next employer.

------
hoodwink
Wow. Great introduction. Love how you headed off snarky comments such as the
percentage of income, the fact that $2K/mo isn’t a lot in some places, that 5
months of learning is only enough to start a new journey, not reach the
destination, etc. I need to incorporate this tactic into my communications.

------
okl
> Become a Full-Stack Developer

I don't think 5 months is sufficient for most persons with "little or no
software skills" to reach a level at which they can work as programmer,
software engineer, or (maybe even) computer scientist.

~~~
leesec
So what do you say to the 50,000~ bootcamps students doing this currently?

I did a bootcamp in 10 weeks and got hired immediately. People may be against
that for whatever reason but I was able to meaningfully contribute to my
company, and it allowed me to learn while working in the industry. Been going
2.5 years now, and admittedly, I still have a ton to learn, but I'd like to
think I'm not a fraud at this point.

~~~
okl
What do you say to the students that do not get hired?

~~~
leesec
YMMV.

My bootcamp had 90% placement rate within 90 days and has for years. This
question kind of ridiculous though, no education system works for every single
participant. There are plenty of people with B.A.'s not getting hired. Even
people with law degrees occasionally. Much less financial and time risk with a
bootcamp tho.

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FennNaten
So, basically, your company is part school, part loan agency. The loan
business is offering to students a loan which covers scholarship in the school
+ 10k, and then bets on the job market for interests at 2 years terms.

This way to put it is sure less appealing than "we pay you to learn" but
closer to the actual business model.

Looks like you could have partnered with an existing program (or several) for
the teaching part, and only run the lending/revenue sharing. What pushed you
towards handling the school yourselves? More confidence in the results?
Difference in the legal/financial stuff due to the business structure? PR
value? Taste for teaching? Bit of all that? Something else?

~~~
asd33313131
I think we would put it more like staffing platform + a trainee/school
program. But we combined them because we saw a gap in the market. Pure schools
need to make money on the school portion (they have to have high gross profit
per student). A lot of schools hover around 50% gross profit per student. So
we thought, if are able to integrate vertically (and have both school and
staffing platform), we can finance the school portion extremely aggressively
(and scale really really fast), and meanwhile actually turn a profit on the
staffing platform side. That's the business model reason.

The second reason is that we think that by paying people to finish tasks,
assignments, and learning material, we can actually incentivize completion in
a much cheaper way than employing a lot of supervisors. So not only are we
able to grow faster because of our integration (like above), we can be more
efficient at producing students. I think if we weren't trying to scale
extremely fast and sustainably we would probably focus on the training
portion.

~~~
FennNaten
I see. It makes sense, I'm curious to see how it will evolve.

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vorpalhex
Is there a cap on the maximum that students pay out? Many similar programs cap
the total payout expected from students.

Further, do you work with students on actually getting recruited and getting
through interviews? Coding is great, but whiteboarding and interviewing are
their own skillset.

~~~
maccio92
this clause is interesting too, they have first dibs on you as long as they
make competitive offers

> After the program, graduates pay 15% of their income for 2 years if they are
> earning over $40,000. Furthermore, graduates agree to work for us directly
> if our offer is as good as their other employment offers.

~~~
scarmig
That latter clause seems unenforceable. At-will employment.

Or are there some monetary penalties if they match other employers' offers and
you don't take the job?

~~~
asd33313131
No penalties, we actually think this clause is probably not necessary. We work
with trainees for so long during the program that ideally they would find it
natural to work for us (or for our staffing clients).

~~~
travisjungroth
It's unnecessary, unenforceable and off-putting. By definition, if you make an
offer of employment to someone and they choose a different one, then your
offer wasn't "as good". Maybe you're offering the same salary, but that's
certainly not the only thing that goes into an offer. I get you want to keep
students around for yourself or for your staffing clients, but this is not the
way to do that.

~~~
asd33313131
I think in the end, we will remove it or change the language so dramatically
as to remove it. We have been surprised by how many people are totally fine
with this clause, though, about 99%.

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elektor
Love the concept!

Some feedback on the website: The image of the man on a laptop sitting in the
dark gives off an eerie feeling and reminds me of those cheesy stock images of
hackers wearing a ski mask. A man sitting in a well lit room and smiling may
be more welcoming to a potential applicant.

~~~
asd33313131
Haha! Thanks for the feedback!

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kotrunga
Three questions I haven't seen answered yet...

1) What if you make $40k even? Is the 15% adjusted based on your salary?

2) What happens if you lose your job 1 year in? You've paid back half your
debt... what about the other half? I would feel bad telling people about this
to see them do it, and then get jobs (either with Modern Labor or somewhere
else), and then a year in they get cut, have no job, and are thousands in
debt.

3) What if someone is in the program, and halfway has to drop out for xyz
reason? Do they owe the money back?

I really like the idea, just wish there were some more details so I could feel
confident telling friends about it.

~~~
asd33313131
The $40,000 threshold is inclusive. So if their income is equal to our greater
than $40,000, they owe 15%. If they ever dip below $40,000 payments stop until
it goes back up to $40,000.

~~~
ac29
You should consider making these payback rates marginal (such as 20% of all
income above $40k instead of 15% of all income).

As is, there's a weird gap in incomes ($40-47k, roughly) where you'd end up
taking home more money by taking a voluntary pay cut.

~~~
asd33313131
Totally agree. I think in the future -- as the market for income share
agreements becomes more sophisticated there will be marginal rates. Right now
the complexity tradeoff for the customer and the financing means we aren't
doing it for a while though.

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llamataboot
Wow, this really has the ability to open up the door for bootcamps for people
that otherwise couldn't afford to do it, that's commendable!

I don't think 15% is a lot at all. Assume $60-70k for first job out of a
bootcamp (which is more than reasonable) and you are essentially charging $10k
tuition for a 5 month program.

I hope the numbers work out for you, as it sounds exciting!

I'd love a similar program for experienced or senior engineers that want to
shift into an entirely new space (spend 4-6 months learning data science and
machine learning, for example. Or low-level programming for embedded devices.
Etc)

~~~
asd33313131
Thanks! Up-skilling as opposed to learning junior-level skills only is where
we think the market will expand to generally in the future.

------
Eliezer
You are doing an obvious right thing to do and I wish you huge success.

------
nachi
> In return graduates pay us 15% of their income for 2 years if they are
> earning over $40,000.

How do you enforce this? I.e. what stops someone from simply lying about their
income?

~~~
asd33313131
We use a company called Leif (my former company). They handle all of the
income verification and collection. The ultimate truth is from tax returns.
The vast majority of people self-report accurate incomes, however.

~~~
ac29
So students are required to share access to their tax returns?

~~~
asd33313131
Yep, the income share agreement has a clause where, if Leif asks, they need to
share their tax information. This is only if other methods have failed,
however.

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kevindeasis
I might be interested to make my siblings enroll in this program if you take
Canadian citizens?

Also, I know some people in the US who might be interested in this. But, can
you give me the stats about how many people enrolled, and succeeded to get a
programming job?

~~~
asd33313131
Right now you need the right to work in the US, so if they have that, then
yep.

We will have meaningful data in six months to share.

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michaelmrose
How many money 2000 is varies both by where the person lives and the person
and indeed that persons families medical expenses.

I was wondering if the money effectively lent to the learners would be income
or a loan.

For practical purposes the money paid to learners bears little resemblance to
income. Someone who receives 10K while learning must necessarily pay back at
least 12K over 2 years at 40k per year or 18k at 60k per year.

This bears on two matters. Taxes paid and benefits received.

In the first case if the money paid is considered income the user may be
paying in effect a substantial fee to the us government to borrow money in the
form of income tax.

In the second health care is presently ridiculously expensive and 2K monthly
income is just enough in most places to opt the user out of the free medical
care that might otherwise render the 2K very livable.

Essentially users who opted to participate in modern labor could find it
impossible to pay for medical insurance for any reasonable ammount while
"earning" just enough that the state wont pick up the tab either.

Alternatively the user could opt to work 2 full time jobs and face a much
higher chance of failure.

~~~
asd33313131
Right now we treat it as income for tax purposes but this may change in the
future, as we optimize the model and the tax treatment. Due to this, depending
on a person's situation, the $2000 might not nearly be enough.

We think of ourselves as underwriting, in the financial sense, someone's near-
to medium-term earnings. Some of the negative tax treatment is offset by our
assumption of risk. If a person has the skills to go out and freelance and
earn $10,000 over 5 months -- and can bear the risk of not earning that --
then we aren't necessarily the right fit. In the freelance case, income would
be 1099, which includes both sides of FICA tax, but it also includes the risk
of not finding enough clients. When people use us, they are guaranteeing $10k
which allows them to plan and learn without worrying.

This is actually similar to how IPOs work. If you are company who wants to
sell public stock to investors, there's a possibility that not enough people
will buy your stock at a reasonably price if you sell directly to investors.
So historically, investment banks would underwrite this transaction and price
your stock and buy 100% of your offering. The company gets enough money at a
reasonably price and then the investment banker goes out and sells it to
investors. In this case, the company may have left money on the table, but
their absolute risk is lower, since it's now the investment banker who bears
it. Some companies, however, are in such a strong position (like Spotify) that
they don't need the investment banker and they just sell directly to the
market. Similarly, some individuals have such good prospects/finances that
they don't need us, and that's not our market.

~~~
michaelmrose
Lets take a hypothetical. A family with medical insurance costing $660 and
medical expenses with insurance of $200 with 1 person able to work and no
monetary help forthcoming from the state.

Paying just over the threshold for free medical care for the state means
substantial costs for the learner who will pay hundreds of dollars more for
earning literally $50 too much to qualify for free medical.

We aren't talking about people whose prospects are to good to need an option
like this we are actually talking about people who are trapped in poverty
because earning slightly more ends up being ruinously expensive instead of a
step up.

It's profoundly depressing.

~~~
asd33313131
We definitely need to dig more into this, but I think you're right, sometimes
income from us would push people over limits -- at least the way it's
currently structured. Could you share what thresholds you are talking about?

E.g. if the threshold is 5k, we pay 10k, medical insurance goes to $1000 from
$0, it might be still positive for the trainee (earning $10k - $tax - $1000
might be better than no earnings at all).

~~~
michaelmrose
In WA state the threshhold is 138% of the federal poverty line. 1940 I believe
for a family of 2. 1900 would literally be more money than 2000 sad to say.

Stupid question time. It seems like the money would more accurately be
expressed as a loan. Is there a reason it's expressed as income? Complexity of
lending regulation? Lending regulation particularly disallowing the chosen
model?

~~~
asd33313131
It's not a loan and more akin to equity; there are parallels to the talent
agency world. If you wanted to do our program and get paid less than $2000, we
could accommodate this via a side agreement or other arrangement potentially.

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emptysongglass
I’ve applied. I don’t know if this will be shooting myself in the foot but I
am a little concerned by the ask for a LinkedIn profile. Leaving any and all
social media behind has been the second greatest force for good in my life.
The first was spending a couple months meditating in a monastery.

With GitHub now turning into a Facebook for programmers, I’ve anonymized my
profile there too. I’m happy to provide code on request or complete challenges
but turning everything into an altar for Self may be the greatest mistake of
our generation.

~~~
asd33313131
The LinkedIn profile is a convenience for us but not strictly necessary, we'll
make the form field optional in the future. If that was a blocker drop us an
email at support@modernlabor.com and we'll get you an interview another way.

~~~
emptysongglass
Thank you for the response. I just wrote, "I don't have any social media" in
the field.

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jscholes
While teaching web dev, do you put any focus on accessibility for users with
disabilities and other special needs? Is your platform accessible to students
using assistive technology like screen readers? You're possibly offering
something here which could have an impact on the high unemployment rate among
disabled people, many of whom are lacking skills or opportunities to obtain
them. Would be happy to talk with you more about this if you're interested -
full disclaimer: accessibility and usability are my dayjob :)

~~~
asd33313131
Yes, we need to integrate more of this -- Please drop an email to
support@modernlabor.com

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lhorie
Curious how you're going to balance mentor expertise with the fact that a
business generally requires multiple non-overlapping skillsets.

Lots of bootcamps crank out a disproportionate number of web development
juniors compared to other specialties, but surely a business will also require
other roles, many of which aren't strictly software engineers or which may
involve more investment than a macbook (e.g. designers and wacom hardware +
Adobe licenses)

I'm also curious how you plan on tackle tech debt in your platform, given that
from my personal experience, some of the scariest codebases I've worked on
were ones where there was a lot of newbie turnover.

Another thing I'm curious about scalability. At some point, adding more
workers tends to not scale and you start to need a ballooning number of
middle-level managers, whose required skillset might primarily be soft skills.

~~~
asd33313131
A lot of the program is project work and those sometimes require several
people with different skills (e.g. UI/UX, a couple full-stack, manager). I
think ultimately we'll be taking in different skill-training simultaneously
(i.e. project managers learning beside programmers).

As for the core platform, we keep that to more senior people for now.

------
shinryuu
> You need the right to work in the US.

You should mention this on the website.

~~~
asd33313131
You're right, we will add this

------
matthodan
How about expanding beyond coding? The U.S. has a shortage of skilled people
that goes well beyond coding. E.g. machinists, pilots, nurses, etc.

Also, I think your business model would be much more scalable if you left the
educating to others and instead focused narrowly on being a financial program.

~~~
asd33313131
Yep -- 100% -- right now it's web development but in the short term we'll
bring in other types of software development. Medium term, other knowledge
work like data science and finance. Longer term, nursing. Nursing (and other
fields where there are more immediate safety issues and logistics issues (hard
to do nursing totally online) are very big areas and we probably need cheaper
capital to do it (unless VR/AR changes that).

------
nck4222
>In return graduates pay us 15% of their income for 2 years if they are
earning over $40,000.

What if graduates don't get (or decide not to pursue) a coding job, and
instead return to their original or similar field? Do they still need to pay
part of their unrelated jobs salary to you?

~~~
asd33313131
At the moment they pay back regardless of their field. On the one hand, we are
giving out cash (not just instruction). On the other, we believe that coding
skills can be used in many areas outside of a software development job
(business, product, technical sales, data science etc) and that their
productivity should go up in general.

~~~
nck4222
So, I get the reasoning, but a realistic and frankly inevitable outcome (not
100% of the people you accept are going to end up with software job, no matter
how good you are) is that a person ends up in the same field, with the same
salary they had before, but now has to pay 15% of their income for 2 years to
Modern Labor.

That's a pretty horrendous (and possibly incredibly destructive) outcome for
someone looking to improve their outlook, and will definitely give me pause in
recommending they apply to the program.

It also contradicts your mission:

>We believe that money should never be a barrier to learning and that with the
right motivation and funding, anyone can learn new skills and make a better
life for themselves.

At the very least people shouldn't be punished for either not succeeding in
finding a job (a failure that could be partially the responsibility of Modern
Labor), or simply deciding coding isn't for them.

~~~
mamurphy
Making the payback at marginal rates (0% for below $40k and 20% for everything
above that) would largely fix this issue.

If you are making around $40k per year, you have nothing to lose; if the
program doesn't improve your state in life at least you don't have to pay too
much back.

Non-marginal (15% of everything) plus the "you must work for us if we beat
offers" theoretically could lead to them offering everyone a $40,001 per year
job, essentially forcing them to work that for 2 years and incur high payback
costs.

------
not_a_moth
I love the model, but $2k/ month seems like it would only work for people who
don't live in tech areas, where it's more affordable. Being based in those
locations, it seems like it will be harder for them to get a FT tech role
afterwards.

~~~
asd33313131
Most of the current cohort lives in high cost areas but there is probably a
subsidy (like free rent) or savings in there somewhere. I think with a family
especially $2000 is not enough without other savings. We hope in the future we
can make this $4000 or stretch $2000 longer, but that depends on cost of
capital.

------
dmhn
This honestly sounds like a pretty cool idea, but I’m a little concerned about
something you say:

> Most of the content is open source. Some of it’s from places like
> Freecodecamp, which is available for free. If you have money, you don’t need
> us.

If you are not offering much value in terms of the educational content (since
it’s freely availabe), then aren’t you essentially just loaning people money.
They get money now, and they promise to pay you back a higher amount in a
while.

Wouldn’t it be simpler and cheaper for someone to just get a 2k loan on their
own and study the freely available content on their own?

~~~
ianmobbs
Yeah. For a $10,000 loan, assuming a $100k salary when you're done, you're
looking at a $1,250 monthly payment/a whopping 139% interest rate[0]

[0] [https://www.calculator.net/interest-rate-
calculator.html?clo...](https://www.calculator.net/interest-rate-
calculator.html?cloanamount=10000&cloanterm=2&cmonthlypay=1250&x=0&y=0)).

~~~
asd33313131
The one difference here is the risk component of equity financing versus debt
financing -- with debt, you have to pay no matter what, with equity, you pay
only if there is money left over. I think in the future, as the cost of
capital comes down, the percentages of income will come down a lot.

------
anilshanbhag
What is the selection criteria ? I feel many folks who have flexible jobs
(waiter, uber driver, etc) would love to join your program, work on
assignments for a say 5 hours and do part time work rest of the time.

~~~
asd33313131
We like to see some evidence that they want to do software development. E.g.
they have some small projects or they've been doing some self-study or
courses. We have several uber drivers in our cohort right now actually.

------
pahool
What's the general tone toward folks coming to the program later in life?
Possibly without a strong tech background but smart and looking to start a new
career. How about folks with a criminal background looking to start a new
life? A lot of the coding bootcamps I've seen have been geared toward the
young or very specific demographics (e.g. women). Do you have a specific
demographic that you are targeting?

~~~
asd33313131
At the moment, the primary drivers for acceptance are evidence of interest in
the field and evidence of grit, regardless of life stage/demographics.
Criminal record is OK too.

------
d0m
I think it's a great idea. So many people would like to learn CS but don't
have the time bandwidth; paying them to learn is a win/win.

~~~
asd33313131
Awesome thanks! We believe this model can be helpful and at scale

------
mvid
Is the 15% adjusted based on salary? Because right now you it looks like you
would take a $6,000 pay cut to go from $39,999 salary to $40k salary

~~~
asd33313131
15% is from gross income. There's an indifference point, you're right, but
most people don't optimize like that we found at Leif with a lot of other
schools.

~~~
JoeSmithson
Still, why make this perverse incentive at all? It would be easy to structure
it more like taxes...?

P.S. I think this is a great project and I am very interested to see how this
goes.

~~~
asd33313131
I think in the future it will be more like marginal tax rates. Right now it
comes down to how we finance the program. The market for income share
agreements has been, so far, flat percentages. As it develops, this will
change as the various funds/institutions get more comfortable with the general
product.

------
ccozan
Can I take this idea and use it in Germany? There is a huge demand of IT /
programming skills, but the market is simply empty, because of the traditional
crafts in industry, where most of the young people go.

Offering this would possibly rise the interest in IT related skills and
capture intelligent people.

~~~
okl
[https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Missing-Link-
Migrati...](https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Missing-Link-Migration-in-
die-Industrie-4-0-Fluechtlinge-als-Software-Entwickler-gegen-4310106.html)

~~~
ccozan
There are plenty of smart germans around. They seem to go with the tradition
because it will always pay.

I'd like to change that. IT is hard,. it pays double.

------
CrackpotGonzo
What differentiates you from Lambda School if (when) they start offering a
stipend during their course?

~~~
asd33313131
Right now (without the stipend) they cost 17% of income for 2 years (for
income over $50k) which is just (slightly) more than us. Adding a stipend
their prices either have to go up (3 years instead of 2 years paying back, for
instance) or they have to remove/change some of their product features since
skilled mentors cost money. We want to make sure we give the maximum possible
amount of money to people during the program and are prepared to deal with the
implications of that.

------
yhoiseth
Have you considered something like Lambda Co-op?

[https://lambdaschool.com/blog/announcing-lambda-co-op-
commun...](https://lambdaschool.com/blog/announcing-lambda-co-op-community-
driven-projects-built-by-students-for-free/)

~~~
asd33313131
Yep - we think client projects are a big part of the learning process. We
haven't designed it to be like their program but it's in the same ethos.

~~~
yhoiseth
Cool. Any way to get updates on this?

~~~
asd33313131
We've got a newsletter, drop a line at support@modernlabor.com and we'll get
you on it -- otherwise we'll put a newsletter signup on our landing and can
sign up there

------
throwaway-1283
_Furthermore, graduates agree to work for us directly if our offer is as good
as their other employment offers._

What does this mean? If I get a job offer for $100k but you match I _have_ to
accept your job offer of working for your company?

Strange...

~~~
asd33313131
Right now there's no penalty if they don't take our offer. It could turn out
in the future we don't need this clause at all.

------
Adamantcheese
>Right now the curriculum is JavaScript (React, Redux) and Python and focuses
on the web, which is only one sliver of the software universe.

And I highly doubt you will expand beyond this given who you are likely to be
contracting with.

------
faitswulff
Third question: would you consider this for more highly educated roles like
machine learning or Recurse Center-like fellows? Basically people who are
already highly technical who want to become more specialized.

~~~
asd33313131
Yep, we aren't set up for that right now but that's where this is going -
giving people, at various stages in their career, a significant block of
time/money and guidance to focus on increasing their skills.

------
newsreader
Is it possible for experienced backend developers to get into the program? I'm
thinking someone like myself that has been programming in C# and would like to
make a transition to frontend development.

~~~
34343434n
the problem right now is, let's say you are earning 80K as C# dev, you take 5
months to learn front-end but you don't get a front-end job.

So you take another C# job that pays you the same. But now you have to give
Modern Labor 15 % of your pay.

You are taking a chance that the new job will pay you at least 15% more than
your current one after 5 months.

------
throway88989898
(already answered in the site chat but re-posted here)

Have you considered custom pricing tiers based on skills set and/or progress
speed through the program?

Do you take remote students?

How is the 15% of income you take from students spent?

~~~
asd33313131
\- Right now there is only one income percentage tier. We are trying to keep
it simple for the trainees and the financing side.

\- Everything is remote (the program is online)

\- The 15% goes back to other students and the rest covers our other costs and
expenses.

------
tareqak
Congratulations on the launch!

I am curious if there are other skills/jobs that would be viable to teach in a
similar manner (definitely outside the scope of the launch, but I'm curious).

~~~
asd33313131
Thanks! We think that we can do this model with most knowledge-based work:
data science, business, product, finance, paralegal, etc.

------
joez
This is an awesome idea. Speaking from experience as someone who transitioned
into engineering. I would have totally tried this if it was around 4 years
ago. Good luck!

------
hollaur
How long will it take to get to profitability doing something like this?
Really interested in the business model part of this and how the numbers pan
out.

~~~
asd33313131
If we wanted to, pretty soon actually -- we have been involved in the
financing side of income share agreements for a couple years now so we can do
this competitively. As for sustainable profitability, that will depend on our
relationship (network) with employers/staffing clients and how much they value
our supply of talent.

------
nkingsy
Does the 15% only apply if they land a job as an engineer? What if they do
half the program, realize it's not for them, and take a job in marketing?

~~~
asd33313131
If they drop out, they owe in the proportion they attended. So e.g. if they
drop out halfway, they owe 12 months instead of 24 months. Also they owe
regardless of their field. We do this for two reasons. We are giving people
straight cash and number two, we believe their overall productivity should go
up. For instance, a marketer can scrape the web or write marketing scripts
(e.g. parsing bulk emails) that can make them more efficient, produce more
value with less effort, and ultimately could translate into higher income.

------
convokex15
This looks awesome, I just submited my info. Is there a chance of getting
selected to do it remotely from Chile or in the USA without a Work Permit?

~~~
asd33313131
It's all remote but, how it's currently set up, you do need the right to work
in the US at the beginning of the program.

------
phreeza
Is it actually possible to make such a contract legally binding and
enforceable or do you plan to depend on the honesty of your students?

~~~
asd33313131
The income share agreement is strict (Leif helps us handle that). For the
staffing agreement, there's no penalty if they decide to work somewhere else.
Ultimately we have to rely on the positive relationship we have with the
trainee.

------
jhhhhd
You said the work is "self-paced", does that mean there are no instructors and
no set times I have to be "in class"?

~~~
asd33313131
We make sure they do the work (code reviews) and we want them to spend a
reasonable amount of time actually coding (we log how much time they spend on
items). But there's no "class" per se, other than check-ins with us

------
rcw4256
Are the actual terms of the student agreement available? I can't find them on
your website.

~~~
asd33313131
[https://leif.org/api/products/5c70f3b7e59b74688df0996f/pdf](https://leif.org/api/products/5c70f3b7e59b74688df0996f/pdf)

~~~
rcw4256
Thanks!

------
nell
Is it possible game the system? Take the $2000 outsource the learning to
someone for far less.

~~~
asd33313131
We have enough check-ins, code reviews, and logging that this would be hard to
do, but in theory someone could try. The income share agreement identity
verification/collection is pretty efficient though so it would be hard to do
at any meaningful scale.

------
tuxxy
How do you differ from Lambda School? What do you think you do better than
them?

~~~
asd33313131
Our focus is on paying the students a livable wage to have time to learn. We
want to pay as much money out to them as possible. Most of our work is self-
paced or project-based, and while their are people to help guide them, we want
the maximum amount of money going to students. Lambda is a great program but a
lot of money goes to more attention from mentors. They are experimenting with
stipends, but overall it's more expensive. We think there's space in the
(growing) market for different models.

------
faitswulff
Second question - would you consider alternate tracks, like UX design?

~~~
asd33313131
Yep, UX is one of the fields we think work well with this model although we
aren't doing it right now, I think we will in the future.

------
jscholes
Do you have plans to extend this outside of the US at some point?

~~~
asd33313131
Yep - although not for a bit. We have to do a different collection model than
income share agreements to do it effectively right now.

~~~
jscholes
Do you have some sort of announcements list or a way I can be notified when
you expand to other countries?

As an aside, while teaching web dev, do you put any focus on accessibility for
users with disabilities and other special needs? Is your platform accessible
to students using assistive technology like screen readers? You're possibly
offering something here which could have an impact on the high unemployment
rate among disabled people, many of whom are lacking skills or opportunities
to obtain them. Would be happy to talk with you more about this if you're
interested - full disclaimer: accessibility and usability are my dayjob :)

------
lxw
You're paying a third of what someone on the US federal minimum wage would
make during that time (7.25 x 40hr/week x 20 weeks).

Edit: oh, I thought it was 2000 total, not per month.

Never mind then, though I do think this is would ideally be a government
program.

~~~
asd33313131
I think you might have the math wrong there.

7.25 x 40 x 20 = $5800

we pay $10,000

Second, virtually all the work is not for any gain (it's purely instructional)

------
Jai_me_mehta
Is it only for US people

~~~
asd33313131
At the moment, you need the right to work in the US in order to do the
program.

~~~
lostmsu
Specific locations? Greater Seattle Area?

~~~
asd33313131
No specific location, just need the right to work in the US - Everything is
remote/online

------
34343434n
Are you considering mobile (ios/android) training?

~~~
asd33313131
Yep - not in the next 6 months though.

------
pydeveloper22
This is an interesting concept. What comes to mind is the company Reviture.
I'm not sure if they pay students to code I think they cover boarding and have
an online platform to boot. But as far as Modern Labor goes it sounds like a
nice idea but after looking at the comments and information I've gathered so
far it seems the makings of Uber all over again.

In this case, I get the the sense that drivers(or paid programmer apprentices)
are sold on the idea that they can make good side money whereas they're not
factoring all the other expenses or finances that would come up front or even
worse over time such as car maintenance, gas, tolls and etc. For the paid
apprentice and everyone's living situation is different when you factor in
location cost-of-living and etc.. to receive a set amount of $10k over the
course of five months where it's being asked that you dedicate 40 to 60 hours
a week for 5 straight months. You are essentially as the individual who signs
up for this course committing to 800-1200 hours which also amounts to living
off of roughly to $8 to $12.5 an hour just to learn to code.

Maybe if I was a high school student not looking to go straight into college
yet or someone in somewhat desperate situation seeking a way out may consider
this. I understand that Modern Labor is a company/business the word loses me
is the commitment of taking 15% salary for two years straight or how to commit
to work for the company if they match a competing offer.

This gives me the impression that the individual who signs up to be part of
their program provides more value to Modern labor then they do for themselves.
Kind of like Uber pays the driver, takes a % of gross revenue from the trips
while they're being still funded by venture capitalists. Guess it's like how
big Daddy Kane says, pimpin ain't easy..lol

Anyways, this may not be the best example but this is what comes to mind.
Modern labor good luck to you guys if you guys becoming successful in this
endeavor and perhaps some company will buy you guys out and in return we have
a growing labor force the scale of uber where the promise is to take you from
novice to master developer in 5 months where has a person who signs up for
this program takes $10k up front but pays back 15% of their salary over two
years or a maximum of $30k. Perhaps this is a small price to pay when it comes
to doing business. Makes you wonder who's benefiting from from who. ️

------
paddengz
When does this program start?

~~~
asd33313131
We have rolling cohorts starting every two months right now, eventually it
will be every month.

~~~
paddengz
Does that mean the next one starts in april ? I'm really interested in doing
this.

~~~
asd33313131
Another one starting in May

------
WrtCdEvrydy
Looking for instructors?

~~~
asd33313131
Drop us an email at support@modernlabor.com

------
whistlerbrk
Indentured Servitude?

~~~
Wowfunhappy
The income sharing is only for two years.

------
rubicon33
Thank you "Modern Labor" for being yet another force that is determined to
make software development go the way of Woodworking, Welding, Automotive
Manufacturing, etc.

We're already on the path toward blue collar salaries thanks to big pushes
from government and big tech (Google,FB,etc.) to lower labor costs by
inflating the supply of workers. You've heard it before - "not enough software
developers!"... Yet salaries are barely moving? We didn't need it, but now
startups like "Modern Labor" further incentives an ever growing influx of
programmers into a market which is destined for over saturation.

Get ready folks. Your white color job, is turning blue faster than you even
realize it. Find something to specialize in and do it fast.

~~~
asd33313131
In some sense this is very true. Michael Porter (Harvard prof, wrote
Competitive Strategy), thinks that basically everyone in an advanced economy
has to constantly increase their skills, but as a result, everyone produces
more for less money, and the living standards go up collectively. Is this
right? Maybe, maybe not.

~~~
xv100
It sounds right to me, except that the living standards don't go up, the
surplus goes to the edu/housing/healthcare rent seekers.

------
BucketSort
Thanks, I hate it. If you go to school for CS and have to work with people
that go through boot camp programs like this, it is a pain. They are elevated
script kiddies that don't understand what they are doing. You are going to
create a bunch of people that have such limited skill sets that they can be
readily outsourced. What happens when technology changes? Will they have the
perspective and skills to adapt? This is actually a nightmare. People in a
tight spot will inevitably be lured in by the pay, then find themselves
beholden for two years? Honestly, screw you scheming silicon valley wraiths.
You don't care about the well being of people and just look to manipulate
people into building your fortune.

~~~
asd33313131
One of the things we try to filter really hard for is demonstrated interest in
software, which usually means they've been learning on their own for while or
sometimes it's a degree in a technical field, but not cs per se. The really
big push during our time isn't going to put them into senior-level positions
(for the current program) but we think the program can kickstart their life of
learning.

