
Lambda School Announces $14M Series A Led by GV - tosh
https://lambdaschool.com/blog/lambda-school-announces-14-million-series-a-led-by-gv/
======
tosh
Lambda School imho is one of the most interesting companies at the moment.

Many many have tried to tackle the challenges of education & its dynamics &
how long-term all of it is and how short-term the typical strategic horizons
and business models are.

Super excited about their journey ahead. This is one of these efforts that in
this moment already have massive impact and down the road their impact can be
difficult to even grasp and imagine when you think of it.

~~~
Raed667
I'm kind of sad that they don't have the "pay when you get your salary"
contract outside the US.

~~~
alexyz12
This part has always kind of worried me. It feels like indentured servitude a
bit. People will end up paying too much or be on the hook for more than they
can afford because they are desperate now

~~~
greenshackle
It aligns their incentives with yours. You know they really do want you to
find a high paying job. Thats not something that can be said of most
educational programs.

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fspacef
Hey guys, awesome to see all the attention Lambda is getting. I'm a junior in
college who decided to drop out and do Lambda's iOS Program, happy to answer
any questions! For those who are on the fence like I was I can talk about my
experience.

I was always a self learned programmer who made projects in python for fun so
I was really excited when I first got to college thinking that I'd be able to
make the projects at scale that I wanted to.

But as freshman year ended I realized the department at my school for the most
part was stagnant and focused excessively on the theoretical side of CS.
Forget learning new frameworks we were still talking about Java at the end of
the second year. This was really frustrating as I felt I had lost lot of my
creative energy and started to hate coding itself. Thanks to the strength of
my prior work and some connections I managed to get interviews for dev
internships at some really good startups. I completely crashed and burned. I
was not prepared to code under pressure or walk through my solutions with
someone watching. I was really disheartened from the experience and
contemplated switching majors and giving up on tech as a whole.

7 weeks into Lambda now I can create a pretty sophisticated iOS app, use
custom APIs and manage sync with a database backend. I've managed to learn
Swift and become decent at reading ObjC which I'm sure I can get better at
with time. Most importantly though I feel like I can learn anything or at
least logically approach any technical problem and I'm so ready to hit up the
interviewers whom I feel I disappointed for a second chance.

Doing this program is no joke, and definitely not for everyone. I find myself
coding, reading docs, watching videos for 10 hours everyday and at least 4-5
hours on weekends. From the get go I realized what you put in is what you get
out. However the instructors do such a good job of keeping the feedback loop
small for what you learn in class to the projects you build that it keeps you
motivated to implement the next feature and keeps you hungry to learn more.

~~~
rifung
> Forget learning new frameworks we were still talking about Java at the end
> of the second year.

Personally I don't think people should be learning frameworks in school except
for elective classes. CS is so vast that there is more than enough
foundational knowledge to learn without going into specific tooling.

Learning Java in your second year seems like a problem though unless you mean
the class used Java but was focused on teaching other topics like data
structures/algorithms/garbage collection.

~~~
fersho311
I agree, I think people now go to universities to find a job, but I don't
think that is what universities are meant for. They are created to be a place
for higher learning and intellectual pursuits, which is what most CS courses
at universities provide (building a network layer, operating systems, etc).

------
paraschopra
I'm curious what long-term revenue story Lambda School would have convinced
investors to shell out $14Mn. Perhaps, dominating a world where universities
are irrelevant?

I do wonder though that with MOOCs becoming cheap, and that motivated students
are able to get a lot of value from them, would Lambda School slowly transform
into another credentialing/ signaling system for hiring? If that happens, I
guess we will come around to a full circle of disruption in education.

~~~
austenallred
The long-term revenue story is easy.

How much you make per student * how many students = revenue.

How much you make per student is a factor of how much they’re getting paid.

If we help a student get hired for $90k they’ll pay us back $30k. So if we
place 3,333 students/yr at that price point over the long run we’ll do
$100m/yr in revenue. Of course, that’s a _lot_ of students, but that’s also a
_lot_ of revenue, yet a tiny fraction of the total market of up-and-coming
software engineers.

Cost of capital is very real, and it’s one thing to say that and another thing
to do it, but we don’t have to replace the university wholesale for that to
work, we just have to be the best trade school there is.

MOOCs are great, but are hardly the be-all-end-all of education. Content is
everywhere, ability to actually learn from it is more difficult, and expert
help, structured end-to-end curriculum, a community of learners on the same
pace, etc. just make for a better learning experience. Sometimes it feels like
if I made a nickel for every time I heard, “I learned more in 3 weeks of
Lambda School than a year of self study” I could fund the whole company.

~~~
tom_b
The education model (immersive, time-intensive, mastery learning) Lambda
School has in place seems like a _very_ sweet spot between bootcamps and
traditional university CS programs.

But some of that success has to be attributed to riding a boom wave of demand
for software engineers. I'm a mid-career software engineer and have seen at
least two "bust" cycles where experienced, well-credentialed, and just _smart_
engineers went 12+ months between jobs. The effects of that have been
reflected in undergraduate CS enrollments - we see big dips in the mid 90s and
prior to 2006 (where a huge push up in enrollments begins again -
[https://cra.org/data/generation-cs/phenomenal-growth-cs-
majo...](https://cra.org/data/generation-cs/phenomenal-growth-cs-majors-
since-2006/)). How well positioned the Lambda School revenue model to handle a
50% drop in demand and significant drop in starting salaries?

I am a big believer in the trade school process for software engineers, but I
also think that the _long term_ view for programmer careers is one that
includes greatly reduced salaries in the average case and one reason I feel
that way is that a learner _can_ be productive in the workforce with a
shorter-term and less specialized educational background.

~~~
austenallred
Of course we started in a market where we got that sweet spot, but I think
it’s there for most industries. The only reason every single bachelor’s degree
is four years is because that’s what accrediting bodies require if you want to
pull down federal student loan dollars; not because that amount of time makes
the most sense.

From a selfish perspective, I would love for a recession to happen today. When
recessions happen money is tight and people go back to school who otherwise
would have been employed.

Of course, we are exposed to risk at the market level; if we stop hiring
software engineers as a society Lambda School is in trouble, so we’re betting
on that not happening.

That said, the purpose of Lambda School is to take people to the highest point
of economic potential as quickly as is possible, not just to be a tech trade
school. It’s crazy that there’s no institution in the US that’s great at
optimizing human capital other than four years of school and hundreds of
thousands of dollars at a university. So soon we’ll be training for other
verticals as well that aren’t just tech.

~~~
rficcaglia
I have hired several coding school grads - not Lambda but very similar. I’ve
seen these employees plateau and have recommended they consider going back to
a traditional degree program to power the next phase of their career.

I agree the current university system is not effective for everyone, but
economic potential flattens out quickly for tradespeople, which fits the
“coders” job description. Most rock star coders I know in SV who have remained
coders are making roughly the same now as they were in 2001, adjusted for
inflation. Which means their purchasing power has dropped significantly.
Meanwhile those I know who have a liberal arts degree + an MBA or JD have
steadily increased their purchasing power. They made much less initially, but
steadily and reliably accumulated experience that is highly valued in the
market as a function of time. Will the best React or Angular coder grad today
command 10x their salary in 10 years?

Also SF Bay Area is notoriously age biased against older “doers”. Good luck
finding a coder job in a GV startup if you are over 35 at a salary
commensurate with your experience.

I agree a 4 year degree is insufficient, but I would argue it is a necessary
foundation on which to layer on even more education. A career is a marathon,
not a sprint. And it should be about more than how fast one can achieve high
score.

Overall though, I agree there is a niche for this. This has been done for
other verticals, particularly in nursing. So it should work great for a very
specific population and a very specific market need.

But I don’t see it as being a fix to “optimizing human capital” over a
lifetime. (I’m not sure education should be about optimizing anything.) I see
it as a short term win-win until companies do in fact automate away 99% of
coding, and for the under 30 student in an economy that is overheated, in a
country that doesn’t provide a quality public education to alll its kids.

I’ll be a buyer until the market cools and more candidates flood in, but I’ll
continue to recommend they enter a degree program.

~~~
austenallred
I agree with your points on code bootcamps; I think you should check out
Lambda School’s curriculum and see how vastly different it is from code
bootcamps, which are essentially 8 weeks of “learn how to build your first
app”, 4 weeks of “now build your first app” then “now go get a job!”
(Curriculum is here: [https://learn.lambdaschool.com/syllabus/cs-
fsw](https://learn.lambdaschool.com/syllabus/cs-fsw))

Hour for hour Lambda School is about 75% the length of the core track of a CS
degree + homework (we’re now almost 8 months, not including required precourse
work: ~1500 hours). We also teach what we consider the requisite CS
fundamentals (for example architecture, operating systems, system
calls/processes). Students write a lot of C, etc.

We started Lambda School specifically because we didn’t feel right sending
folks to code bootcamps where tbey’ll plateau because they lack fundamentals.

Try interviewing a student or two: we’ve had employers come to us saying,
“Well we need Java engineers with a CS degree” that have now come back with
requests to hire 50 students. Email hiringpartners@lambdaschool.com and I’ll
happily set it up (goes for all of HN).

------
mattcantstop
I love what Lambda School is doing. I was part of the first cohort of the
first ever coding bootcamp. It felt so scary to move to Chicago to
participate, but it seemed so promising. It has worked out so well for myself
and my family, but I recognize that there are so many people out there who
financially could not do what I did at the time (I took out a loan to go and
my wife and three kids moved in with my in-laws).

This school is solving a very real problem and giving hope to so many people
who feel trapped in their current situation. I am really excited they are
getting this funding and looking forward to see what the school, and its
graduates, accomplish.

Great work team!

------
karterk
I have been following Lambda School and I am really happy to see them
succeeding in this space.

I've a question: how is Lambda School different from the other many other
coding bootcamp programs (apart from the unique model of paying the fee only
upon finding a job with adequate salary)?

~~~
shubhamjain
That "except" part isn't trivial. The chief problem of education (not just
programming boot camps) is that incentives of institutes are more aligned with
increasing their prestige than the practical value of what they teach. Lambda
school is a fascinating "experiment" into what happens when incentives are
clearly aligned with the students' future.

~~~
tc7
Isn't the incentive here to choose the most buzzwordy and low-barrier-to-entry
technologies, and spend just enough time/effort to get the students through an
interview so the bootcamp can get paid?

Incentives are hard in this space. Not sure how for-profit companies who get
paid by students can ever be exactly incentivized to focus on honest
evaluation and strong fundamentals.

Maybe the FAANG companies should start/fund a bootcamp, but then you'd have to
be selective, and you'd end up with something totally different... :/

~~~
quaunaut
As much as I've been very skeptical of Lambda School in the past, it's worth
noting that their incentive structure seems aligned well. 17% of your first 2
years salary is a huge number, but it depends on you getting a good job and
keeping it for 2 years. Otherwise they have to invest more time into you.

~~~
austenallred
*17% for two years, capped at $30k total.

But yes you’re correct.

------
LaikaF
I'm a Lambda school student. AMA

I'm in the FSW program but we're past that now. I've watched how people move
in and out of the cohort I'm in.

I went in knowing how to make a basic website, a bit of sqlm and a bit of a
few other of the topics covered. This put me ahead of about 60-70% of the
cohort.

I have noticed students getting very hung up on the particular stack. It does
seem that a few are just copying and pasting code to get it to work.

This was also the case when I went to college though.

What I don't see people mentioning is the effort their putting into improving
the curriculum. It's a living thing unlike most college classes I've been in.
They no longer teach Bootstrap for example (which was probably causing most
students more trouble than it was worth).

I'm on average doing something coding related 8-10 hours a day now.
Occasionally I take days off and go play Minecraft or something. I make about
one extra project every two weeks the latest being (
[https://whatisthecolorofthesky.netlify.com/](https://whatisthecolorofthesky.netlify.com/)
)

The people I see being the most successful are the ones who probably could
have succeeded without Lambda. However I think a sense of direction, a
constant source of help, and a sense of community accelerates the pace.

I don't know if I'm going to regret spending 7 months (plus whatever the job
search takes) of my life doing this but hey it beats what I was doing before.

If you're curious what the class content looks like it's in my Github which is
linked in my profile.

------
cuppy
I'd love to pursue this as the evening hours work great for a single mom, but
the Saturday requirement for the PT program makes it not possible for me. :(

------
rajacombinator
Nice to see this getting major traction. Congrats to Austen - one of the true
grinders in the startup game. Something sadly lacking on HN these days!

------
louisswiss
Lambda School and the team behind it are awesome.

I've thought about applying quite a few times (I'm technical but self taught,
so I've always felt like I'd benefit from a quick bootcamp to soften my jagged
edges).

If the schedule were more friendly to European timezones I'd have signed up
already. Hopefully that's coming soon?

~~~
noelwelsh
Genuinely curious why you'd look at Lambda School instead of a local
university which if you're in Switzerland (going by your user name) would cost
you almost nothing. I always saw Lambda School and equivalents as a necessary
alternative to the broken US university system, not as something that was
needed in Europe.

~~~
louisswiss
Switzerland has some of the world's best universities, sure.

But I don't want to do another degree (the only comparable option would be a 3
year, full time BSc in Computer Science).

Sure, the tuition costs would be lower, but the opportunity costs (plus 3
years of not really working while I study) are easily 10x higher than doing
Lambda School.

Plus, a local university won't teach me the skills I need to become a better
'practical' web/mobile developer. It's a lot of (admittedly very interesting)
theory, not the kind of vocational training I need.

With Lambda School I could strengthen my weak areas in 3-6months and don't
need to travel to do so. A bargain for the price!

~~~
austenallred
We’re launching in the UK in 2019, so I believe that will resolve the time
zone issue.

~~~
ar-jan
That's great news!

------
pl0x
I am a self learned programmer looking to apply to Lambda school.

1.How are you different from General Assembly and Flat Iron School?

2.Both General Assembly and Flat Iron were acquired. How does Lambda expect to
survive when their biggest competitors couldn't?

This concerns me since many of these bootcamps are going the route of itt
technical institute.

~~~
austenallred
1\. We're 3.5x the length, teach computer science fundamentals, employ world-
class instructors and pay them a lot of money, and don't get paid until you
get a job.

2\. By making enough money we can control our own destiny.

------
zapita
I’ve been following Lambda, Holberton and 42. All three seem to have similar
models: no upfront tuition, pay later out of your salary. The quality of
education seems much higher than the typical “bootcamps”. I really like this.

Has anyone compared those three schools?

~~~
jnaddef
I am a student at 42, and I have to correct you on one really important point
: 42 does not have anything as "pay later out of salary". It is a tuition free
school period. Also it is not remote, you need to go to the school everyday,
and they provide free accommodation as long as you reach the targeted progress
each month.

~~~
zapita
Ok, good to know, thanks. So how does 42 plan to make money? Are you happy
with the program so far?

~~~
jnaddef
As far as we know there is no plan to make money. It has been founded and
funded by a French billionaire who did not like the way traditional high
education works.

I am personally really happy with the program, I started 3 years ago and there
are so many different projects and different paths you can choose that I am
planning on staying there for some time

------
portal_narlish
Why is it called LambdaSchool when they teach "JavaScript, Python and C"?

Clicked hoping to see a functional programming oriented bootcamp. We need one
of those.

~~~
austenallred
Ha! Funnily enough we started out teaching Haskell.

Turns out the market for that is much smaller.

I'm really happy someone asked that question; we used to get it every day, but
we don't get it anymore.

------
Kataphract
"pay a percentage of your final salary" is essentially what the student loans
system in the UK boils down to. However I am expected to start paying back
after earning over £21,000. Maybe a shift to a graduate tax on the higher end
of earners would be a fairer way to structure it

~~~
austenallred
Yes, the UK system is much closer to a good idea than that in the US (which is
a complete train wreck). Australia’s model is relatively solid too.

There are, however, some major differences in how the UK structures student
loans vs Lambda School:

1\. If you attend Lambda School you don’t begin making payments until you’re
making $50k+/yr in the field you study. In the UK it’s $24k (at current
exchange rate) regardless of what you study.

At Lambda you pay a 17% of income for 2 yrs, capped at a maximum of $30k, so
if you get a job for $50k you’ll only end up paying $17k. In the UK you pay a
full tuition (generally around $50k + however much you borrow for living costs
for four years).

In the UK you have a 3-7% interest rate, Lambda has no interest.

In the UK if you make payments for 30 years and still haven’t paid it off it’s
forgiven. At Lambda that happens at year 5.

And perhaps this is the most important: In the UK if you default the
University was paid a long time ago. The university gets paid day one and
doesn’t have to care. At Lambda if you don’t get a job Lambda School never
gets paid, so the incentives of the _school_ are aligned with the incentives
of the student, instead of the taxpayer writing a check to cover it.

------
indioinmurica
Sat 9-12pm for PT makes it harder to sign up.Lots of kids related activities
on Sat/Sun morning till late noon. Wondering if there is an option doing the
Sat 9-12pm session over the weekend but at a different time slot?

------
SnowingXIV
Currently employed at a small company and I've been doing a mixture of side
projects throughout the years as well. I don't picture myself leaving anytime
soon but you never know what the future holds with startups.

I've considered doing something like this to fill in gaps of knowledge and
really strengthen my programming ability in the event I need to shoot out some
resumes but unsure how the tuition payback works if I finish the course but
retain my current job?

~~~
austenallred
It depends on what your current job is. We try to err on the side of caution
when telling people they will or will not needn’t to pay if they stay in their
current role.

Contractually the income share agreement says you’re required to pay if your
job is in “software” or “data science.” Obviously it has to be broad, which
could be problematic in edge cases, and I don’t want people to have to trust
us.

~~~
SnowingXIV
That's fair. Might have to send you an email and provide more detail.
Appreciate the responses!

~~~
austenallred
Looking for it! austen@lambdaschool.com

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leesalminen
Way to go, Austen and team! Still hoping I can find a way to help your mission
one day.

------
yroc92
How does Stripe do VC investments when they themselves are still taking
investment funds?

~~~
kornish
What do you mean? Private companies can certainly make strategic investments
in other private companies to commoditize complements, partner on technology,
explore potential M&A and for other reasons too.

See: Coinbase Ventures, Slack's fund, etc.

~~~
yroc92
I can understand a strategic acquisition, but this is just a long-term
investment. I can see how the two companies relate (Stripe loves to be there
at the inception of engineering ideas), but I just imagine investing in
something that won't return your capital for years to come while you're still
strapped for cash being a little... odd?

~~~
kornish
They just raised $250m to pursue long-term initiatives. I wouldn't be worried
about them running out of money any time soon.

~~~
tfehring
I agree that they don't seem like they're strapped for cash, but it's still a
strange use of investors' capital. If Stripe's investors wanted to invest in
Lambda School, why wouldn't they just do so directly? And since Stripe
evidently didn't need the full $250M for its own operations and initiatives,
why didn't it just raise less?

~~~
kornish
I think there are ways to spin Stripe's investment as a customer acquisition
play. If they have more influence over Lambda School curriculum or
partnerships by merit of being an investor, and Lambda School is churning out
web developers whose first instinct is to turn to Stripe for all things
billing, that seems like a pretty reasonable use of investor capital to me.

Someone made a similar comment about YC a few weeks ago – how if you were
building dev tools, even though $150k for 7% results in a lower valuation than
many founders could find elsewhere, you could consider the equity the price
for access to the YC network and existing companies to use your product.

------
mathattack
On the surface this seems like a great thing. How hard is income verification?

~~~
CapnCrunchie
There are forms you can fill out with the IRS to give access to your tax
returns to other individuals.

------
hummel
20k Upfront for international students. Another hint from the bubble inside
the valley and the isolation from the real world that eventually will explode
in some way.

~~~
marktangotango
It’s a play for federal student loan money pure and simple. Odd that anyone
would think otherwise? Edit; non subsidized then?

~~~
austenallred
We don’t get and won’t seek federal student loan money.

In response to the edit: No Lambda School student has, to my knowledge, ever
paid for tuition with a loan of any kind, nor have we ever received any money
from the government.

------
anonymous5133
I also have a small education related project I am working on (currently in
stealth mode) that is more focused on the online/self-study type of learning.
Even though there is a lot of headbutting in terms of "most effective"
education pedagogy. I think the education space is ripe for disruption and
companies like Lambda are definitely innovating in this space. I see the
future of education mostly consisting of a hybrid of focused seminars/hands-on
training like what Lambda is offering and the online self-study MOOCs/courses
for more theoretical learning or life-long learning. The hands-on training
will be very intense and focused with a price while the self-study MOOCs will
be free or very low cost. They both will play an equally important role in the
future of education.

Companies like Lambda clearly show that the education market is being
disrupted and it is clear to see why. Our current university education system
is completely dysfunctional and it is probably most dysfunctional for CS
education. The pace of learning is too slow, the topics you learn are not
relevant to the student and often the topics you learn are outdated. The
universities don't innovate because they are completely disconnected with what
students need to succeed. Half of the courses an undergrad takes are
completely irrelevant topics which the "educational experts" call general
education. When I was in college, I took courses like history of rock music,
art history, greek mythology, and asian-american studies. I only took these
courses because I was required to take them. In the grand scheme, they are
completely pointless and are basically a waste of time...yet we have students
taking half their course load in these types of courses. Why? The reason it is
like this is because these so called education experts are trying to mold some
sort of "model citizen" in their view point. For the student, it just wastes
their time and money. If the student wants to learn these topics, they could
do it on their own....but to require it as mandatory to get a CS degree or
equivalent...is a shining example of how disconnected our university system is
from reality of what students need to be successful in a career.

That's why schools like Lambda are brilliant in the grand scheme of disrupting
education. They cut out all the crap and only focus on the core skills that
employers want in their employees and students need to be successful in a
career. Lambda isn't free but they certainly are doing a significant better
job than some of these other schools I see like University of Phoenix, Devry
and so on which appear to be complete scams. There was also that WozU school
that was promoted on here...which also now appears to be a scam based on
student reports of the program.

I think as a society, we need to encourage the creation of effective schools,
even if they are private schools like Lambda. If that means diverting people
away from government colleges/universities then so be it.

Also another topic that is often brought up is in regards to credentials. From
what I see, the base for traditional university degrees is slowly being eroded
away. Many people say to go to a traditional university because of networking
and connections...which is true but only in the present day. For employers,
they need to hire people who are effective at the position and provide maximum
value. If the MIT CS degree potential employee doesn't know how to code
effectively or only knows obsolete CS topics...how effective will this person
be at the company? Not very much. The employer will want to hire the person
who knows how to code and has relevant knowledge, even if that person doesn't
have a degree from a traditional university. This concept is obvious in a fast
growing market like CS. Employers will eventually gravitate towards candidates
who have the skills to be successful and avoid hiring people just because they
were able to network or get a connection to the company's hiring manager.

------
tinyvm
This trend of "Everyone can make a career in code" is getting out of control.

Becoming a software developer is an insanely difficult and ungrateful journey.

This type of "School" make me incredibly uncomfortable has they really promote
an unrealistic image of the "Software Developer Career" where everything is
super easy , and within 6 months ( seriously ? ) you'll be ready and making
120K$/Year.

Software is a very particular type of industry where turn over is insanely
high and most of the stuff a developer has to do has often nothing to do with
the technology he learnt at school but instead is about mixing all his CS
knowledge ( Software/System Architecture , OSI Model , POSIX etc... ) to come
up with the best possible solution to solve an issue.

Today it seems like Coding School are now becoming the norm , and "Software
Developer" is now widely considered as just "Coding" or being a "Coder".

This is sad and frightening at the same time.

~~~
onion2k
_...but instead is about mixing all his CS knowledge ( Software /System
Architecture , OSI Model , POSIX etc... ) to come up with the best possible
solution to solve an issue._

The majority of software development is essentially blue collar work now. You
don't need a CS degree to make a mobile app or a JS-driven web page. _At
least_ 50% of developers haven't used a POSIX library in their entire career.
They probably don't know what POSIX is. Software development is mostly glueing
together other people's code in ways that don't trip you up later. We'll
always need some of the low-level clever coders to build the foundation
libraries we use, but that doesn't mean every developer has to be one of those
people, or even capable of being one of those people.

And the thing is ... I think this is _great_. Making software is fun,
comfortable desk work that loads of people should have the opportunity to do.
Given the demand for new applications we need to make the barriers to working
as a developer as low as possible.

~~~
gaius
_The majority of software development is essentially blue collar work now._

And like lots of blue-collar work companies are scrambling to offshore it to
the cheapest locations and don’t care about quality because it’s all
disposable.

I could not in good faith recommend this to anyone now, become a plumber or a
nurse, that’s not going offshore anytime soon.

~~~
austenallred
People have been saying that for 20 years, and yet most programmers I know
(even outside of the Bay Area) are making well into the six figures.

~~~
onion2k
So are plumbers in Kensington (an expensive Borough in London). Wealthy
businesses and customers pay their staff a lot regardless of the job.

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kchoudhu
Google Ventures invests in company that will churn out graduates that Google
will never hire.

Makes sense.

~~~
austenallred
First, GV and Google proper are completely separate entities, and neither
seeks the other’s approval other than when Google writes a giant check to fund
GV.

Second, I’ll bet you $100 that there’s a Lambda School grad working at Google
this time next year ;)

~~~
yanslookup
I'll take that bet with conditions:

\- grad must have a rejection from an onsite interview at Google before lambda
school

\- position must be for a T3 swe II

~~~
austenallred
That is very specific. They have to have made it to an on-site and been
rejected before Lambda? Well that eliminates 99% of our student body from
contention.

~~~
yanslookup
How else can we isolate the effects of the program?

To be honest I subscribe to the idea that the FANG etc interviews are proxies
for an IQ test. So it is entirely possible lambda school trains a high enough
IQ individual and they pass a full loop. And by that I mean they pass based on
their IQ AND the training they got in the program.

~~~
austenallred
If you subscribe to the idea that FAANG interviews are IQ tests, then by
definition you won’t be able to isolate the effects of the program. I don’t
think we really move the needle on IQ.

------
jnaddef
42 student here. I feel it is important to share a few facts about 42
regarding this Lambda hype.

42 is a tuition-free school. It means you don't get to pay anything to the
school EVER.

42 is not remote. You need to go to the school to do your projects. We believe
it is important to be in contact with other students, exchange, learn from
each other.

42 provides free accommodation as long as you show your commitment to learning
and improving = if you stop coming to school you do not have access to
accommodation anymore.

42 program is about 2 to 3 years long. Best students can graduate in a bit
over a year when some others stay 4 or 5 years, it really depends on how
dedicated you are, but everybody can have its own rhythm.

Check it out :) [https://www.42.us.org/](https://www.42.us.org/)

