Alpha School's Disruptive Vision for the Future of Education

All educational content is obsolete.

Every textbook, every lesson plan, every test, all of it is obsolete because Genai is going to be able to deliver a

personalized lesson just for you.

[Music] This is going to be so much fun. I have

learned so much from you about what you're building and I'm extremely excited to share it with everybody else and I view my role today as like the excited skeptic uh which I feel like is

the role of a lot of the parents considering Alpha School for their kids.

And so I want to go into deep detail about every aspect of what you and Mackenzie have built. But since most people actually don't yet know what Alpha School is, I think you have to start the conversation by just explaining what it is and and why the

two of you are building it together.

Alpha School, it's a high-end private school. Um, it's expanding across the

school. Um, it's expanding across the country, but at its core is redefining what school can be for kids.

>> Yeah.

>> Um, and what makes a great school? Um,

I'm a product guy, you know, and so you're like looking at it from product aspect. How can you re rebuild school

aspect. How can you re rebuild school and make it awesome? We look at five things of like how do you build a great school? And the first is kids must love

school? And the first is kids must love school.

>> That's just a crazy thought, right? that

most people do not believe you, you know, love it. And our standard is we want to build it so the kids want to go to school instead of going on vacation.

I've been principal now for three years.

McKenzie started it 10 years ago. I I

came on three years ago. Two months ago, our high school kids sent us a note and they said, "Hey, >> can we go can we not take summer break because we're loving what we're doing so much we want to continue through it."

And so it's sort of a a peak.

>> Sounds impossible, but I'll grant it for now.

>> But right, I was one of those kids who definitely did not like school. I

dropped out of college and then you know in high school I got in trouble cuz I skipped school all the time and so this this is a different world for me you know and then the second part of it is just on learning um kids need to learn

10 times faster and so we built an engine learning engine you know all the talk about AI and learning science where kids can learn 10 times faster and so in

our school kids go in spend two hours a day with the AI tutor um uh with screen time and all the things around that uh we obviously consider very good screen time

>> and they learn 10 times faster. So our

academic performance is the top of any school in the country and we do it in dramatically less time. And then the key to that is once you can crush your academics in two hours a day, the

natural follow-on question is well what do you do the rest of the day? Because I

can tell you as principal the one thing parents don't want you to do is send them home after two hours. So uh what do you do for the four hours? And so that's where we talk about life skills. And

this is, you know, in reimagining what are all the things that as a parent we want beyond pure academics, right?

Leadership teamwork entrepreneurship financial literacy, right? Relationship

building, socialization, hard work, grit, you know, um storytelling, public speaking, all of those kind of things.

We do all of that in the the rest of the day. And those are like big

day. And those are like big project-based, you know, workshops that are super fun for the kids and team- based and not screen time, right? Sort

of the opposite.

>> The first thing you ever said to me was something like, uh, educating kids is the single most important thing we do as a society. And it hasn't changed in like

a society. And it hasn't changed in like 200 years. And and let me just dig into

200 years. And and let me just dig into that a little bit more as to why it hasn't change like how it began and why it hasn't changed because it's been the same way for so long that radical approaches like this one we're open to

radical approaches in everything in the world like the pace of technology everyone's excited about the pace of technology change but education is one place that I think parents myself included are sort of scared because it

feels like the ultimate risk to put your kid in something that's different >> and uh so I want to talk about this like 200 year legacy like why why was it like why is it like it is and why doesn't change.

>> Every parent wants to educate the kid the way they were. I I was like I didn't start the school. Mackenzie started the school 10 years ago and I had I went to Catholic school. My kids are in Catholic

Catholic school. My kids are in Catholic school. She starts Alpha. You know, it

school. She starts Alpha. You know, it took her 2 years of saying, you know, come to my school.

>> And I'm like, no offense, Mackenzie. I'm

not sending my kid to your weird janky school. Like, it's weird, right? It's

school. Like, it's weird, right? It's

different. And so, you know, I I I didn't want to do it. And that's the normal parent reaction to all of this cuz it's all we know. So back to the 200 years is you know there were you know if you go sort of the Socrates, Plato,

Aristotle, Alexander the Great, you know the elite had tutors but fundamentally you know 200 years ago when we decided everybody needed education you know

globally we created the industrialized model and the way to do it is put a teacher in front of a classroom and whatever the class size is 20 30 you know that is actually globally right it doesn't matter where you are in the

world you know you can be in the poor school district you know in India and there's a teacher in front of a classroom, you know, the building's not that nice. Or you could be down the

that nice. Or you could be down the street here at a $75,000 private school and it's a teacher in front of a classroom in a very nice, you know, a very nice building. Uh, and you know,

that is how teaching's been done. What

happened is sort of 40 years ago uh the schools of education you know Stanford was one of the leading ones uh but lots of others took a took a lead and said how do kids learn and develop and

there's actually a thing called learning science >> the science of how kids you know children develop and you know they started writing papers 40 years ago that were basically the teacher in front of

the classrooms like the worst way to teach kids and there's all these ways where kids can learn two five 10 times faster but it doesn't work in the teacher influence classroom model and so it's not scalable so you can't do

anything about it like one of the first papers there's there's Bloom's two sigma is a seminal paper and they talk in the paper well if everybody had an individualized tutor right it'd be great but obviously not feasible there's a lot

of other things too mastery based learning space repetition all these other concepts of cognitive load theory about all those >> we can we can go into those but fundamentally it just hasn't been possible that's sort of I guess where

you know my my how I came into the alpha story which was I was an early AI old school AI not the new neural net right and in the 80s I actually wrote a paper in high school on AI um and one of my

paragraphs was like neural nets but they're decades away right back then it was all expert systems and ontologies right and so you know and then I went to Stanford and I was actually in a class

with Ed Fenbomb professor Fenbomb who was the father of expert systems and you know he's talking about how these things are worth millions of dollars if you ever get to work. And so, you know, my

classmates and I, a couple of us, we dropped out and started Trilogy. And we

spent our claim to fame in the '9s was we were the first AI product to sell a billion dollars.

>> And so that was our, you know, but old school, old school sell. But then three years ago when Gen AI came out, I was like, "Oh, neural nets are here. They're

here. It's decades here." And my kids were at Alpha because 10 years ago they I did talk about it. I eventually did send him to alpha uh which is a great story how they got there but it wasn't

scalable just like all other ed educational things. I was like Mackenzie

educational things. I was like Mackenzie you have a great school here and it's great for my kids and your kids and all kids go to alpha but this can't scale.

Three years ago with Genai I was like ah this is finally the technology that is going to allow education to scale and we can take all this awesomeness where kids can learn two five 10 times better

faster and get it out to a billion kids.

That's when I became principal because I was like, "Okay, Mackenzie, we could totally make this, you know, a super scalable thing, but I'm a product guy. I

got to be in it. I got to see what happens when fifth graders get in a fight and when parents yell at you and all of those things." So,

>> so if we think about the school as there's lots of components, but I want to spend a chunk of time on just the two hours of learning and how whether that should be 1 hour or three hours or, you know, aspects of that and then the the

afternoon session, the sort of life skills, the motivation, everything else.

Maybe starting with the the the chapters that the two-hour learning has gone through. My understanding is that

through. My understanding is that originally it's always been computer-based, try to make it personalized using external tools like EXL and others that that people may know about. Um but then layering in

about. Um but then layering in critically like a a feedback mechanism which I know for you is like uh you know incredibly important in anything that you build that tight feedback and iteration matters a lot. So maybe talk

us through the the various iterations of this software itself and and like literally what it is and what it does, what it feels like to use.

>> Khan Academy is sort of the best one.

Everybody knows that one.

>> This concept and actually homeschoolers know this a lot is most homeschoolers only spend a couple hours a day, you know, with apps um trying to teach. Now,

so the evolution very much was using various apps, you know, and figuring out, okay, here's, you know, 10 years ago, Dreambox was one of the the leading

apps back then, you know, and there's using apps in order to have kids learn.

The evolution has been how do you make the apps better? How do you get better educational outcomes and less time? So,

and there's little revisionist history since I' I've only been here the 3 years, >> but fundamentally the design goal that, you know, our team uses is when we put

in new software or new anything, does it increase their academic knowledge >> or reduce the time >> that it takes to learn, >> right? That's basically you're like how

>> right? That's basically you're like how do I get knowledge into a kid's head and not crammed where they're going to forget it where it truly is you know back to learning science it's going to

change the schema of their brain right it's going to change it and it's going to be there forever right and how do I do that and create thinking right and create knowledge acquisition and how do

I do that in the most efficient way possible >> and there's lots of the learning science that says here's how you do that >> um and so what we've been doing is

saying great sort of since I took over or you know became principal and started building out this product was all right what can you do what are the principles of learning science that are the

foundations of this that now can have a kid learn and learn well and so but when you come in so how does it work so let's take a new kid yeah >> you're going to come in the first thing that

>> you know um apps are really good at is figuring out what you know and what you don't know.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. And so it's going to be able to ask you some questions. So just think of any kind of assessment test. There's

lots of out there. A maps test would be a good example is figuring out, you know, what do you know and what do you don't know? And then once we figure that

don't know? And then once we figure that out, we give you lessons to build up your knowledge from wherever you are.

And so the first thing you have to do and this, you know, uh that's very different is age grade and knowledge grade are very different things, right?

that just because you're in sixth grade age- wise doesn't mean you actually should be in sixth grade content. And

this is one of the big things that's different for a teacher in front of a classroom model.

>> Right? Where a teacher has to deliver sixth grade material. I'm a sixth grade teacher. I'm doing sixth grade lessons.

teacher. I'm doing sixth grade lessons.

Right? The magic, right? And this is what the, you know, the uh AI tutor can do is say, "Look, I don't know. I don't

know what happened. It's co whatever happened you were on holiday, you know, you missed those lessons. You don't know this fourth grade material.

>> And so, I'm just going to give you this fourth grade lesson, even though age- wise you're in sixth grade. And the

reason you've been having struggling in sixth grade material is because you didn't know this fourth grade concept, right? That if you're doing fractions

right? That if you're doing fractions and you haven't mastered division, right, you're going to sit there and say, "God, this fraction problem is really hard." But the real issue is,

really hard." But the real issue is, well, just go back and learn your division and then the fraction is going to be easier. And you know most of knowledge is hierarchical where it bas it's based on foundation. You know

algebra is basically advanced fraction manipulation. Fractions is

manipulation. Fractions is multiplication and division and right you can just keep going down um the tree where you have to actually learn bottom up and have mastery. One of the big

concepts of learning science is you need to master material not just know parts and have big gaping.

>> What does mastery mean? Mastery means

think of like a sports analogy.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. Have you mastered the basics, right? How good are you? Right. We

right? How good are you? Right. We

always talk about, you know, in standard school there's a whole set of things that like 70%, you know, you're passing, you know, you don't know 30% of the material, >> right?

>> And then they move you on to more advanced things. And you know, it's

advanced things. And you know, it's always it's sort of like in basketball, if like if you're the point guard and you lose the ball 30% of the time going down the court, >> the the coach is not going to be like, "Hey, let's work on the alleyoop." You

know, they're going to be like, "Okay, let's get back to the basics and master the basics so you can get down the court."

court." >> Yeah. So, basically have 100 close to

>> Yeah. So, basically have 100 close to 100 >> close to 100. So, our standard is over 90, right? And so one of the things that

90, right? And so one of the things that we do you know versus and like versus other apps and you know what we had to surround the apps was if you use existing apps and use them at the

mastery standard they they have >> you'll struggle to get the results we get at alpha um because uh the mastery standard that's embedded in all the apps and used is just too low. Can we spend a

minute on on the learning science and the cognitive behavioral uh stuff and and every cognitive load theory and all this kind of stuff that underpins the two you know less time you know better better content scores. Uh maybe just

yeah just dump on us like the important aspects of those two fields that you've >> Sure. So

>> Sure. So >> assimilated.

>> Let's go through just in order. If you

take uh individual personalized lesson plans, the first thing is if you need a fourth grade lesson, it's really important that you're given a fourth grade lesson even if you're in sixth grade.

>> This is like one 10 oneonone tutor. It's

like >> it's like the one the Bloom's 101 tutor.

The second part is you do need mastery.

And so back to fourth grade, go learn it, right? And when kids are struggling

it, right? And when kids are struggling as they get older, the real issue isn't that they're struggling in the older material, it's the prior material. And

so just put them into the the prior material. Then as you get into cognitive

material. Then as you get into cognitive load theory which is here's the way to think about that is and simplification and is you have working memory slots right you have every person has a

certain number of chunks that you can work on or registers on a CPU if you're a technical person and that's what when you're doing that that's when you're

computing i.e thinking, right? What is 7

computing i.e thinking, right? What is 7 * 8? And I'm calculating what that is.

* 8? And I'm calculating what that is.

Um, then the second part of it is how many times how many reps does it take to take what's in working memory and put it into long-term memory so you remember it forever. And you know,

there's a certain number and actually people are different. You know, GT kids need fewer reps than other kids.

Fundamentally, it's how many reps you need to put it in. And there's a whole concept of spaced repetition which is if you space them out over time, right, you

retain it for longer. This is the I cram, >> right? Versus do you remember it? Like

>> right? Versus do you remember it? Like

we have a workshop with the kids where, you know, if you actually take kids and say, "Okay, you're going to do vocabulary words 10 minutes a day, you know, every day. On Friday, you know,

here's your test score."

We have another group that then volunteers and they're like, "No, no, no. I'm going to cram the night before."

no. I'm going to cram the night before."

>> They cram the night before and then they take the test and they basically get about the same test and say they're like, "See, cramming works."

>> We then retest them a week later.

>> And the cram kids don't remember anything. And the people who've done it

anything. And the people who've done it 10 minutes a day all remember it. And

the kids learn, oh, okay, I should actually not cram if I really want to learn this. Um, which goes back to our

learn this. Um, which goes back to our whole thing of, you know, there back to retention and learning faster. You can

teach kids to be these self-driven learners where they learn these concepts and actually are excited to learn two, five, 10 times faster, right? They kids

want to learn as quickly as they can.

Um, uh, assuming you give them their time back.

>> Just to put a fine point on it right now, maybe just like share your favorite of the you've been the school's been around for a while. You've been there three years. some of your favorite

three years. some of your favorite outcome statistics. Like so far we've

outcome statistics. Like so far we've been talking about a really radical cool new way of educating kids, but you you measure everything in in our conversations. I've come to appreciate

conversations. I've come to appreciate that like you are a measurement fanatic.

>> Um and and so you care very deeply about the measurable outcomes here. What are

some favorite examples of what this method has allowed for in the kids?

>> You know, our academic results are >> um are just crazy based on standardized tests. So the there's two parts. The

tests. So the there's two parts. The

first is our kids literally spend two hours a day and that's it.

>> And so, you know, there instead of sitting in class for six and homework, right, that the amount, you know, of time they need to spend is so much less

than what we spent or what parents expect. You know, the the the data you

expect. You know, the the the data you need is the average kid at alpha, if you're a year behind in a subject, >> right? You know, for whatever reason, to

>> right? You know, for whatever reason, to a parent like, "Oh my god, that's terrible." Well, your kid's only 20 to

terrible." Well, your kid's only 20 to 30 hours behind that. You can teach an entire grade level of material for one subject in about 20 to 30 hours.

>> Crazy, >> right? And you're just like, wait,

>> right? And you're just like, wait, there's 180 school days and each class is an hour and it's 180 hours plus homework and you're telling me it's 20 to 30 hours. And you're like, yeah, 5 to

10 times faster, right? Over and over.

our AP kids, like they'll do AP, you know, world history where our kids all got fives because the test came back uh a couple weeks ago. They all get fives

and uh they spend 75 hours max to do AP.

So this whole oh these big AP loads, you know, in high school where it's hundreds of hours, you're like, oh wow, it just doesn't take that long. And so this whole concept of we need to have kids

spend six hours a day plus homework for 12 years, it's just it's not even close to true, >> you know, in this new world. And and

then the second part is okay, they're only doing it two hours. They must not your your scores aren't high enough. and

our academic the reason you know we use a lot of standardized tests because well first off when I talk to the parents I'm like you wouldn't even our parents who don't believe you know who don't like standardized testing they actually love

it with alpha because they wouldn't believe our results right >> I'm like you know if I sat here and just said hey >> it's better >> trust me trust me that two hours is totally working right they're like

what's the test right and it's only you know and we we do a midyear test so you you come in in August or September mber and take your MAPS test that we use. We

use third party and then in January you get your midyear update. And you know for parents who come in you know at first they're like okay this sounds really exciting and then their kid you know comes in is doing the two-hour day

their kids loving school you know somewhere around December at cuz they're home at Christmas and the family members are like >> this seems like a is your kid really learning and all this stuff. They start

get a little freaked out and then the January maps test come backs and shows they're learning twice as much in two hours a day. So our standard is in two hours a day you'll learn twice as much as sitting in class for six. And you

know for that that's just you know if you look on growth rate right our growth relative to any other school in the country is off the charts. Like there's

there's a a substack actually that just came out that literally just takes our maps results and feeds it to AI and says compare this to the best schools in the country. and they're like there is no

country. and they're like there is no school in the country who can deliver these kind of results because both you can take in kids who are behind right and if they're learning twice as fast they're going to catch up. So you can

take a kid at 50th percentile and get them into top 10%. Or you can take a kid at 99th percentile which is usually capped out and all of a sudden put them years ahead, right? And so it works on

either side because you're just focusing on the growth which is how do you teach the kids more in less time >> and you know you you also can just sit there anybody who you know if you talk

to the experts in learning science they're like well theoretically this has all been predicted for 40 years but no one's been able to implement it. Oh,

okay. I guess we're implementing it and it's working.

>> I like the idea that you told me one time that kind of like the microscoped unlocked biology that AI unlocks learning science. It seems like that's

learning science. It seems like that's just true.

>> Yeah. So, I this was this is I I agree back to my favorite analogy is you know the the sciences, you know, biology, chemistry, and you know, uh physics.

Let's take those. They had their days of of wandering in the wilderness, lost in the wilderness where, you know, doctors were still bloodletting and, you know, chemists were blowing themselves up

because they were mix, you know, and uh and there was an invention of an instrument, right? The microscope for

instrument, right? The microscope for biology and the telescope for physics and the analytical balance for chemistry that allowed more precise measurement, >> right? And that precise measurement is

>> right? And that precise measurement is what allowed those sciences to really take off. And so learning science has

take off. And so learning science has sort of been that way. It's in this, you know, wilderness period for 40 years where we still have teachers, you know, in front of the classroom, you know, in

just a bad model. Teachers are great.

Teacher in front of the classroom is the problem, right? The model is the issue,

problem, right? The model is the issue, but teachers are awesome. I want to be really clear because that's a we should talk about how important the adults in a building are. But back to the the

building are. But back to the the learning science AI allows you to do precise instruction to the student. So

and then second measure the results and if you take the AI out right your effect is dominated by the classroom right and you don't know is the student motivated

are they even trying what's the prior knowledge of the student did the teacher actually instruct it correctly right and so the the environmental variables dominate in the last 40 years with

learning science with ours with an AI giving very precise instruction and being able to closed loop measure it right. That closed loop is the magic to

right. That closed loop is the magic to your point which is we have a closed loop that no one else has that our team comes up with an idea and says okay theoretically let's take you know Dean

Schwarz you know chapter K you know and put it in we generate lessons the students use them right how well does this improve teaching they take a standardized test we measure how long

how much time they spend they take a standardized test we have the results did it work right and keep that loop going um we're basically the only place

that has that closed loop which is why we're able to get these crazy awesome outcomes and other people aren't. You

also told me the best way to learn is by analogy. And there's there's another

analogy. And there's there's another analogy which is I think quite cool is is to think about this program like an iPhone that like every year for a long time they were releasing a new one and it's constantly getting better.

>> And I want to understand some of the dimensions of that with the 2-hour piece specifically before we get to the afternoon and motivators and everything else >> which is I know you started like I said before with with tools like you're

starting with a you know standard set of curriculum that maps to the map tests and everything else.

talk about like the iter what has improved the most since you first started applying this this idea of like wait not only is this core idea of the learning loop better but the but the

each component part of it can probably get improved like the iPhone does year to year.

>> Yeah. Here's the magical part, and this gets into um the time back of what we're going to be launching to to bring this

outside of alpha is generating personalized lesson plans for kids for them.

>> Yeah.

>> Is the magical unlock because it affects everything which is back to motivation and your point of analogies and learning. Let me go far extreme. I I

learning. Let me go far extreme. I I

have a first grade boy who's like, "I hate books. I don't want to read."

hate books. I don't want to read."

>> And you're like, "Here's a book." Right.

>> Good luck.

>> Good luck. Okay, just a second. Who

What's your favorite movie? Right. Oh,

the Avengers. Who are the buddies on your soccer team? Really? Okay. I am

going to generate, right, a personalized uh choose your own adventure story where you and your buddies are saving the world, >> right? And it's going to be geared

>> right? And it's going to be geared exactly to your Lexile level, right?

Your reading ability, which is back to learning science. You want to stay

learning science. You want to stay within 10% of, you know, where they are.

So it's not too easy, not too hard. Zone

of proximal development, right? And so

you're sitting there and now I have a lesson that you are going to engage in and it you're going to be reading it and you're saving and you're choosing your adventure of where you're going and you're engaging and kids will spend who

quote hate books will spend an hour, right, choosing it. And as they learn more, you can move up the Lexile level and such. And you can build a

and such. And you can build a personalized lesson just for them that's dynamic. You want to learn fractions,

dynamic. You want to learn fractions, right? You can sit there and say, "Oh,

right? You can sit there and say, "Oh, you don't want to do math, but oh, you want to be a fashionista and a fashion designer. Okay, well, how are you going

designer. Okay, well, how are you going to do that?" Right? We're going to make this all in rulers and, you know, dress patterns and all those kind of things.

And all of a sudden, you're going to want to learn fractions. or I love you.

If you love baseball, I'm going to teach you statistics in the tournament of baseball. AI and this is the generative

baseball. AI and this is the generative part of AI that really matters is all educational content is obsolete.

Every textbook, every lesson plan, every test, all of it is obsolete because Gen AI is going to be able to deliver generate a personalized lesson just for

you, >> right? And it's going to take into

>> right? And it's going to take into account, you know, what is your knowledge graph? What do you know and

knowledge graph? What do you know and what do you not know? Right. It's going

to take in the curriculum. Okay. What am

I trying to teach you? It's also going to take into account your interest graph. What do you care about?

graph. What do you care about?

>> Yeah.

>> Right. And so all of a sudden, you can sit and say, what is my knowledge graph of what I know and what my interest graph is? Right. Uh here's an example of

graph is? Right. Uh here's an example of an AI a generated one where uh people were doing AP World and they were coming back from a Taylor Swift concert and

they're like I'm having trouble with the start of World War I and you're like okay well generate a lesson plan >> in terms of Taylor Swift right and all

of a sudden you know when and I I can't remember exactly but when she was on the you know uh getting the award and they came up and took it and then there was all the controversy and there was a mediator and literally It just created a

table of all the people, you know, who were involved, the Taylor Swift people and then the World War I with, you know, Arch Duke Fronford and all that. And

literally the kids like, "Okay, I'm going to remember this forever." Or, uh, for AP world history, our kids, our high school kids generated this where they go into Sumo, which is an AI music

generator, and they literally, just like Hamilton, you know, here's back to interest level and and generating content. you know, every kid coming into

content. you know, every kid coming into high school these days, everything they because we don't teach history that much anymore in sort of standard school. And

so if you transfer into alpha, your knowledge of history is basically whatever is in a Hamilton song, right?

That's sort of the that's the if it's there, they know it, and if they don't, they don't. Well, taking that theme even

they don't. Well, taking that theme even further, you know, for every unit in uh AP history, the students generated a song, right, to teach themselves the

concepts, right? And they were all just

concepts, right? And they were all just singing the songs, going down, having a great time, right? And they made the the material relevant to their interests,

right? Which massively aids engagement

right? Which massively aids engagement and retention. And so when you think

and retention. And so when you think about the biggest change is imagine getting personalized lessons, right?

Geared for your interests. And those

lessons though are all based in the concepts of learning science. Like think

of giving a kid an unending stream of questions, right, and knowledge at 80 to 85% accuracy, which is sort of the zone of proximal development, which is

you don't want to make it too hard, >> right? where I'm half the time I'm

>> right? where I'm half the time I'm failing because you're gonna get disengagement, right? Talk to game

disengagement, right? Talk to game developers. They've

developers. They've >> learned about this. Yeah.

>> Yeah. You're just game developers. You

use the same theory as game developers is how do I keep them engaged? And if

it's getting too hard, let's make it a little easier. What's the, you know, I

little easier. What's the, you know, I can, oh, it's a scaffolding issue where there it's a prior knowledge issue. I

can do that. Um, I can use analogies that they know. Oh, it's Taylor Swift or baseball or whatever their their concepts are. And I just give you an

concepts are. And I just give you an unending stream of questions that you're engaged with that you really like.

>> Right? the amount of that you are going to learn is 10 times more than you would passively sitting in class, you know, disengaged. Yeah.

disengaged. Yeah.

>> Um, and so that's really what the magic is of being able to autogenerate content for each student based on their, you know, interest graph. Now, there is

cognitive load stuff also of well, you know, when you feel confused and overloaded, that's usually when you're overloading your working memory, right?

That's also when careless mistakes come in. You can sit there and say, make sure

in. You can sit there and say, make sure because every student's different. You

tailor the question based on how many slots they have, right? How many chunks do they have? So it's not too hard for them where you're not overloading it.

Um, you know, a classic one on this one um is fluency, which is fluency if you know you can solve harder math problems if you know your multiplication tables

and division tables. For students who are struggling, right, in advanced math, part of the problem is just go memorize your multiplication tables, right, which they all can do and then all of a sudden

their higher level math scores get better. We have one student who was, you

better. We have one student who was, you know, and this is sort of a unique an extreme example and I hesitate to say it, but you know, we had a student who was 740 on the math SAT

and in looking right uh they were making careless errors, right? They were

basically in the some of the problems they were overloading work in memory.

And for whatever reason, this student had never fully didn't have fluency of multiplication and division tables.

>> So, we literally sent her back to third grade math, >> right? We're the only school in the

>> right? We're the only school in the world who will take a 740 math SAT student, >> go back to third grade, >> send back and she got a 790.

>> Crazy, >> right? A 790. And it's that kind of

>> right? A 790. And it's that kind of thing where when you talk about the science of learning and just I I I say it this way, the parent and the student in this case were not excited that their

740 math student is being given third grade problems. They're like that can't be the issue.

>> But it is, >> right? It is because you're overloading

>> right? It is because you're overloading the working memory and she's just making careless mistakes. And once she has it,

careless mistakes. And once she has it, right, ju just a quick selfish aside, when will this be available for me?

Again, we're I keep referencing we're going to come back to motivation. I'm

motivated to learn lots of stuff.

Investors in general like motivated to learn lots of stuff. Um I'm often facing novel situations where I don't know the physics or the technicals or the this or the that and I wish I could just input like, yeah, here's everything about me.

Here's all my favorite stuff.

>> Ask me anything you want to know. I'll

tell you anything. Now teach me whatever. Um teach me avionics. Teach me

whatever. Um teach me avionics. Teach me

whatever. I'll take tests. Like I'll do whatever it takes. Like how long do you think we are from a normal adult that doesn't need motivating just being able to input the thing they want to learn about and having a system like time back

teach it to us much faster?

>> We're focused on K through 12. There

needs to be somebody else who does that for the adults. But the next 5 or 10 years everybody can have this. this is

going to be a standard thing for everybody that back to a visionary you know u I was talking to some ministers of education of other countries and you know I was like look you know sometime

in the next 5 years I don't know exactly when but there's going to be a tablet that's less than $1,000 that is going to teach every kid on this planet everything they need to know in

two hours a day right that's coming right it's going to come and you know we our AI burn is like 10,000 bucks a kid now, but it's going to be down. It's

going to be for everybody. It's going to be on a, you know, tablet that everybody's going to have. Um, and that that is coming. If you're a parent, you should wake up and be super excited. You

know, AI is going to affect people various ways. There's going to be

various ways. There's going to be winners and losers, right? I'm I'm in Austin >> and we have the robo taxis and the wayos and all this stuff. And I'm like, I would not want to be an Uber driver.

This is just not good, right? It is not good for them. For kids,

>> it is an unequivocal good. This is

Mackenzie's favorite line and I completely agree with it which is this is the best time in history to be a 5-year-old >> because we are going to transform their first 12 years because they are not

going to sit in class. People do not like school, right? It is school experience for most people is not good and they don't learn and we're going to completely be able to transform their,

you know, dozen years and make it awesome as opposed to the chore that it is today.

>> How fast does the benefit diminish with age? like the best time to be a

age? like the best time to be a 5-year-old, what about to be a 10-year-old or a 15y old? Like, will

that cohort still enjoy these benefits?

>> Back to catching up and how far, you know, we'll take anybody into an alpha school academically if they're willing to put in the time. And when you talk about the time, you're like, "Wow, you're really far behind. So, you can't

do the two-hour learning. You got to do the three-hour learning." Okay? You need

to take one hour of homework, right? Or

an extra hour in the class daytime in order to catch up. No, cuz it's, you know, you know, on our on our dashboard, you know, we literally have one for when people come in where parents can look

and say, you know, no matter how far how many weeks it will take their kid to catch up, right, if they do one hour of homework, right? And so you can take a

homework, right? And so you can take a kid years behind, right? And you're

like, well, you're 20 to 30 hours, right? Times you're two years behind.

right? Times you're two years behind.

Great. You're 40 to 60 hours behind. The

number of hours just isn't that much.

and you can just catch them catch up very quickly. Um so anybody can take

very quickly. Um so anybody can take advantage of it and I believe that you know it it's getting the curriculum in and getting you know and getting that closed loop and measuring it and >> yeah well let's talk about motivation

now. So we know that motivation is some

now. So we know that motivation is some huge percent of the problem. I think

there's been interesting studies. The

the anonymous parent that that wrote about whose kids in alpha school talked about this idea that they tried to adopt themselves some of the programs that were underneath um early versions of alpha and they really didn't have a lot

of success like their kids didn't really want to do it. They kind of complained about doing it on the weekend. Um there

wasn't the feedback mechanism critically to show the kids you know kind of gified where they are. But motivation solving for motivation both in giving feedback on on their progress but also in what

happens in the afternoon has been a critical part I think of alpha success.

So just talk me through the entire like journey journey of learning about this and what you do.

>> Yeah. So motivation is 90% of the solution.

>> Okay. The edte is 10%.

>> And so this this is actually in just hitting the edte and the software and all that stuff. Even though I come from the software ground the problem edtech has failed, right? We keep putting edtech into schools and test scores keep

going down. So there's no right it's

going down. So there's no right it's failed. Um and the issue is edtech is

failed. Um and the issue is edtech is necessary but not sufficient. It's 10%

of the solution that the two things every you know educators will say you need two things to teach a kid. First

and most important a motivated student and then second you need to put them in lessons of the correct difficulty.

Right? That's and not too easy not too hard. So approximal development. So EdTE

hard. So approximal development. So EdTE

does the second one really well. AI

tutors, right? We can ask you what you know and what you don't know. Take an

assessment test and then we're going to give you those questions. But are you going to engage? Do you have any interest in engaging? Right? Or if I don't engage with the app, right? Then

I'm not going to learn anything.

Motivation is 90%. And alpha is 100% built around solving the motivation problem. There's two two stories here on

problem. There's two two stories here on this was back to when I moved my kid over years ago. Brian um who was the co-founder with Mackenzie of Alpha. I

asked him I was like what's something that I don't believe about education that I need to know. She's he's like kids must love school. Right. The first

commitment of alpha is kids will love school.

>> And I'm like oh you know school's sort of like spinach sometimes.

>> Yeah, >> right. And sort of sucks and all stuff.

>> right. And sort of sucks and all stuff.

He's like you are wrong. Kids must love school. That couldn't be more true. If

school. That couldn't be more true. If

we're going to fix education, we have to wake up every day and realize why don't we make these dozen years for kids. We

spend plenty of money, right? We spend

plenty of money. We spent a trillion dollars for K through 12 in this country to make kids love school right now. Put

them in class for six hours, give them homework, make it a very terrible environment. We're not doing that. But

environment. We're not doing that. But

we need to change it so they love school. And that's tied into how you

school. And that's tied into how you have to solve the motivation. If you

want them to learn, you have to do that.

Um and so uh and actually and just back to the edtech one last thing on the edtech is you know edtech has five or 10% of kids who do well with it right

and there's a whole paper out called the 5% solution where it the successes around edtech are basically there's a set of kids who love

academics for academic sake right and learning more right they're self-motivated high conscientiousness often high IQ Q kids, right, who do

really well, right, in the current existing system and you give them apps and they do it. But that's not 90% of the market. And 90% of the market is

the market. And 90% of the market is okay, how do we motivate how do we motivate kids? And so motivation is the

motivate kids? And so motivation is the core of the design. So let's start with, you know, the first the first part of this, which is so my first week as principal 3 years ago, you know, I'm now

accountable to the kids must love school, >> right? and love school so much they

>> right? and love school so much they don't want to go on vacation which right and so I'm talking to some fifth graders I'm like guys they're new to the school I'm like you know do you love school would you rather go to school and

vacation they're like no and I'm like okay well what would make you love school and they're like less school and

I'm like okay well how much less and they're like no school and I'm like okay well that seems a little light as a principal to like have no school and So

basically we negotiated I was like look how about this if two hours a day if you engaged in the apps like and you'd have to engage you can't screw around you can't be doing stuff but would if you

really engaged with the apps for two hours and then you had four hours of the most awesome stuff you love to do and workshops and you know team based stuff

that you really loved you know would you do that and they're basically like okay and that's when you know and I'm back with my team on my you know my software

team. I'm like, "All right, guys. We

team. I'm like, "All right, guys. We

have 2 hours, right? We have 2 hours and we have to teach these kids as much as we can and look, all this learning science says it can be done and let's go figure this out and let's create a system, right? Where these kids are

system, right? Where these kids are going to crush it academically in 2 hours because that is the right you have to have first you have to solve it in two hours and give them their time

back." And so the code name of our

back." And so the code name of our product and actually it's actually going to be the product when you say when does everybody get this right next year our goal is to get this out. We our our job my job is to get this to a billion kids

and so I need a software platform to do it. You can't do it with all the

it. You can't do it with all the >> um with just the physical schools um or just alpha and so but time back was the name of the product. Give kids their time back

>> and that is by far the number one motivator for kids. Actually, in that article you're talking about from uh that parent, motivation's complicated.

There's lots of ways to motivate kids, right? Our guides, our adults in the

right? Our guides, our adults in the building, our guides and coaches, they spend all their day figuring out how do we motivate kids, right? And you know, sometimes it's, you know, the kindergarter wants a sticker or

sometimes it's, oh, some of the students are competitive and they want to be top of a a stack rank, we say like that. But

by far the number one if you take the biggest kids your biggest one your highest right effect size is give kids their time back >> and that drives the huge performance

which is if you took all my other motivations that we use you know at alpha and you said they have to sit in class for six hours and do homework I I don't know any of those other

motivations would work versus I you have to solve the first one which is you need an engine that teaches kids 10 times faster so you can give them their time

back. And then once you do that, these

back. And then once you do that, these other motivations work as well. But time

back is by far the most important motivation. And then with it, it totally

motivation. And then with it, it totally works cuz kids kids get it. You're like,

"Well, >> do I want to spend two hours g eng ga, right, to then do four hours of great stuff, >> right?" Almost every kid's like, "Okay,

>> right?" Almost every kid's like, "Okay, that seems a lot better."

>> So what is the great stuff? Like what

happens in the second twothirds of the day? Because the parents don't want the

day? Because the parents don't want the kids back. you got to keep the kids. So,

kids back. you got to keep the kids. So,

what what's going on?

>> The afternoons are all the life skill workshops. There's tons of stories

workshops. There's tons of stories around it, but these are project-based workshops um where kids are doing stuff they love, but also teaching them life skills. And so, think of a life skill

skills. And so, think of a life skill that you want. Oh, I want my kid to be I want entrepreneurial life skills. So,

our fifth graders last year or two years ago ran an Airbnb, >> right? And they loved it. And they had

>> right? And they loved it. And they had to learn, right, P&Ls and gross margin and all these things. because they had to learn business and they were loving it, right? And how do we set prices and

it, right? And how do we set prices and oh right and they were decorating it and you know this year those same group were like well we want to launch a food truck. Austin has a big food truck

truck. Austin has a big food truck scene, right? We want to launch a food

scene, right? We want to launch a food truck. And I, you know, I was talking to

truck. And I, you know, I was talking to one of them and I was like, "Uh, why'd you pick?" They picked breakfast food.

you pick?" They picked breakfast food.

Dippers, they call themselves, right?

Why'd you pick breakfast food? They're

like, "Do you understand the gross margin on breakfast foods?" They're

like, "It's just enormous." And you're like, "Okay, this is awesome, right?"

And they're, you know, and they have the food truck and they're at, you know, they on weekends like they're going to car dealerships and have it open and, you know, they're making $1,000 and and just think it's great. when you think of

life skills that we're trying to teach.

We have a we have a whole life skill curriculum, right? Because if you know

curriculum, right? Because if you know common core curriculum is you know the the standard academics but parents have a standard of okay well how do we teach teamwork and leadership right today

teamwork and leadership is taught via sports in America right that most life skills in America are taught um in afterchool sports and if you actually survey parents they're like where did

you learn your life skills grit right leadership teamwork all those kind of ones they're all like oh in sports and that's why sports is such a big part of it. Now, you can teach those in school.

it. Now, you can teach those in school.

You don't need to to do it. Actually,

school is a great place to teach leadership and teamwork and all these other life skills. Our big one, right?

It's leadership and teamwork. Second,

storytelling and public speaking, you know, and and talk about this one, which is uh if you actually go to the average 10 10-year-old and you're like, "Hey, do you want to do public speaking?"

>> The kids like, "Yeah, it doesn't sound that fun, right? That's not exciting.

How do you make it fun and exciting so they love it?" You're like, "Well, uh, you know, we have, uh, postgame press conference. You're the athlete, right?

conference. You're the athlete, right?

Everybody wants to be able to do their postgame press conference." So, these kids all practice their public speaking and then they go up to Austin FC, the stadium, and get to go, you know, once they pass, they get to see the game and

they get to go then sit and see the postgame press conference, you know, with their favorite star. And then we have a deal where then after the stars leave a couple of the press stay and

then the kids go up and get interrogated by him and every kids like okay I want to I want to be able to do that where you're taking this is a life skill I want to teach right public speaking how

do I frame it in a way where kids are going to love this and and really engage with it. How do you have the teachers,

with it. How do you have the teachers, the guides, the coaches do this more systematically? Like this seems to be

systematically? Like this seems to be the software really tracks with me like it's it's very clear to me intuitively how it might scale because you can program it into the system. It it seems

less obvious how you could scale something like those examples. I have I have a friend, a dear friend, um, who I'm sure will enjoy this conversation, whose son is super interested as a as a young entrepreneur, as a young teenager,

and he's building this little online business. And I'm sure if you told uh

business. And I'm sure if you told uh his son, look, you're going to get four extra hours a day to work on your business, he would he would bust his butt on the two hours to do anything to run his online, you know, sweatshirt

shop. But the most amazing version of

shop. But the most amazing version of this I can imagine is that like some amazing person that knows a lot about entrepreneurship and online selling and all this kind of stuff is helping that kid. But that that's that matching

kid. But that that's that matching exercise. It just seems less scalable

exercise. It just seems less scalable and less obvious how a system can get built that allows that afternoon to be as buttoned up as the morning.

>> It depends on the age of the kid which is so K through eight you can build an afternoon and we have built an afternoon set of workshop and curriculum that's structured and standard and can be rolled out.

>> Yeah. right? Which is uh because it's it's not custom where they're doing individualized projects. Once you get uh

individualized projects. Once you get uh to high school, we have what we call alphax project which is your you know 4-year super passion project where you have all

afternoon for four years to work with on you love and that is very custom and we actually you know every kid's different.

We have a we have you know one student who's putting she's trying to get a Broadway musical. I'll talk, you know,

Broadway musical. I'll talk, you know, where it's the first all teen produced developed Broadway musical. And so she spent years building it out. She sourced

all the people from Tik Tok, right? All

the singers. She can fill a thousand people into a a venue now, right? And uh

to your point, there's no guide or coach at Alpha who can help her, right? And so

our high school curriculum very much is how are you a self-driven learner who can use resources including where AI really gives you superpowers to be able

to do these projects on your own. And

that's the difference. K through eight, we talk about we have a a life skills curriculum, right, that the kids do that are designed and managed by the guides and coaches. And then high school is

and coaches. And then high school is where they transition to where they take ownership themselves. And then they

ownership themselves. And then they basically get feedback on how they're doing from the market. Yeah. Right. From

the public. You're are you selling stuff online?

>> Right. and they learn how to reach out and you know they DM people on Twitter and are like you know one one thing we found is super successful adults

overinvest in ambitious teens >> and so all these kids are out you know getting help um uh from adults in order to to do it because you can't hire a

teacher staff who can do all that.

>> What about the stuff that goes in that zooming into the K through8 bucket specifically? Like I could imagine uh if

specifically? Like I could imagine uh if the carrot in the four hours was like an amazing field day or something that's different than like you need to learn you know to memorize some poem and give a public speech or something like the

the the amount of actual motivation can range a lot and it's student dependent.

What have you learned in the three years about the sorts of things that kids actually love doing that is the reward for doing their two hours in the morning?

>> So here's okay I'm going to say the most controversial thing I think of the of the talk right now. There's three things that if I could wave a magic wand um and get every parent in America to believe

cuz they don't believe it today.

>> Like if if out of this podcast this was the outcome, this would do more to to change education than anything. The

first thing is >> your kid must love school, right? We've

talked about it and they should want to go to school instead of go on vacation, right? That's if every parent believe

right? That's if every parent believe that, right? That would be critical,

that, right? That would be critical, right, to changing it. The second is your kid can crush their academics in two hours a day. Right? You cannot think and subject your kid to six hours a day

plus homework. Right? You need we need

plus homework. Right? You need we need to stop that two hours a day. And then

the third, this is the controversial one. Um about this and that we've

one. Um about this and that we've learned um and uh is the key to your child's happiness is high standards. And

that is the controversial part, right?

which is the re kids want to do awesome stuff. Kids think they're awesome. Kids

stuff. Kids think they're awesome. Kids

are awesome. Parents are very worried naturally. They care about safety,

naturally. They care about safety, right? They care they worry about their

right? They care they worry about their kids trying and failing, right? And so

the workshops that drive excitement, that drive kids loving it, right? What

really engages it? It's not make the workshop easy.

>> The kids want to go do hard things >> and the kids want to struggle and fail.

They don't want to struggle and fail, but they want to struggle and fail on their road to success. Now, they need to be supported by a caring adult. You need

high support and high standards, right?

Is you when we talk about our guides, we should we should go into that. But

fundamentally, kids love it. Like we

have one of the things you'll see in the videos. Mackenzie's Instagram is

videos. Mackenzie's Instagram is basically all the videos of all these workshops, right? And all she does is

workshops, right? And all she does is just goes to school and films them, right? And just films kids and you know

right? And just films kids and you know there's like half a million or a million people who who love it cuz you're like, "Wow, this is what school should be like." Well, we have kindergarteners who

like." Well, we have kindergarteners who climb a 40ft rock wall, >> right? And when you hear that and you're

>> right? And when you hear that and you're not the alpha environment, you're like, "Oh, that is so bad. That's so whacked.

That's too hard." Right? And but when you actually see the kids go through it, right, they love it, right? But it's

hard. Like, you know, we mike up the kids as they're going up it, right? And

you know, you'll see somebody that's just like, "Okay, >> this is scary, but I have a growth mindset. I can do this, right?" And then

mindset. I can do this, right?" And then they achieve it, right? And it's all safe, right? And then they do it and

safe, right? And then they do it and they come down and they're beaming and they're like, "Oh, this was great." Our

guides, right, who create these workshops, right? We have a whole

workshops, right? We have a whole library of the ones we've developed and we're always constantly, you know, what are the ones that really work and what are the new ones we're trying. But last

August, our second grade guy, Faith, she comes and she's like, "Okay, all the second graders can um run a 5K in less than 35 minutes." And I was

like "Oh this one that seems too hard.

>> That seems too hard. And God, the parents are really not going to like that if that doesn't work, you know."

Um, and she she's like, "I know it. I

can." You know, she was an athlete at UT. She's like, "They totally can.

UT. She's like, "They totally can.

>> Let's do it.

>> Let's do it." And she's like, "Now, here's the key. We teach, you know, kindergarten, first grade, teach a lot of growth mindset. You should think you can, right? You guys can do anything."

can, right? You guys can do anything."

And she's like, "We got to start teaching them in second grade how to do anything. Not just think it, but how to

anything. Not just think it, but how to do it." She's like, "We're going to

do it." She's like, "We're going to teach them atomic habits, right? The

book atomic habits, which is 1% better, basically, right? And you know, most

basically, right? And you know, most adults don't learn that till after college when they read the book. But the

concepts in that book, you can teach a second grader.

>> Everybody gets it, right? And so she gets all the kids together and she's like, "We're going to run a, you know, a 5K. Who thinks that's impossible?"

5K. Who thinks that's impossible?"

>> And like every kid's like, "Okay, that's totally possible. I can't do that." You

totally possible. I can't do that." You

know, Miss Faith. And she goes out to the track and she's like, "I've signed you guys all this in August. I signed

you up for the Jingle 5K, you know, at the domain uh at Christmas. We're going

to run it. Here we go. And she's like, "But day one, we're just going to walk the track."

the track." >> And all the kids walk the 5K. And she's

like, "Okay, so we've established everybody's going to finish the race."

>> Yeah.

>> Right. And then the next time they go out, they run a quarter lap, walk the rest, half lap lap, right? And they

incrementally do it so that by December, right, these kids are uh able to run the 5K in 35 minutes. And you look at the finish line, right? And the parents, the

kids are crying and it's so awesome and but the and back to the life skill that you taught. It's not just the heart,

you taught. It's not just the heart, right? They love that it was difficult,

right? They love that it was difficult, but they sit there and they're just like, >> "Mom, dad, I know how to do anything now, right? And I have those skills that

now, right? And I have those skills that I'm developing." And as a parent, you're

I'm developing." And as a parent, you're like, "That's the life skill that you want your kid to know how to do, right?"

And the way to do it though, first, right, back to the how the whole system has to work. You have to have a system where the kids love school, where it only takes two hours. So you have these

afternoons to do this. And then you have to have those three beliefs, right?

Those three things, including high standards is the key to your kids' happiness right?

>> It's an amazing lesson. Can we talk about these guides? I think everyone listening will imagine an amazing teacher that they've had or their kids had. Maybe they'll also imagine a

had. Maybe they'll also imagine a terrible teacher that they've had or their kids had. It matters a lot. Um, I

can cite my favorite teacher, you know, looking back to third grade or whatever.

What have you learned about who these people are, who they should be, what skills they should have, what role they should play? Like same same, you know,

should play? Like same same, you know, blank sheet of paper, first principles approach here, I'm sure. Yeah.

>> Walk us through that part of this.

>> So, first part when you hear about AI tutors and all this stuff, that's just the the complete wrong misconception is adults in the building are critical.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. There's no, you know, people have this image of robot terminators and terminology. We actually have a lot of

terminology. We actually have a lot of discussion around the terminology.

Should we call them teachers, right? But

they don't do academic teaching. So if

you are an adult in our buildings, you do not do academic teaching. And so

that's why when we start, we're like, okay, we we shouldn't call them teachers then because it gives the wrong impression. So guides and coaches, but

impression. So guides and coaches, but then you're like, well, people think they're teachers and it's a new role for teachers. Anyway, we'll see. Uh, we'll

teachers. Anyway, we'll see. Uh, we'll

figure it out. But fundamentally it's uh what matters and so think about this is every adult has one or two teachers who transform them their life right every

adult has that um our guides are that for our students like literally we have a survey question that we ask every eight weeks which is that exact question to kids which is every adult had one or

two teachers who transformed your life is your guide that for you and that is the standard we hold our guides up right these these adults, right? These guides,

coaches, and teachers, right? Their job

is and what they're accountable for is to deliver the three commitments to the kids that they love school, they learn 2X and learn life skills that they're accountable for that. And they are seen

by the kids as you are transforming my life. And so you think about how do you

life. And so you think about how do you who who's good at that? The first part of it is and this gets back to academics and the teacher in front of a classroom.

The reason, whoever is in your head, the reason they transform your life is not because they graded your seventh grade science quiz really well, right? It

wasn't, right? It's because they met you and motivated you and understood you, right? And they probably held you to a

right? And they probably held you to a high standard and convinced you that you could do a lot more.

>> Back to the key to your happiness and success is high standards, right? High

support, high standards. Great teachers,

right, are high support, high standards, right? There's a great book if if your

right? There's a great book if if your your readers should um Dr. Joerger has a book called 10 to 25, how to motivate 10. It's a great book, right? And we

10. It's a great book, right? And we

work with him a lot on all this stuff.

And that is, you know, every guide at Alpha, you know, lives that philosophy.

And >> that is what you're looking for. you are

looking for individuals who right can hold high standards but also high support right and it's different at age right so if you go into a kindergarten you're going to get you know charity or

mallerie right and they're going to wrap your kid in love because that's what right at kindergarten that's what you want right but as you get up to middle school and high school they're going to be able to sit there and bond with you

over okay let's talk about the high standards right look at all these great things that you can do and So, it's it it's various things, but we hire um because you don't have to teach seventh

grade science in our school, we actually hire ex coaches, as an example, ex-coaches, athletes. Um we'll talk

ex-coaches, athletes. Um we'll talk about like we have a sports academy, right? And we literally have exNBA

right? And we literally have exNBA coaches, exNFL players, XMLB players, right? And they're awesome at holding

right? And they're awesome at holding high standards and uh providing great motivation uh for the kids. And so when you don't have to do the academic side,

right, you bring in all those other things and you focus 100% on I'm going to hold high standards for the kids. I'm

going to be able to motivate them. Like

we we probably are the only school where you know we have a system where you can go in for every kid and see every motivation that's ever been tried by any guide at Alpha to motivate them to see

what do they really love how do you engage this kid what are their interests right and so our guides spend time getting to know the kids you know during you know as an example during the

two-hour session right the kids do 25minute pomodoras what the guide will do is pull the kid out oneon-one they're like you're I'm not going to do the math stuff today. You know, come sit down and

stuff today. You know, come sit down and talk to me. And the guide's going to be like, "Oh, you know, how was your weekend? What happened? Oh, you know,

weekend? What happened? Oh, you know, did you win the softball game? You know,

whatever happened?" And get to know, you know, oh, you seem to be, you know, not as engaged anymore. What's going on? And

they they talk through all of that >> um with them. And so they get to know the kids, right? and get them to, you know, we talk about there's Mount Alpha

that you're climbing up and your guide is there to help the students get up get up the mountain. People who love to do that, right, are um the ones you want to hire.

>> You know, we we pay our guides a lot more at Alpha than standard teachers.

And >> how much more like what percentage more?

>> Our minimum pay for a teacher is $100,000. And so like in the in the

$100,000. And so like in the in the Austin market, you know, that's basically double the pay of it. And you

know, you're going to go get great talent and you're going to get great talent not just in teachers. So we can go get people who are the best teachers in any teaching one, but you can also get people who aren't traditionally

teachers, right? And that's very much

teachers, right? And that's very much what we believe, you know, um and the the core of it really is students want, you know, they they want these great

teachers and you know, you don't have a class size problem. the economics of a school are based on, you know, fundamentally how much do you pay the teachers and what your class size is.

That's, you know, we have some other other economics like our AI and our workshop costs, but fundamentally that's driving, you know, the economics of of schooling. And so, uh, you know, at the

schooling. And so, uh, you know, at the lower grades, we we have, you know, low tooling, which is, you know, you're going to have five students per per guide. But as you get older,

guide. But as you get older, >> what you actually find is students don't want that.

>> You know, at, you know, by the time you get to middle school, they're like, "Mr. Limont, you know, I'm an adolescent. You

know, I I don't need all these guides around, right? And, you know, they want

around, right? And, you know, they want more freedom, but the the ones they want, they want really high caliber, awesome people who are going to know them and and motivate them and hold them

to high standards.

>> All right, I want to talk about feedback loops. Okay,

loops. Okay, >> this is something that we've referenced many a time. It's a it's a huge part of your success outside of Alpha and leading up to Alpha that's allowed you

to fund it and be such a force behind it. In your life, you seem to have

it. In your life, you seem to have learned a tremendous amount about the power of well- enforced feedback loops.

So maybe just like give us the foundation of this belief and then I want to talk about all the many ways in which you've been able to deploy these learnings into the alpha school setting

to give kids feedback uh not just motivation but show them their progress, show parents, show show coaches and and and guides. Where did this like deep

and guides. Where did this like deep belief in the power of iterative feedback come from in the first place?

>> There's two parts to it I guess. um sort

of the individual level and then the systemic level which is you know part of the the feedback loops that are really important and you know the biggest uh

you know yet to be proven part is uh we need to scale this >> right we need to scale this we need to get this out to a billion kids and so

how are you going to measure right and success and so I I always look at myself as sort of I'm a product person but then okay how do you put in the systems that allow it to scale.

>> And the key to the systems scaling is the feedback loop that you know what's going on. So when we open a campus,

going on. So when we open a campus, >> how do I know that the kids love school, >> right? How do I know that the parents

>> right? How do I know that the parents are super excited? How do I know they're learning 2x in two hours? Right? Are the

right did we hire are the guides awesome? Right? Is my guide in New York

awesome? Right? Is my guide in New York City going to be as good as my guide in Alpha? And how do I Right? And so how

Alpha? And how do I Right? And so how are we going to be able to measure it all? And so the the key on all these

all? And so the the key on all these feedback loops is if you want to scale it, you have to measure it, right? And

you have to provide that loop if we're going to be able to say we're going to keep this quality at standard at scale.

You know, there's sort of all that that we can talk about and that's, you know, a big part of what AI enables. It

enables a scaling at quality that, you know, I believe 10 years ago you you couldn't have done. And then the second one around feedback loops is receiving

feedback right is like one of our most important life skills right to teach is that you know if you are somebody who

actively seeks feedback to get better right that is one of the most important life skills you can teach somebody and it's a receive feedback is one of our you know in our in our life skill stack

you know where we have you know you know at at kindergarten right? Our our test to pass. Like for

right? Our our test to pass. Like for

all our life skills, we have a a test that you have to pass because you have to be able to measure it, right?

>> And so it's like, can you receive feedback without crying, >> right, in kindergarten? And you sort of move up to by eighth grade, do you know

that the key to you getting better is actively seeking critical feedback?

>> Right? And do you actively go seek it out in order to improve? Right? the the

day that alpha parents get really happy is when their kid comes home and is like, "Mom, dad, you know, I I know I haven't been a good member of the family. How can I how can I be better?"

family. How can I how can I be better?"

Right? And it's, you know, they're like, "Okay, this right?" And so that whole concept of seeking out in order to improve, right? That concept is critical

improve, right? That concept is critical to just human development, getting better. It's, you know, we we call it

better. It's, you know, we we call it watching game film, >> right? Great athletes are like, "Yeah,

>> right? Great athletes are like, "Yeah, I'm going to go watch the game. How'd I

do? And how am I going to get it better?" Right? We actually do the same

better?" Right? We actually do the same thing on the academics, right? We have

game film where you're like, why did I screw up these questions on the test, right? And they literally will sit there

right? And they literally will sit there and say, I missed this question because I didn't know the material or oh, this was a careless mistake. Right? So, they

can start to sit there and say, what is is my problem I don't know it or actually I'm, you know, test taking skills.

>> And you help them do that like you show them the game tape of themselves learning.

>> Exactly. Well, that's part of like when we talk about our AI tutoring, we didn't get into all the technology. how we use it is completely different than what everybody else thinks.

>> I believe that, you know, there's this whole view that we are going to deploy chat GPT to everybody in America and things are going to get better because everybody

needs to use AI, right? And if you take away from alpha, you're like, "Oh, we should have played chat GPD to everybody." Okay,

everybody." Okay, >> wrong take away.

>> It's going to it is that is the literally the worst thing you could do.

Just to be very clear, you are not a principal at a school if you think chatbt is good. 90% of the use of chatbt is to cheat.

>> Kids take it. Now, there are 10% use case of people who are like, I need a Socratic tutor where I'm super excited about it and I need to dive in deeper, right? And that 5 to 10%. Those kids are

right? And that 5 to 10%. Those kids are going to crush it with it. And you

should give it to those five or 10%. 90%

of the kids are like, "How do I use this to cheat?" Okay? And so, like we

to cheat?" Okay? And so, like we >> cuz they want their time back. because

they want their time back because they're just trying to get through it.

We literally don't have chat functionality activated in our AI.

>> Like it is not a chatbot. It's terrible.

Yeah.

>> Um and that's not what people need.

Right. Back to where we use the AI is generating personalized lesson plans and personalized lessons themselves. Right.

That is a great use of AI. A second

great use of AI is actually to watch the screen and coach the kids, >> right? To give them the game film. We're

>> right? To give them the game film. We're

like, you're, you know, and and we can go from the remedial of, hey kid, you're like literally scrolling through the article and looking at the questions and trying to search because you don't want

to read the whole article. Just that's

not really going to work well. Or, you

know, when you miss a question, you know, here's the video that can help explain it, the little explainer to of of what you got wrong, and you skip it every time.

>> If you really want to get out of here in two hours, >> read it.

>> You need to do it. Like our our biggest thing is our vision model, right? Which

is actually part of the big expensive part because you're streaming full-time thing. It's it's it'll come down in

thing. It's it's it'll come down in cost, but right now it's it's a lot is we have a waste meter because once again, if you are going to give the kids the time back, >> they want the time back

>> and they want to get better. They want

to become a more self-driven learner where they can move through this faster.

So we literally like you're wasting 50% of your time.

>> And the kids like, whoa, coach me up. I

don't want to waste 50% of my time. So

I'm spending three hours when I could spend two, >> right? And so the giving them the

>> right? And so the giving them the coaching of how to learn better, right?

How to learn faster and more effectively, right? That's a great use

effectively, right? That's a great use of AI.

>> So just so I understand like the I almost want to like imagine we have the engineers of the system here with us and we're now in a technical explainer. The

the thing is built, I'm interacting with it. There's different things I can do

it. There's different things I can do and not do. It is the entire process me looking at it the the touches the scrolls everything is being monitored

completely and that is being fed what through through what kind of system like that sounds complicated like how how does that system know it's the little thing at the end that the explainer that

I'm skipping like help me understand the engineering of the thing use Khan Academy since everybody understands it and imagine a dynamically generated con lesson the video is dynamically generated the video can basically be

about half as long as a con video because using the concepts of learning science and and more active, right?

Passive is bad. So more active engagement, you can teach kids in less time. Uh and it's based on their

time. Uh and it's based on their interests, right? And and so you're

interests, right? And and so you're you're doing that and then the the video stream itself is actually being fed to an AI model that is sitting there

looking for anti-atterns. Okay?

>> Right? What are the things that kids do?

cuz you know basically what are things that their kids do that slow them down that are you know learning anti-atterns and so it's looking for those and then when it has it's going to be like ooh

look that's waste and then it's going to you know update the ma waste meter or flag the kid and say stop doing it right depending on on what the mode is and when you think about the technology

behind it just think of back to that data what's valuable data the same way having the data stream of all the Tesla cars running right? That you're then saying, "Okay, what are we doing?" The

data stream of, "Okay, here's what kids do when they're learning and what they shouldn't do and what to avoid." Um, and then you move it to so the first phase is go find all the antiatterns and then

the second one is coach them up on it.

>> So, so maybe maybe it's a data stream just a raw data stream that you that you have privileged generation of because the students are using the thing. Maybe

talk about the team behind this. So,

like how many engineers are working on this? what kinds of people are they like

this? what kinds of people are they like where did they come from? Are these like the best engineers from your trilogy days? Like who are these people? Sure.

days? Like who are these people? Sure.

Um and and then what is their process of turning the raw data stream into actionable lessons in the software?

>> There's a couple different parts to it.

So incept is the core generation engine.

Um and the name actually matters. Uh and

I this is important especially with AI and education which is incept sort of has two definitions. one is um the movie, right? And but it's important.

movie, right? And but it's important.

You're putting a mind virus in kids's head, right? That's what you're doing

head, right? That's what you're doing when you're educating a kid, right? You

putting these these thoughts into kids's heads. There's a second definition

heads. There's a second definition though, like from a thousand years ago, the original from Cambridge and Oxford >> which was qualified to teach >> and there was a subtle underpinning of

you trust the person, right? Teachers

are trusted because you're putting things into kids's heads, right? And

it's important to understand it's two parts. You're putting stuff in a kid's

parts. You're putting stuff in a kid's head and you need to be trusted on what's going in. And there's going to be a lot of controversy, I believe. You

know, there is just in AI in general, but especially in education of how we make sure these are trusted generators that are putting things in. You have Tik

Tok as a untrusted generator that currently dominates, right? Um we should talk later about our standard of, you know, Tik Tok um as our competition,

which is we have to out Tik Tok Tik Tok if we're going to take over, right?

getting the right thoughts into kids heads. So there's the incept team and

heads. So there's the incept team and the incept team you should think is we use all the different LLMs. We have our stuff on top of it where we are generating content and it's going to be taking in streams of okay what's the

curriculum we're doing? What is the kids knowledge graph? What is their interest

knowledge graph? What is their interest graph? What is their cognitive load

graph? What is their cognitive load right model? And then be able to

right model? And then be able to generate the dynamic lesson. And so you should think this is going to be your standard AI type team embedded with massive

a set of learning scientists. So the

difference between us and sort of a standard just using a normal LLM to generate content is we have probably the biggest team best team of learning scientists

>> um who are building this >> and that's a critical aspect of it. Um

that's why if you just have and why I believe all the LLMs that are out and you know all the educational ones they're they're not embedded with learning science right they don't follow these principles right they don't embed

mastery and all these other concepts and that's why generally when you give them to kids they just use them to cheat >> um so you have that side then the second side is you're like okay I have this

data stream right and now I'm basically it's a video model right it's just a vision model and you're just sitting sitting there saying, "How do I um

optimize this vision model to find what I need?" But how it started is literally

I need?" But how it started is literally just humans, right? When you talk about human annotation, >> Yeah.

>> just watching videos. So 3 years ago, we would just sit there and have teams of people all night, >> you know, the kids would finish and then all night you would just sit and watch

the videos and annotate them of, okay, that's what's going wrong here. this is

what the kids doing. all of this like reinforcement learning >> and it is and it's just building out a video model a reinforcement learning video model of you know with human feedback and the human feedback is not

from the kids it's from people watching it to say I need to train this up on what how kids learn and what is effective learning what are the anti-atterns and what do we want to

coach for and so then you you you take that and literally the first you know the first month back three years ago August we literally would just take the output of watching the videos and then the guys would just tell the kids the

next day.

>> Fundamentally, that's what you're doing is you need a vision model where you are sitting there training it on how to have kids learn better, right? How to be more effective, where are the the things and

you need so and back to the streams, right? You need this where you're

right? You need this where you're generating content. You need this to see

generating content. You need this to see are they engaging with it, right? And

then you need to be saying, am I really moving the standardized test scores? I

mean, are the kids really learning this material? You need that whole closed

material? You need that whole closed loop to be able to say okay yes we came up with this concept we generated this material right and okay look yes the kids are learning right and you can

measure that >> can we talk about the third one as the kid sees it so this is really this is really help I'm glad we're going to a little bit more technical side of things so we've got incept we've got the vision model and then we've got the feedback

mechanism or whatever at the standardized testing how does the kid feel that like in in in the in the anonymous um parents post about the school they talked about um you know

hitting your minimums and um your weekly scores, your daily scores like things like this like your the kids seem to have this gamified sense of their own progress. Sure.

progress. Sure.

>> So what have you learned about presenting that well and using that like that that that that last closing part of the loop?

>> Sure. So the kids the kids motivation.

So how do you how do you drive kids motivation? And so um you know at the

motivation? And so um you know at the end of it you're you're giving them a measure of you know how much do you have to do a day and how much do you want to do a day and so you have a goal setting part where okay kids you can set your

goals >> right and you know this is what I want to this is what I want to achieve then from that you're like okay the system can tell you you need to do this much

>> actually last year one of the changes we're making for the year coming up is we do okay you finished a lesson right and one of the problems is lessons are different lengths, right? Oh, this is a,

you know, you have a 25minute pomodoro and okay, I have two 15-minute lessons.

>> What's a pomodoro?

>> Pomodoro is a 25 minute segment that the kids do >> um for each subject. So, they're going to do math, science, language, reading.

Actually, they can do whatever order, but um it's 25 minutes. So, you you basically go into the app >> and in the morning during the two-hour session and you're like, "Okay, I'm

going to spend 25 minutes in that, >> right?" And then the system is going to

>> right?" And then the system is going to give you the lessons. Yep.

>> Right. And you're gonna be like, "Okay, >> here's the lessons I'm going to do. Um,

and I'm going to do them to mastery. So,

I'm going to do them to the highest standard possible. I have rings, you

standard possible. I have rings, you know, that close that say like the watch.

>> You did it." Yeah. It's just it literally it's just like the watch and it's just like the Apple Watch where it's going to be like, >> you know, you did it at the high accuracy, right? If you're doing it with

accuracy, right? If you're doing it with low accuracy, you're not learning, right? You're just guessing and you're

right? You're just guessing and you're screwing around. So, you have to have

screwing around. So, you have to have 80% accuracy, right? you did it to mastery, right? You didn't um uh sort of

mastery, right? You didn't um uh sort of the mass practiced up front where you you you locked it in and I spent the time. I did spend the 25 minutes and

time. I did spend the 25 minutes and then your ring closes. Boom. You get it.

And so, and the kids, back to gamification, they have to do their two-hour sessions to unlock their afternoons, right? And so all these

afternoons, right? And so all these privileges come around because you unlock things, >> right? And so, you know, and when you

>> right? And so, you know, and when you come into alpha, actually your first day and I'm transferring from standard school, you actually go into what we call standard school where you literally

sit at a desk, right? And it's it's like you're in standard school and it's like, okay, your job is to become a two-hour learner, >> right? Where you learn the skills so

>> right? Where you learn the skills so that you can learn in two hours instead of six hours. And the kids are like, I'm all into this. Let me do it. And so

they're going to learn how to engage in the apps, right? How to use them correctly. You know, if I don't if I sit

correctly. You know, if I don't if I sit and spin in my chair all day, right? I'm

I'm not going to be a two-hour learner, right? I'm going to be stuck,

right? I'm going to be stuck, >> right? Then as you achieve, right? Back

>> right? Then as you achieve, right? Back

to motivation models. As you show you can be a two-hour learner. Oh, I hit all my rings this week, right? I I basically finished my lessons, right? You graduate

to be a two-hour learner, which then unlocks all these different privileges, right? And our guides have different

right? And our guides have different ones at different levels, but you know, think when you see the alpha pictures where the kids are in a bean bag with their computer, right, or sitting at a right, not sitting at a desk, right?

They've unlocked those privileges where they're like, "Yeah, you know how to be a self-driven learner. You can do it however you want."

>> Um, you know, the the booths, you know, the booths that we have, they're literally like the phone booths that you see in the Silicon Valley. We have those in our schools. uh you know and they're famous in our in our middle and high

school because kids voluntarily go in those where students learn where where do I learn best and I'll take like my daughter's an example where you know we have a communal table where you can all

just sit together you know if you're a two-hour learner you can just sit at the table my uh daughter she's a talker and she's like I I can't sit at the communal table right cuz I won't get anything

done because I'm just going to sit and talk to my friends and so she'll like say I'm going to go into one of booths right so I can get it done and kids right they learn this right you can all kids learn I totally know how to become

a learner and if they have the motivation i.e you're giving them their

motivation i.e you're giving them their time back. They all do those skills

time back. They all do those skills where you talk about do kids have agency, right? And do they own their

agency, right? And do they own their learning and are they self-driven?

That's all part of the system, right?

That has to where you create these two-hour learners which are basically you're creating self-driven learners which when you think long-term, right, that's a critical life skill that you re

you really want to have. But you know and then how do you how do you how do you game it you know or what is the gamification there is all different ones where you know um guides will have ones

where you have individualized goals you have team goals you know um our Brownsville campus like the biggest motivated for the youngest kids is um

the petting zoo right so if the whole level right exceeds all their academics for a week right and a session right they get a petting zoo right and that that drives when you talk about

motivation. Yeah. Okay.

motivation. Yeah. Okay.

>> They don't want money. They don't want you get right the bunny and the petting zoo. Those kids would they they'd go do

zoo. Those kids would they they'd go do 10 hours of homework. C

>> can you talk for the kids that do want money about alphab?

>> Sure. So uh we have a whole economy based on you know alphas and um you know alphas are used where fundamentally you know you do these academics then you can

earn alphas and uh then how can you spend those alphas >> right there's a lot of motivations that parents love >> right oh the petting zoo that sounds really cool or I get more privileges

right I earn privileges stuff those two money is obviously the controversial one right that causes everybody to just go oh my god right and that's a terrible horble one. Um, so let's I'm going to

horble one. Um, so let's I'm going to give a couple a couple examples of it.

Your kid can earn money for doing academics. Parents generally like, okay,

academics. Parents generally like, okay, I don't like that. Now, your kid can earn money by doing academics so they can fund their passion project so that their afternoon workshop that they're

trying to do, so when she's trying to do the Broadway musical and has to fly up, she's going to earn money that's going to allow her to do that. Parents like,

"Okay, that seems okay. That seems like a really good idea." or since this audience, it's going to fund your financial literacy investment account and we're going to take all the middle school kids and if they crush their

academics, we're going to fund an investment of Robin Hood for kids or whatever, you know, whatever investment fund to teach them investing because the key if you're going to teach a kid to invest is make sure it's real money in

theirs and it's something they earned, not given, right? Because your loss aversion, right, and all that. Oh,

parents are like, "Oh, that's a great idea. I love that. we're going to have a

idea. I love that. we're going to have a 50% penalty for early withdrawal, right?

Parents like that, too. Actually,

they're like, we're going to teach them to save, right? And so, there's all these behaviors around money that are good. And so, those those are all

good. And so, those those are all examples that are our our system does with you can earn the alpha bucks and then and have those. This is what every parent should do. Uh cuz this is super controversial. Everybody hates it. And

controversial. Everybody hates it. And

if you care about academics, this is the single best thing you can do to fix academics. So the number one issue in

academics. So the number one issue in academics for kids and let's start at middle school is the reason they're struggling and if you look at the curves

in learning in America right they all start to flatten out in middle school.

The median person in high school in America actually doesn't learn anything.

>> Like >> scary >> that in a MAPS test, which is a 300point scale, the median American, right, goes up one point in four years.

>> Wow.

>> One point on a 300 point scale. Not

learn anything.

>> And it starts slowing down in middle school. And you mo motivation,

school. And you mo motivation, engagement's an issue. The other is just it's the it's it's the ramification of having a timebased education system instead of a mastery based education

system. You just, you know, and and and

system. You just, you know, and and and Saul Khan in com video you go, he has great videos around this where he's just like, you know, when you're not when you're pushing people up and they've only learned 70 or 80% of the

curriculum, you should think it's like Swiss cheese, right? It's like you're building a foundation with all these holes, >> right? And then eventually as you get

>> right? And then eventually as you get high enough it just gets too much and it collapses and you can't learn anymore.

And that's what happens when kids hit algebra, right? And some and and moving

algebra, right? And some and and moving up is it's there. The problem is not the algebra, it's the prior knowledge, right? And so the number one thing we do

right? And so the number one thing we do is okay, we need to go fill your holes.

And so let's talk about marketing and motivation, which is actually probably half my job, you know, as principal. is

if you go to a seventh grader and say, "Look, dude, it's it's not your fault.

However you got here, you don't know this fifth grade material.

So, I need I need you to go back." Okay?

They are not into it at all. And the

only person who's less into it than the student >> is their like parents have been taught, "My kid needs to be at grade level no matter what."

matter what." >> Yeah. And that's just the opposite of

>> Yeah. And that's just the opposite of what the learning science says, right?

And you know, it's the opposite of what a tutor does. When you hire a tutor for your school, all they're doing is saying, "Dude, just give me a fifth grade lesson." And they don't call it a

grade lesson." And they don't call it a fifth grade lesson or whatever, but that's what you're doing.

>> Fundamentals, >> correct? And everybody understands when

>> correct? And everybody understands when you when you apply this concept to sports. Every parent gets it. They all

sports. Every parent gets it. They all

get it. They're like, "Yeah, master the basics." When it comes to academics,

basics." When it comes to academics, it's like, "No, no, no. Do all the advanced alley oops." That is a fundamental like how parents think about the world is just not right that and so you're like how do you fix it right? I

got to deliver it you know and so I went to the seventh graders I'm like guys all of you can get a 100% on the Texas Star you know the Texas standardized test and they're like no way Mr. Lee no way I'm

like and back to money motor day I'm like I'll give you a $100 bill for a hundred on the Texas Star 100 for 100.

>> They're like that's still impossible.

>> I I can't get one. I'm like no no no there's a catch.

any grade level.

>> They're like, "I can take a kindergarten Texas Star and you're give me $100." And

I'm like, "Well, the Texas Star starts in third grade." And they're like, "Okay, I'll take a third grade test."

>> Yeah.

>> And I'm like, "Great."

>> And so they go take a third grade test with Star, they get 100. You give them $100 bill.

>> They're like, "Can I do fourth grade?"

I'm like, "Absolutely." They do fourth grade, get a $100 bill, right? They're

like, "Okay, you're really going to let me do fifth grade?" I'm like, "Absolutely." And so they take it and

"Absolutely." And so they take it and they get an 85, right? 75 or 85. And I'm

like, and I'm like, do you want the AI tutor to generate the lessons so you can get 100? And they're like, let me see how

100? And they're like, let me see how many. And then they see it and they're

many. And then they see it and they're like, I can do that in a week. And

they're like, I'm in. And then they get a hundred, right? And then you do sixth grade. Right? And for literally $400,

grade. Right? And for literally $400, we can do two really important things.

We can hole fill as we call it which is we can go back and for whatever reason wherever your kid is you can go back and fill all those holes

and put them on a foundation where they can keep learning but second you actually change how they think which is I can get 100 on a Texas star every

parent like if you actually survey alpha parents fewer than 10% of them think kids can get a 100red on a Texas star and that's because in the time based model, the GT kids, right? Only the

super smart kids got 100, right? In a

mastery based model, everybody can. It's

just a matter of effort. It's not about IQ. It's just about effort. And as soon

IQ. It's just about effort. And as soon as you break that link for a kid, >> it changes everything about education where they sit there and they're like, I can totally do this. Oh my god. Right?

And so, you know, if you take the alpha stats, first of all, 90 plus% of our kids who've been in there at school a year are like, I can totally get 100 on a Texas start. Right? And the reason is because they have during the year,

right? Like our building, our our our

right? Like our building, our our our one of our our building, our K through6 building, um, uh, down in Austin >> gets more hundreds on the Texas Star than a school district of a 100,000 kids.

>> Right. Because it's just a different mentality and a mastery based thing and you don't advance until you know it.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. And so, and you know, and you sit there and back to motivation and how do you get it right? If you make everything 100, everybody thinks it's too hard. So

you say you can pass at 90 but 100 for 100 and everybody's like okay I'll do the extra work it's only a couple questions right >> cuz when they if they get less than 100 right the AI tutor is like here's the

ones you missed was it careless or did you not know it and if you didn't know it can I you want want me to give you the lesson and so the kids can get to mastery right you put in this motivation this very lightweight motivation we

spend 20 grand a kid in this country across you know alpha's 40,000 plus but we spend plenty of money for $100 or $400, we could literally change how

everybody sees both their capability and how they see themselves.

>> Um, and that's a part that just, you know, back to motivation that really matters is that's a perfect example of using money in order to get people to change how they think about themselves.

And a lot of, you know, kids have a view that they have these limits, right?

That's high standards, high support.

That's what you know guides are doing is they're breaking through it right and in academics right kids have these hang-ups right of you know look I can't I can't

learn that much >> right I'm I'm that kid and uh my daughter will probably kill me but I'll use her on this one um as an example. So

when she got to middle school, right, she was top she got to top 10% and she's just like, you know, dad, I'm and her older sister is the um uh academic one,

right, of the two. She's like, you know, I'm I'm not like uh my older sister, right? Uh I'm top 10%, that's good

right? Uh I'm top 10%, that's good enough. I'm not top 1%. And I was like,

enough. I'm not top 1%. And I was like, you know, the one thing I know about you that you care about more than anything is you love to shop. And so, how about

a,000 bucks? I bet you a,000 bucks that

a,000 bucks? I bet you a,000 bucks that you can't get to top 1%.

And she's like, right, she's in middle school and she like fills her Amazon cart with $1,000 of stuff. And she would just look at it in the morning, right?

And then go grind and just do her apps, you know? And we had a lot of family

you know? And we had a lot of family discussions about this cuz you know uh my wife and is like okay so first of all you're paying for academics and you know

you're setting this really high standard and all this stuff and is this going to be good for her >> and all these things and that that's common right that's you're back to parent you don't you don't want to set too high a standard and is this

motivation bad anyway she got to top 1% and you know she buys all her stuff and she sits down actually with my wife and is like, "Mom, I know you didn't like us

doing this, right? But you need to understand what it did to my view, which is I never thought I was as smart as my older sister. I now realize I can do

older sister. I now realize I can do anything."

anything." >> I'm sure listening to a story of your daughter, thank you for telling it. Um,

every single parent, myself included, is just going to picture their kids' faces in their in their mind and agree instantly that they would do anything for this moment of unlock or or several of them, >> which demands the I think really

important and exciting question, which is how the hell are we going to scale this system across the country? So like

like so many things like a great product it tends to get built in a small space where it's artisal and you're trying stuff and you're figuring out the system and then hopefully you know like software you can you can spread it and

scale it across the country.

>> What are the uh what are the biggest barriers to that being possible? Let's

talk on the technology side which because it's not ready yet and we have a whole team of people who wake up every day trying to make it ready to scale >> broadly right and the engine right the

time back engine >> um we still have hallucinations right it's AI they're still and you know in the alpha environment an alpha environment is super safe

>> the kids love school they're all stuff but high school kids literally it comes up with some whack job thing and the kids take a screenshot and send it in like AI's acted up today, right? And

it's fine, right? Um you release that into the wild and right AI robot tutors terribleness. And so we're we got a

terribleness. And so we're we got a burndown chart of how we're going to you know, we think and we do believe that next year, right? Um we'll we hope to have betas, you know, between August and

and December of this year. We're going

to this platform will be out and and so the first part is I got to get the technology a little better. Once that's

done, now you get into what are your channels of distribution, right? And so

obviously homeschools like the biggest thing is there's millions parents who like okay let me let me do this at home.

And so the the biggest thing we have a test with 50 plus homeschoolers you know the problem on all of this on the technology technology is 10% of the solution,

>> right? It's only 10. So my 10% still

>> right? It's only 10. So my 10% still doesn't work yet. It's got to but then how you solving the 90% of motivation.

So when you're in an alpha building, right, or one of our schools, then all of a sudden you're like, and we Yeah, we control it and we we have the motivation and we do it all.

>> You're at a home school. Is there any motivational model? So our test, we're

motivational model? So our test, we're not getting 2x in two hours with the homeschool kids. Now we literally every

homeschool kids. Now we literally every time we test it, we're ch we're putting building in motivational models, putting in other things so that we can get there. And so I believe next year we

there. And so I believe next year we will have a homeschool version that somebody will be able to buy. the kids

going to be able to sit down and deliver 2x in two hours for sure. The second

part is schools, right? We're going to have a platform that if a school wants to adopt this, >> right? Then we're you can absolutely do

>> right? Then we're you can absolutely do it. Now, what are the hurdles? You got

it. Now, what are the hurdles? You got

to rebuild your whole school from the ground up, >> right? You can't just sort of tack it

>> right? You can't just sort of tack it on, right? This is a full rebuild. And

on, right? This is a full rebuild. And

so, our school is really going to do that. You know, public schools, they

that. You know, public schools, they have a 10 times harder job than me. If I

was a principal or a teacher or superintendent of a public school, I, you know, as a product guy, I'm like, you have the most impossible job in the world, and I never want to represent that like what we're do. My job is 10 times easier because I control

everything. And you have a really hard

everything. And you have a really hard problem. I believe though we need to

problem. I believe though we need to start, right, getting lots of data, right, proving out lots of things, showing the efficacy, right, that this works um with the hopes that in public

school, you know, a decade from now, right? My my vision on this is I'm going

right? My my vision on this is I'm going to spend the next 20 years of my life on this, >> right? And I'm going to need all 20 to

>> right? And I'm going to need all 20 to get the get everything in public school spread. Um, for sure entrepreneurs need

spread. Um, for sure entrepreneurs need to build new schools >> and this 2hour platform will cover the two hours for you. You crush the afternoon.

you. You crush the afternoon.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. And let's go start. Let's have

entrepreneurial and build on top of it. And so I'll give you an example of one of one of the ones that um uh it's not funded yet, but the business plan is super awesome, which is

Texas just passed school choice billion dollars. Um and so this this group is

dollars. Um and so this this group is basically they're building Texas Sports Academy.

>> Their goal is to go to every school district in Texas, right? Um and build a micro school, which is going to be a micro middle school for D1 athletes. and

they're, you know, they're going to be based on the, you know, Timeback platform. And then in the afternoon,

platform. And then in the afternoon, it's going to be one of the local coaches, right, that everybody in town reverses who is going to have a school, middle school, right, for people who

want to be D1 athletes and they're going to spend the afternoon doing whatever awesome athletics, right? Whether I'm

seven on seven in football or we're doing basketball or soccer, >> um, all these things where you can create these innovative educational models, >> right? So that for a kid who's like, "Oh

>> right? So that for a kid who's like, "Oh my god, I will go crush my" and their their commitment that >> they don't get to do the fun thing unless they've done the time back. Yeah.

>> Unless they do the time back. And

because of that and because of the learning science and the app, you know, they're going to make a commitment that when you look at their thousand school, there's thousand school districts in Texas, 1200 or something. They're like

our thousand schools, our thousand micro schools. If you uh view us as an entire

schools. If you uh view us as an entire school district, >> we will be seen as the best school district in test Texas academically like we will have by far the best academics,

right? And you know tens of thousands of

right? And you know tens of thousands of kids will be in these micro schools, right? And the their hope is to launch a

right? And the their hope is to launch a year from now when the you know the the Texas ESA vouchers um come due.

>> And so and you can sit and see for parents who are like wow that is an economic model I could get behind, right? or a education model I can get

right? or a education model I can get behind where oh my god my kid's going to love school he's going to crush the academics and he's going to freaking do a sports that he loves afternoon and you know and that's the middle school

there's a whole set of parents who can then go build that out as we prove this out in scale there's actually a lot of you know famous professional athletes who are like I would love to start a school like that

>> right and so I believe that's just a whole huge opportunity >> um there's another school that we've started but it's one it's one unit and we need the you know uh entrepreneurs to

scale it is uh GT school gifted and talented school right and gifted and talented school we define as you love academics for academic sake like when you're motivated >> five or 10% you're talking about >> yeah it's the five or 10% and my oldest

daughter is actually like that right and she she loves it she in high school she read calculus books for fun right and you're like there is a set of people who just love that and that's where you're just uncapping those kids aren't learning 2x in 2 hours they're learning

3x 4x 5x I mean they're just crushing it because they love it when when we get all the guides together. Um, you know, and we're like, okay, how do we juice love of school? You know, how do we make

kids, you know, how do we raise it? Um,

you know, the GT guides are like more academics, right? We need a third power

academics, right? We need a third power hour, right? And all stuff and all the

hour, right? And all stuff and all the other guys are like, no, we don't want more academics, right? More life skills.

So, anyway, but GT, you can just imagine, right? No, there should be 500

imagine, right? No, there should be 500 GT schools around the country, right?

built on the timeback platform where kids who love that, right, can just, you know, unleash it, right? They're um G the GT school, it's new, but it's super

fun. I mean, those kids are like, you

fun. I mean, those kids are like, you know, we're going to be the last human smarter than AI, right? And you

literally just have this great group of kids who are just like, we love this stuff and we just love academics for academic sake. Um, and math Olympia and

academic sake. Um, and math Olympia and robotics and writing novels and all that. So, but every kid, right, back to

that. So, but every kid, right, back to if you're when you really focus on kids have to love school, you're like, okay, there needs to be different school types for different kids, >> right? And so, you just this platform,

>> right? And so, you just this platform, this timeback platform enables that because you can sit and say, look, the academics are done, right? The coach

doesn't need to teach the seventh grade science, right? And the the platform

science, right? And the the platform does it, right? The app does it. what

the coach does needs to motivate right the kids and then do the afternoon um workshops right in this case they'll be athletic >> and so if I think about scaling there's lots of paths and they all need to be

tried there's the micro schools there's entrepreneurs starting schools there's refitting that probably happens later in the adoption curve from maybe the public schools are the very last in the adop you know that classic like adoption

curve um but the answer is we got to we just need to go hard at all of these solutions where time back and the motivation you know the the creativity around sources of motivation are are thoughtfully paired together. This is

one of the tasks that is on my list to do is you know the first part is okay I got to build this product >> that makes kids learn 10 times faster.

Then the second is okay we have to have these schools that are sort of the exemplars that prove the case because no one would believe it. And so Alpha obviously is the flagship you know

high-end private school model. But

there's a third part that we have to show um in order to really unleash stuff and that's um a business model, >> right? The business of education cuz you

>> right? The business of education cuz you know >> capitalism enters the chat >> and capitalism enters the chat, right?

That we need to bring capitalism in here, right? And that's obviously a very

here, right? And that's obviously a very controversial you know view and my you know view is with time back we have to show here's a platform but you can build

great businesses on this right and you have to be able to build great businesses um in order to attract great talent.

>> It's a trillion dollar market with no good products.

>> The economics historically right of of education having to work. This

completely changes it. I believe we're gonna show I mean we're in the cash burn phase and we're burning sort of hundreds of millions of dollars you know building

all this this stuff out but um you know given we're going to have it's just like anything which is it's a huge market and if you have an awesome product one the one element is to that I guess I would

if I was talking to an entrepreneur where everybody's like don't go into education can't make any money it's terrible it's failed you know all those things great products Right? Parents will

absolutely pay for great products.

Societies pay for great education.

Right? The amount that we spend a trillion dollars for a relatively bad product right now, right? And so as an entrepreneur, if you look at this, you build a great product, you actually can

build, right, great customer base, right? And um you can actually it

right? And um you can actually it doesn't have to be a money losing nonprofit that's supported 100% on donations which is the world today right and that's not you can't sustainably

grow part of the problem on on schooling today is everything has to be nonprofit right the organization of nonprofit and so then you just you're caught out scaling right there are good school

system you know charter schools out there you know um where their gating factor is well I'm waiting for someone to give me $40 million so I can build a campus. I have a 3,000 person weight

campus. I have a 3,000 person weight list, >> but you know, back to my economics, >> I need someone to donate 40 million versus, okay, well, let's build a really good business model

>> that you can build a business model out of it so you can open up 500 of them because capitalism will provide capital.

>> Let's adopt like the ultra skeptic mindset for a second. And as the principal, I know you get to deal with this because you're dealing not only with parents that are at the school, but parents that are considering joining it.

If you had to name a thing or two that you struggle with the most personally, not not skeptic skeptics that you can answer easily, but skeptics that are hard to answer, what what are the hardest to answer skeptical points of

argument that you come across most often?

>> Well, I mean, your best example right now is just we we haven't done this at scale.

>> Yeah. Easy for you to say you got all this money all >> you have infinite money, you know, small, you know, selection effect size, all those kind of things. Absolutely. If

the the viewpoint is well there's seedlings of data here right of trying to figure out wow look at some of these data points of what we can do and have

been able to do and then figure out how would you scale it.

>> Um but fundamentally the best example is okay you're this really high-end private school right and you have massive you know you have all these adults you have all this money um around that. Um the

the the bigger one is you know you get into is the the biggest issue education is hard because you have to define the product and your customer bases have

very different needs. Right? This is why when I talk about public school being impossible. You parents do not agree on

impossible. You parents do not agree on what the purpose of an education is.

>> Right? What a parent wants in education right is right >> a big bundle. It's a huge bundle and they're diametrically opposed and you know we're having that in Austin on the public school side where we have three

schools that have failed you know the standardized tests and you know and so they're trying to be shut down you know and the kids move to schools where you know the superintendent's like okay you know he proposed we're going to shut

them down and move the kids to schools where you know the kids do better >> and you know academically you know and there's parents who are like I don't care about that >> I don't care that the school academics

is failing it because you know my oldest daughter went to that school and the teacher, the seventh grade teacher there is so great and I know her kids don't really learn math but she transformed their life and they're going to pick it

and say I don't want academics. Um

actually stepping back if you had to say back to this problem you know one of the things that I did not realize going in is how few parents actually care about academics.

>> Back to product market fit and pivoting and all that stuff as a product side.

You know, three years ago, I would sit down in the parent meetings and I'd be like, "Look, if your kids's gonna engage in the app, they're going to learn twice as much. 2x learning, right?" And I just

as much. 2x learning, right?" And I just be like, "Twox learning." And you'd sit there with the parent, you're like, "Look, you know, Johnny's not watching the video." And, you know, if you just

the video." And, you know, if you just watch the video after he misses a question, he learned twice as much. And

you know, the parents are like, "Look, why are you pressuring him to learn 2x?"

Right? They just they don't want it. Um,

and it took me hundreds of parent meetings to sort of I was slow on the on the listen to the customer side. And

then we switched it to two-hour learning. And then you're like, same

learning. And then you're like, same meeting, same parents, same Johnny. And

you're like, look, I'm trying to get Johnny out of here in two hours, right?

But he won't watch the video, right? And

he can't do the workshops until he does.

And the parents are like, Johnny, like, why don't you watch the video? Don't you

want to do the cool things? And so, back to product market fit. Figuring out

>> positioning matters.

>> Positioning matters. And every parent wants stuff differently. If you took, you know, when when McKenzie like puts her GT families and the sports academy families, you know, and she has a lunch with them, you know, and the parents and

talking about it. Parents want different things for their kid, you know. The

sports academy mom is just like, "My kids come home from sports academy and, you know, they're sweating so much. I

literally just throw them in the shower fully clothed, you know."

>> You know, and the GT parents are like, "What is wrong with you?" They're like, "Well, GT school was having a chess um tournament at the end of the day, and when they came home, we just continued the the tournament, right? And it's just

parents want different things. There's

not one sizefits-all, and we need entrepreneurs who are domain experts in the field. Do you want to do

the field. Do you want to do entrepreneurship, >> right?

build an entre I mean you want to build an investing high school and you know all of that stuff that you know I I believe you know if you look you know our New York campus I bet will have more

financially oriented workshops in the afternoon than our silic than our San Francisco one which is going to have more tech oriented right and and so so anyway told the whole thing I believe we

need to bring entrepreneurs in we need to bring capitalism in here and we need to create all the different parts of school choice so that parents can pick what they love. Yeah. And there is this

enabling technology, you know, when you talk about do you have something that's 10 times better that can transform an industry, >> kids learning 10 times faster >> is and so that they can do it, you know,

in two hours a day is that breakthrough product that can do it. And then and then back to your point, what's the skepticism? It's like, okay, well, you

skepticism? It's like, okay, well, you have to we have to prove this. The

product's not done. So, right, we got to we got to get it done. we got to scale and whether it's us or anybody else these this you know the tech behind this is you know totally doable

>> um then the second is for parents is okay now that I can think about it what do I want my kids to do in the afternoon that you know and I think the broader

question on all this stuff is and it was you know and I I believe it's societal level right it's when I was talking to the education ministers I was like once there's this tablet and it's 2 hours a

day What is your education system going to be? Cuz it's coming.

be? Cuz it's coming.

>> How do we want our kids to spend their day, >> right? And what what does society want

>> right? And what what does society want to say? This is where kids should spend

to say? This is where kids should spend their day because there's no point in having them in a classroom for 6 hours a day. That's like that's gone, right? And

day. That's like that's gone, right? And

so, and now you're like, and back to my three things that I want every parently, I'm like, we need to make it where kids love school, right? Because they only need two hours. can love school and then

they can be in an environment of high standards and high support right and do awesome things and learn life skills right that's you know that's the vision that I want and it is hard to execute

and you know all of those things but that's the you know >> that's the next 20 years >> no that's that's my next 20 years is uh to do it and I guess one last to the anybody in the audience who's like maybe

I want to do this >> I can tell you in the last three years like just career-wise obviously I you know I had a great career we'll talk about in a minute, >> you know, made plenty of money and all

that stuff, but there's nothing that's more fun and exciting and rewarding than working on education. Like it's the last three years in the whole scheme of

things is 10 times better. I mean, it's awesome. And so, you know, in recruiting

awesome. And so, you know, in recruiting entrepreneurs to the vision and mission and excitement, like totally come aboard like we need to go build great

businesses, but there's nothing that's more fun and rewarding. And back to the bigger picture, there's nothing more important for society.

>> Can you tell us a little bit about Prodigy and the idea of using games to deliver this?

>> Prodigy, there's a game out there.

People have talked about gamified learning forever. We very strongly

learning forever. We very strongly believe in this. I'm investing a lot of money in this space because when you talk about scale, we have our physical buildings, right? And I got guides and I

buildings, right? And I got guides and I got an expensive footprint, right?

Expensive cost to serve to to drive motivation. This engine, right, if I get

motivation. This engine, right, if I get kids to go through it, right, is going to provide the learning.

>> And so, how do I get engagement? And the

people who know how to engage kids more than anything is video game developers.

They know how to engage kids. Tik Tok

and video games, right? Back to the things. And that is absolutely a

things. And that is absolutely a scalable way. When I talk about this

scalable way. When I talk about this tablet, I absolutely believe that there will be video games on that tablet that are totally engaging to kids

>> that they will go through and it will teach them everything they need to know.

So, you'll see when Timeback launches, right, there'll be a section where there's we have we have a team of people who's like using AI

um where they're using AI to build video games on top of the time back engine that kids will sit and play. The easiest

way to think about this is well, let's take fluence. Let's take a one that like

take fluence. Let's take a one that like schools have stopped teaching multiplication and division tables, you know, and vocabulary lists. Memorization

has sort of gone out of style.

>> Um uh which is really really bad. Like

it it's really important that kids learn this. Um uh but people don't like the

this. Um uh but people don't like the grind, right? The engagement is the hard

grind, right? The engagement is the hard part. I just saw this last week where

part. I just saw this last week where basically think of a game like Candy Crush.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. But it's teaching math fluency, math fact fluency, and it's super fun and engaging and it's it's a super high quality game.

>> Um kids are basically just going to play this game and learn all their fast math facts, >> right? And that fluency will do more to

>> right? And that fluency will do more to move up right math capability than anything you can imagine. It's obviously

highly scalable and you can get that out there, you know, um broad distribution.

Now, if you take that example though and then just go large, you can imagine a great AAA team, right, of the best video

game designers. And so, um, we've we've

game designers. And so, um, we've we've invested over hund00 million in getting some of the best video game designers in the world. They're down in Austin,

the world. They're down in Austin, >> and they are building a video game on top of the 2-hour learning engine that they believe will rival any video game on the planet.

>> And the difference was parents will be happy to let their kids play it and get their kids to top 10%.

>> Yeah. And I absolutely believe that is back to motivational models.

>> Yeah.

>> Absolutely. Like you know and and and that when we talk about the software side we talk right now it's all the physical building side you know back to the scale the time back team is like okay I got to get the engine working.

2026 is how do I take parts of the motivational model that's only been done physically you know in person and get it into the software. And so all of a sudden you're like okay if the kids just voluntarily play a video game and

they're going through it right you can imagine. And so, and let me give you an

imagine. And so, and let me give you an example is I I watched, you know, like a test case where, you know, you're asking a kid and you're like, um, and I'm not a video game person, so maybe I'm gonna get the wording wrong. If I had a

training center that would give you extra health, you know, so it would increase your chances.

>> Um, how long would you be willing to go to the training center? And the training center is just going to be math problems or some academic thing. And these kids are like, it's going to give me extra health, so like I can increase the win.

And the more I do in the training center, the more health I get. And

they're like, "Yeah." And the kids's like, "I do 10 hours in that training session." And I I don't I'm not I don't

session." And I I don't I'm not I don't I'm like, "How long is these video games?" And they're like, "Oh, you know,

games?" And they're like, "Oh, you know, 10 or 20 minutes." And like this kid literally just was like, "I would do 10 hours of academics." Now remember, it's only 20 to 30 hours to do an entire grade level.

>> Yeah. There's all these kind of motivational stuff or and so there's a whole video game one that back to I absolutely believe the next set of big video games are going to be built on a

academic engine that's going to teach kids. The old ones aren't based on

kids. The old ones aren't based on learning science and mastery standard and you know uh the kids don't when they're not engaging enough >> so the kid won't grind through it. Yeah.

>> Right. And you have to have that standard. You have to have both. You

standard. You have to have both. You

have to have a learning engine plus the world's best video game. Yeah,

>> there's going to be a ton of video game developers. Back to getting

developers. Back to getting entrepreneurs.

>> It's too competitive. Yeah, the old video games are it's too competitive.

Come do educational ones cuz let me tell you, back to financially, parents are willing to pay way more money. The arpoo

on a video game that's getting a kid to top 10% academics.

>> Are you kidding me?

>> There's 10 million moms in America who would pay a hundred bucks a month for their kid to love academics and right drive it up.

>> Yeah.

>> Back to product market fit and deciding.

So, one of the schools that was opened was a video game school back to this where you do your two-hour learning.

It's a middle school only for to catch kids up, right? So, they're ready for high school and then you do um uh video games in the afternoon. And back to

product marketing, there's, you know, you you talk to it and they're like, "Wow, it really works, but I there's parents are like, I'm not sending my kid to video game school." Right? That's a

hard hard push. But if you just pivoted a little bit and say, "Well, what if your kid came to you and said, "Mom, dad, I want after school tutoring, >> parents are like, I'd love after school

tutoring." Right? And so you can

tutoring." Right? And so you can actually create and there's one that's going to be created um which is tutoring and tournaments.

>> So after school, you're going to have tournament games, right? Video game

tournaments. So you do your one hour in the app and then you get an hour of tournament gaming time. And we're

actually working with some of the big streamers and video game players who are going to host these big events. And you

sort of compare the problem today where parents have to go push their kid for kuman and you know just you know do all that and the kids hate it and it's all this you know point of confrontation

versus kids coming and back to kids must love school. You could totally build an

love school. You could totally build an environment where they love it and they're like, "Yes, I'm going to go crank the app especially because it's going to give me extra health in the video game that I'm going to go play.

I'm going to play in this huge stream with all these other kids." Right? You

can build those solutions. It

>> It's so exciting for me. Uh we've talked before about this, but this conversation really made it click for me how much time back is sort of like an enabling platform technology that if you get that three-part engine right in the software

which you're working on and is a tractable problem. It like a thousand

tractable problem. It like a thousand flowers can bloom on top of it and and that makes me wonder like we spent all this time talking about Alvool. I would

love to just hear a little bit about you and your background. Um there's not a lot about you in the world. Like most of the press that exists about you is from the '90s. you know, at one point you

the '90s. you know, at one point you were the youngest self-made Forbes 4100 member or whatever and then you sort of went into the into the wilderness. I

don't know, you disappeared. So, tell

tell us like your life story. I would

just love to hear your personal background and then we'll dip into a couple topic areas.

>> I I grew up uh you know in a businessoriented environment. Um my dad worked for GE.

environment. Um my dad worked for GE.

You know, I I was learning what gross margin was and you know when I'm 12 years old and and and things like that.

Uh, back to my schooling. I wasn't I didn't like school. I'd get in trouble.

I almost, you know, kicked out of suspended and kicked out of high school.

Didn't graduate college cuz I'm like, what am I I I can't sit. I just I can't sit to these classes. Now, one of the things that's really important is academics is one piece of a very, you

know, complex bundle. And like Stanford is an awesome school even if you don't like the lectures. Yeah.

>> Right. because everything else around it like when I when I was at Stanford it's like oh Steve Jobs is talking one you know one of my best friends Julie Zalinsky she's like oh I'm going to go work at next with Steve Jobs and learn

all this stuff and you know Bill Gates comes down or Scott McNeely and you sit and you learn you know uh from all whether it's your classmates or just the

environment in general um uh all this awesomeness and so it's important in education to understand it's a complex bundle not just you know who does the best academically uh even at a school at

Stanford. My daughter's there and now as

Stanford. My daughter's there and now as a freshman and she's like, I am going to start skipping class. She's never she hasn't had a teacher in 10 years, >> right? She hasn't had a teacher in 10

>> right? She hasn't had a teacher in 10 years and she always and she is like the one who loves academics and she always was like look down on me like you would skip classes, dad, you know, cuz she's very much that rule follower. And then

now that she's there, she's like, "Oh, wow. Like, you know, Math Academy is a

wow. Like, you know, Math Academy is a way better math app than my math lecture and I'll just use that." But she loves Stanford and their, you know, everything else around it. So, School's a bundle.

Um, you know, and I dropped out and I started Trilogy. And, you know, in the

started Trilogy. And, you know, in the '9s it was we were, you know, >> Trilogy started in '89.

>> So, we we started officially in '89. I

would have been class of 90. Um, if I gra if I had stayed and graduated, it it was, you know, we were the rocket ship in the '90s.

>> What was Trilogy at its inception?

>> The core product we built, it's an AI product, right? an expert system. One of

product, right? an expert system. One of

the core products of an expert system back then was um a configurator, which is putting together, right? Or if you go to a Dell website or a car website and you do a configuration. Now imagine it

for a phone switch or a Boeing airplane, right? Or medical equipment, right? uh

right? Or medical equipment, right? uh

things that are super mainframes, things that are super complicated where you have millions and millions of combin uh combinotaurics >> and if you sell it wrong, >> you only find it out on the

manufacturing floor >> and then it cost you millions of dollars to fix. And so basically what our system

to fix. And so basically what our system would do was just it was called sales builder. It would basically take all the

builder. It would basically take all the knowledge, right, that was in engineering and manufacturing and put it on a lap. Laptops were new back then in 1990. And it would put it on a laptop so

1990. And it would put it on a laptop so you could sell things that would work and be eligible and would save companies millions of dollars a day.

>> And so they'd give us millions and millions of dollars for all that stuff.

And so that was our that was our first product. Um, we then built around we had

product. Um, we then built around we had sales stuff so we built other things, you know, around that suite. And then uh after 2000 we started buying companies

not just builds. So the '9s were all organic builds.

>> Um and then you know 2000 was let's acquire software >> and that's chapter >> ESW and that's continued right through it and it's you know it's 100 it's a private company down in Austin uh

generates lots of cash flow. It's why

you can take a billion dollars and say I'm going to go spend it on education.

Three years ago, I went to my team who'd been with me for 25 years.

>> Yeah.

>> And I was like, you've been telling me for 25 years that you could run this company better than me.

>> Let's see. Right. Good luck. I'm going

to go be a principal. Right. And I said, "And by the way, I'm taking a billion dollars so I can, you know, figure out and and get that going."

>> And so now I turned from, you know, boss to shareholder. And literally I'm like

to shareholder. And literally I'm like the worst shareholder now in the world.

I feel like if I was I like I feel so sorry for her because I'm like guys I I need all this capital. Like I need more cash. No, I'm we're you know this

cash. No, I'm we're you know this expansion that Mackenzie wants to do, right? It's going to take $300 million.

right? It's going to take $300 million.

So she has to raise money or we're going to have to give it to her. So like

generate more cash flow guys >> and you know all these software companies you got. You got to figure out how to be more capital light, right?

which to their credit and I I will give them a call out like uh I think on Bill Gurley's um Bill Gurley by the way lives right next to our high school um he said on his last one I'd really love to see a

private equity firm >> that is taking advantage of the thousand dead unicorns >> right and that very much is what that is is what trilogy and ESW the team is

doing is you know there's all these SAS companies right who um you know added loaded on a ton of debt right in a growth play and they're gone and so

basically their equities is zero >> and they're being handed back to the private credit guys and the private credit guys are like what do you want me to do with this right >> and so our back to when I put the

pressure on them of you know I'm going to I'm going to suck a ton of capital out of you guys and cash flow out of you guys they're like how do we become capital light so they're actually and they've signed a few of these deals already and we'll see if it really takes

off but they're going to all the private credit guys and >> say we'll handle this offer >> we'll Hey, we'll take this whole company, give us this company for a dollar.

>> Yeah.

>> And we'll split the cash flows.

>> ESW and Trilogy is known as being like the best operators in the space, right?

They can generate more cash than anybody else. Um, and so, you know, some of the

else. Um, and so, you know, some of the big names are like they've they've uh sold them sold them a few companies, you know, basically for a dollar.

>> Um, and they're going to split the cash flows and see how they go. But the point is there's 20 billion dollars of those companies sort of out there on the books

and I'm super I Good luck guys freaking go do you know crush that for me cuz I'll take the cash >> if you think about the lessons from especially from ESW I'll talk about trilogy too I'm always interested in software how incredibly hard it is to

build software that anyone cares about pays for and uses and then how surprisingly efficiently they can be run once you've achieved product market fit.

So if you take like the Elon example that every time I talk to a software CEO in private they'd be like can you believe this guy cut you know 70 or 80% of the jobs and things seem totally fine

that there is just a massive efficiency gain in software systems that are at maturity or past product market fit and that ESW fundamentally was about um how

do I take something that's working but wildly inefficiently run and make it massively more efficient and therefore more cash flow generative. Is that like a fair summary?

>> Yeah, growth is expensive.

>> Yeah. is I I a way to do it is if you're trying to be a hyperrowth >> company >> your cost structure right and your culture it's it's just very expensive

>> and when you say okay >> I don't need that kind of growth right that's why everything becomes that much cheaper there I guess there's two dimension because the Elon example

brings it first just though just growth right and so like back to these deals right you're the private credit guy the management team of that failed unicorn have been spending hundreds of millions

of dollars to, you know, be worth billions and billions. And that's their culture and attitude. And if you go in and be like, "Dude, like you're wasting some money here."

>> Yeah.

>> They're like, "What are you talking about?" Right? We have built a culture

about?" Right? We have built a culture around all of this. And if I if I change it, I'll lose all the employees. And so

when you go in, you have to be able to say, >> "We don't care for those.

>> We don't care if they go like to Elon Musk. Elon's firing them." But you

Musk. Elon's firing them." But you fundamentally have to be like my team can run this company.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. And that's back to to Trilogy ESW is just their capability is they're like yeah we can run this.

>> Right. And so you know that old team that wants growth they should go on right it's companies have life cycles and you're like you guys are the growth team. You should go get your next

team. You should go get your next growth. There's an AI startup that you

growth. There's an AI startup that you could go raise a ton of money for and go play do your growth playbook. But this

particular company that wherever it is, right, it's not a growth play anymore and so you should run it. Not like a growth play, right? And um and so yes, Trilogy and ESW is very good at that and you can generate tons of cash flow on it.

>> If you had to name like the three things that are most responsible for, okay, you get a new business at ESW either for a dollar for more than a dollar. Dollar

sounds like a good deal >> and then you know a year later, however long it takes, it's now way more profitable than it was before. what are

typically like the you know one two or three things that you're doing to make that possible. The number one is, you

that possible. The number one is, you know, growth versus installed base, you know, is the way to think about it. In a

growth company, you care about the new customers and that's all you care about.

And in an installed base company, you care about your existing customers. And

so, literally, like, so our team when they buy a company, the first thing they do is they call all the customers, every single one.

And you'll be shocked at these multi-million dollar customers who like, "Wow, >> it's the first time I've gotten a phone call from this company because management on a growth company. It's not

it's all on the prospects." And you're like, "Hey, you know, customer success, right?" You know, the mantra trilogy in

right?" You know, the mantra trilogy in ESW is customer success. Hey, what do we have to do to make you successful? and

you know why don't we set up you know quarterly calls where you tell us if we're making you successful and what are the joint metrics and they're like wow this is the first time anybody said that right and when you do that right all of

a sudden you get retention >> right and so retention of the installed base and that's actually how you grow the installed base is >> you know they're going to sit there and tell you what they want and how to do it and sometimes you can do it you know

sometimes there's upsell opportunities and all of that as well where you're like great I'm solving the customer's problem and that is actually leading to more.

>> But you have to sit there and you have to look at your installed base and be like, "This is it."

>> Like, >> you don't get more.

>> I I don't get more. And so, I really need to treat these guys really well and I really need to understand what they want and I need to figure out, hey, if I do add AI to this product, you know, is

is there upsell there, right? Is there

something that's really valuable or oh my god the prior guys have ignored you and it's a total nightmare and you're trying to cancel and it's hard to get off enterprise software and so you're two years into your three-year you know

transition plan you know can I reverse that right can I provide something where oh all of a sudden I care about you you're going to stop the migration off and you know get back on and so that's

that's 100% of what the the playbook is is just saying you know >> and is the idea is the objective function um like actual cash flows that could be pulled out of the business

versus enterprise value. Like is that the is that the same as the switch from growth to install base is like look this thing is a the melting ice cube would always be the term of art in in this space. So it's like keep it cold for

space. So it's like keep it cold for longer basically and and take the cash flows and if the terminal value is zero like fine I don't care.

>> Correct. You're looking at what is your DCF you're pulling the cash out and if it goes to zero >> right there built you know there's built to last.

>> Yeah. There's for there's a cycle in a company where it's built to die.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. Right. And you're just like this this product is done.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. And what you're just doing is managing >> and you're just and you're pulling the cash out to do it and there is investment you make because that extends it. Software still is one where if you

it. Software still is one where if you focus on the customer I mean just basics right that you can extend your right the area under the curve. Um, absolutely.

And then you get some nice things like, oh, an AI uplift and, you know, things like that that that allow you to do it.

>> What was the transition like for you going from this like extremely young, extremely successful person that's on the cover of magazines and stuff like this in the '90s to choosing a much more private, quieter existence.

>> So that was all that was done basically because I got married. So like in the '9s, right, crazy trilogy, super awesome, right? We're on all the covers.

awesome, right? We're on all the covers.

We're grow, you know, 100% growth. It's

it's totally awesome. And then you know uh it's actually my last podcast uh was 20 years ago. Um uh and coincidentally

20 years ago I got married um and so I just decided I wanted a different path um you know for the family and the kids and and what it was that was a a different stage. And now and the why I'm

different stage. And now and the why I'm here is, you know, my >> is well my my my youngest is now going to be she's a senior,

>> right? And so she's like, "Okay, you

>> right? And so she's like, "Okay, you know, uh back to trying to give your kids as normal a world as you can." Um

>> I just felt that being, you know, under the radar um and more private was better. Now as I look forward to my

better. Now as I look forward to my future I'm like I got 20 years and you know I need to be out there because we have to educate parents like you know

the phase that I'm in very much is you know we talk we have we we talk about two things we talk about how you know our schools we educate kids you know and time back we educate kids our marketing

department slogan is we educate parents >> right because parents view of education it's 200 years of all this old stuff right and they they just think things that aren't true, right? It just it's

not true anymore. And so, you know, educating parents about, you know, what is possible. And so, that's

is possible. And so, that's >> sort of my new role is I have to go out and do that.

>> What lessons did you learn from Trilogy University? I think it's so interesting

University? I think it's so interesting that that used to exist back in the Trilogy days and now here we are again.

What tell us what that was and what you learned from.

>> Sure. So we started, you know, in Silicon Valley, you know, dropped out of Stanford, you know, literally living in the garage, you know, uh we couldn't raise venture capital. It was different back then. We couldn't raise venture

back then. We couldn't raise venture capital. We thought our ideas were

capital. We thought our ideas were terrible. One of our co-founders was

terrible. One of our co-founders was like, if I'm going to be poor and have no money in Liberty Garage, I'm going to do it in Austin, Texas, cuz it's way cheaper than Palo Alto.

>> And so he moved to Austin. And so we all followed him. He was our best engineer,

followed him. He was our best engineer, developer guy, uh the visionary behind the the engine itself. The problem with Austin, Texas in 1992 when we moved

there is there were very few software engineers, right? And so what we had to

engineers, right? And so what we had to do was build basically the software um group down there. And so what we did is we basically went to the all the best

schools in the country and we hired 2,000 Ivy League grads, you know, Stanford, MIT, you know, uh Princeton, wherever, uh and brought them to Austin.

Um, and so that was our big thing and and back to the culture was we brought them in and you know it's an interesting thing about high standards, right? So

these are the best kids in the country, right? Coming from the best schools and

right? Coming from the best schools and we're like if you come down to Austin we're going to put you in Trilogy University and this will be the hardest 100 days you've ever done. You are going

to work a 100 hour weeks, right? it's

gonna be 8 am to midnight and we are gonna build the most awesome products >> and it's gonna be the hardest thing you did but it's gonna be great >> right and that was why we were able to

recruit everybody >> was because of the high standards >> right and it was actually interesting you know Microsoft at the time you know our our claim to fame was you know we

got all the best students um at the time I think Microsoft you know sort of the peak of their power 9798 90% of students would go to Microsoft versus any competing company and against Trilogy it

was like uh Microsoft only got 30% and we won 70 >> right and you know and part of it the the reason was is because we made it harder

>> right where kids want to do awesome stuff right and graduates want to do awesome stuff and you don't want to give them a cush job or all this stuff you want to put them on the hardest problems

where they can work like crazy and do it and so that was children university which that ethos, right, is um you know uh we continue it today. There's a

>> there's a program uh that's in Austin that's running right now uh called Gauntlet AI because they're trying to figure out about AI and training where

they're bringing down a 100 people into Austin. So they basically scour the

Austin. So they basically scour the world >> basically looking for the top 1 or 2% kids, right? And these are 20somes and

kids, right? And these are 20somes and they're bringing them down to Austin and they're doing a hundred days of 100hour

weeks to learn AI >> to build apps with AI and retool your whole career to be like, okay, what's what what am I going to be in the future? Um, and they have it set up

future? Um, and they have it set up where it's actually free for people to go through this. And then if you make it through and there's like a 50 plus percent wash out rate, but they then um

get a $200,000 job because there are all these companies just lining up for being like, "Oh my god, these people just worked 100 hours a week. They're leading

edge AI. Oh, I can't wait to hire them."

And so it's a it's a unique thing where when when it was started, people are like, "No one's going to go sign up to do that." Yeah.

do that." Yeah.

>> But if you actually talk to the gauntlet grads, they're like, "This transformed my life. This is the best, you know, 10

my life. This is the best, you know, 10 weeks, 100 hour weeks I've ever done.

>> If I was to watch you like a day in the life from, you know, your podcast 20 years ago to your one, you know, now through today with the focus on Trilogy and ESW, what was your life like? Like

what were you were you just like a normal CEO running a you know software holding company basically like and and and what was the it like you strike me as a person that's just relentlessly like pushing to make things better.

Where would I find you most pushing in those days? What would be the parts that

those days? What would be the parts that that matter back then is, you know, you're you're trying to figure out it's always back to capital is you're trying to figure out is how much the the trade-off between how much do I have to pay for this company?

>> Mhm.

>> Right. And the more I pay, right, the better caliber asset I get.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. Versus, okay, what's the cash flow I can generate out of it? And then

what are the things that generate the cash flow? And so first you're like okay

cash flow? And so first you're like okay what are the innovations we can make about customer interaction and delivering customer success and you know how do we innovate there. The second

part is okay, how do we take this codebase and old codebase and how do we make the product better, >> right? And how do we make sure that

>> right? And how do we make sure that we're being able to take these and revitalize them, >> right? And and how do we do that? How do

>> right? And and how do we do that? How do

I go get people who care about this?

>> Um, and and how do I find them? And so

it's just it's just looking at, you know, what are the parts of the company that drive your returns, right? And

fundamentally, back to systems, you're like, you have to have these scalable systems. We've bought over a hundred companies. So anything we're doing

companies. So anything we're doing right, you have to be able to say, "Okay, can I apply this to a hundred companies?"

companies?" >> If you had a fresh billion dollars with a new young version of yourself in a new, you know, LLC rapper or something or corp rapper and you wanted to invest

it in software, how much worse do you think the returns you would earn in the next 20 years would be from that applying a similar playbook to what you've applied versus the last 20 years?

Like how much worse is the future?

>> Well, it's two it's two parts. When we

talk about SAS versus AIdriven, >> the SAS stuff is going to be way worse.

Just pure transactional SAS, I believe, is just going to be dramatically worse than the the the big, you know, uh the big winners. Um

big winners. Um the AI native ones. So if you take and it

native ones. So if you take and it depends on whether you call AI part of SAS, AI native >> companies. Yeah. And call them software

>> companies. Yeah. And call them software companies or or whatever. AI native

companies are going to be worth more than any SAS company ever has been. And

so >> because they can just do so much more for the customer.

>> Yeah. It's just your your breath of what you get to do. You could change fundamentally how the business works, >> right? It's well take education, right?

>> right? It's well take education, right?

You literally are like, okay, kids could learn 10 times faster. It's a multi- trillion dollar industry globally. And

there no other software that's out there, no edte, nothing that's ever been built can have kids learn 10 times faster. and you're like, "Okay, I have

faster. and you're like, "Okay, I have to build a really good product and now kids could learn 10 times faster." The

value that it will drive to the economy is just going to be huge.

>> Can you tell me what you've learned from Jim Ael?

>> Uh he was my head of HR.

>> Um and uh he came from old school. Um he

was from Bristol Myers. I think I hired him. Uh and this is in the early 2000s.

him. Uh and this is in the early 2000s.

And uh Jim Abel was one of the most influential guys uh you know in my career for me. He was awesome. Um he

still is awesome. Uh you know on advice and uh it's it's it's ironic you know if I had to say what was the best business

advice I got it came from Jim. Um and

the reason was because Jim, first of all, software businesses are HR, >> right? They are HR businesses and it's

>> right? They are HR businesses and it's your biggest cost structure. It's your

biggest leverage of getting return. It's

it's it's all that matters, right? And

he was an awesome HR guy and you know, I was a terrible HR person. Um still am.

uh you know, and he would just sit there and be like, "Let me explain how you can get, you know, why you're like the world's worst boss or manager or however

whatever category you wanted." He did more to help educate me, you know, and and and and grow me uh than anybody. Um

and I I mean I we could sit and I could give you 20 stories.

>> Give me one or two.

>> Give you one. Okay. Here's the first one I remember. Um, so he comes in and you

I remember. Um, so he comes in and you know we're doing our annual meeting and I used to write a strategy doc and it'd be like 20 pages like here's our you know children's strategy here we go and we get it in you know there's you know

1500 people in a big room and I'm going to get up and we're going to talk this strategy and Jim was like what are you doing this is the dumbest thing ever you here's

here's what got Joe you have you're allowed three lines three words and you need to distill your strategy down to that

>> because 20page strategy documents, those are useless.

And I remember sitting there and I was I was talking to somebody I and I was just like, God, does does Jim understand we hire all these guys from the Ivy League?

Like everybody can read a 20page strategy document and this, you know, slogans, right? I'm like I'd be

slogans, right? I'm like I'd be embarrassed to get up and sloganer my way through with you know this super super high-end >> and he's like Joe smart person disease

you have smart person disease you need to craft your message and make it simple and clear.

>> Yeah. And I was like, "Whatever." And I ignored him. And then he went and he

ignored him. And then he went and he interviewed every single person in the company, right? And it took him

company, right? And it took him basically months. And he came back and

basically months. And he came back and he pulled me into his office and showed me on the whiteboard. And he's like, "This is what actually people think your strategy is."

strategy is." >> Cuz I just asked them all.

>> Yeah.

>> And I'm like, "Wow, that's like literally the opposite of our strategy."

Because he's like, "Right." And he's like, "Yes." Because in a 20 trade

like, "Yes." Because in a 20 trade strategy document, there's always one line that someone can attach to and say, "See, I'm aligned."

>> Yeah.

>> Cuz you said something. And he's like, "You need to go create your strategy where there's no escape.

>> Where your message is so simple that everybody can sit there and they have to read it and if they feel discomfort because they're not aligned, that's what you're looking for, >> right? And that lesson

>> right? And that lesson >> can feel it in the alpha school presentation. out. Kids must love

presentation. out. Kids must love school, >> right? Kids, the three commitments.

>> right? Kids, the three commitments.

>> Yeah, >> kids must love school. And he's always about the edge. He's like, "And how are you going to measure that, Joe?" And

he's like, >> "Kids instead of vacation." And he's like, Jim Abel would definitely pass that as like that. There's no escape from that, >> right? If you're a guide, right? If you

>> right? If you're a guide, right? If you

are going to be hired to be in charge, you sit there as a teacher and you're like, I need to make the kid love school. he has to crush the academics

school. he has to crush the academics and do the life skills. Like there's no escape from that. And if you don't think that's possible, you won't take the job.

>> Last week, a friend and I went, we're looking for new companies to be interested in investing in. And we went through 500 company websites blind. We

didn't look at who their investors were.

It's just companies that had gotten some funding.

>> And went through 500 websites, and we didn't find a single one where it was like totally clear and obvious what the damn product did for the customer. I

think if everyone in the world did the threeline, three words each, the world would be a far better place.

>> It absolutely would. And it's it's and you know, he's doing it from corporate strategy, but then once you do it, you're like, okay, we'll just communicate everywhere. No, it's just

communicate everywhere. No, it's just true. It's true everywhere. And you

true. It's true everywhere. And you

know, and that that is just if you communicate that out that you know, good marketing, right? And he always talk

marketing, right? And he always talk he's an HR guy, his marketing insights, he came through like Pepsi and you know stuff. He was like a great consumer. He

stuff. He was like a great consumer. He

is a great consumer marketer as well where he'd just sit there and be like it needs to be a magnet.

>> Good marketing needs to attract and repel >> that you need to go find who is your target audience. And if you're giving

target audience. And if you're giving platitudes, right, then that's not repelling anybody, that's terrible marketing. And

he's like, that's terrible vision for a company. He's like, you know, he'd look

company. He's like, you know, he'd look at most, you know, what are the five things? And you know, he's like, if

things? And you know, he's like, if someone won't say the opposite, >> it shouldn't be on the list >> because then it's a platitude. So he's

like, you know, like a controversial one when we were back then was >> integrity, >> right? Cuz everybody has integrity on

>> right? Cuz everybody has integrity on it. Because of course you want that.

it. Because of course you want that.

He's like, it's a waste word. He's like,

cuz no one's going to put on their corpor core values. I want a company with no integrity. Right? Nobody says

that, right? And so you Yes, you have to have it.

>> I love that. the opposite

>> if it's not the opposite and you have to have it's a magnet attract and repel and if you won't say the if there's not somebody else who will say the opposite then it's it's wasted right you're not getting the the clear message across

>> is there anyone in addition to Jim that taught you something as valuable that you remember from your business career >> Jack Welch was a mentor of mine um which was my dad worked for him and then my

dad passed when I was 25 um and Jack called me and was just like I'm here you know anytime of coaching or help I can give.

>> Um, and so I would fly up during this is during the 90s.

>> Um, I'd fly up and uh spend the day uh with him at GE or or wherever. And you

know, he would he was awesome. I mean uh you know his ability to motivate you >> and back to limitless >> um was just was phenomenal.

>> How did he do it? Like what did you take from him?

>> I I'll give example. Uh, I was flying up. This is I'm, you know, youngest

up. This is I'm, you know, youngest member of the Forbes 400. I'm on the cover of the magazine, right? I'm

freaking 20ome. I am like, right, life is awesome. I'm awesome, right? That

is awesome. I'm awesome, right? That

whole attitude. And I go up there and I'm like, yeah, look at this. Right. And

so we talk and like literally at the end of the the the lunch he's like, "Okay, so Joe, you're like a you're like a good product manager. Is that how I should

product manager. Is that how I should like think about you? like, you know, a level seven or whatever G it was, you know, and I'm and you know, and he he

would just sit there and first of all just be back to receiving feedback.

>> Yeah.

>> Brutally honest on the feedback of just let's talk about your strengths and weaknesses here, Joe. And you sort of suck at this. Like not just sort of suck, you're terrible. But then, you know, taking that to make sure you

understand where you are. Motivate. I

remember I flew back from that trip and I spent I have so much to do. I have all these things I need to do. I got to get better on this dimension and my company has to get better here and I have to

build better, you know, um product. I

need to learn more. Like he would both he'd inspire you to just incredible greatness with the highest standards, you know, possible

>> um around it. And you know that I'll give you one more related. I I G G Medical had bought one of our products in 1997 and I was up talking to him. He's like,

"Yeah, Med doesn't like your product."

>> And I was like, "I don't know if you know, it just won e-commerce product of the year." Like in the year of

the year." Like in the year of e-commerce in 97. It freaking won e-commerce product. Jack's like, "Joe, I

e-commerce product. Jack's like, "Joe, I don't care if it comes from heaven above. If General Electric doesn't get a

above. If General Electric doesn't get a return on its investment, your product sucks. You suck. your company sucks like

sucks. You suck. your company sucks like no and you know and you're just like you go from oh my god I won product of the year to he's making a really good point

about return and you know he's like you want to sell the big companies you have to you know and literally that helped us you know create our customer success and how we could you know show return that we wouldn't just be a product company

but we could show value to the customers and so uh you know that was what he definitely did uh >> I love that um I'm curious about your motivation. Like we talk so much about

motivation. Like we talk so much about other people's motivation.

>> What is the throughine of all your hard work? One of the things that comes up a

work? One of the things that comes up a lot when you ask people that know you I think decently well. They'll say some version of this which is like Joe's like >> n10 like just a really nice high energy

normal guy and then he's onetenth like business killer psycho.

>> And I'm I'm curious about that 10% of you and like maybe for you to describe it if that resonates with you or not and if so where it comes from. I'm just a normal guy with with this extreme. You

should ask my daughters. They probably

have a a good view on that. But um uh there there's a there is an element of um pushing the limit, right? Is where

you get all the alpha, right? That's

where you get all the the benefit. Um

that it's at that extreme um where the real truths come out, right? And so I'm I absolutely believe I'm always trying to figure out how do you take this and's limit turn it to 11.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. You're like let's work 100 hours a week. Let's get you know how we're

a week. Let's get you know how we're gonna get all these kids >> right at you know in the '9s.

>> We're going to build the craziest you know boot camp children's university.

Back to what's hard about educational change. Parents want it the same way.

change. Parents want it the same way.

You know my first day I literally sat in front of the parents. It was actually first day of school which was 2 weeks after I started and I was like you know we we're not going to have any adult do

academic teaching in this school. You

know there's like hundreds of parents who are just like this dude's a whack job right and what what and all this stuff. And I appreciate all of those who

stuff. And I appreciate all of those who stayed to us. Some did rage quit obviously and totally understandably that to me I'm like yeah well this is how we're going to make it work and it's going to be fine and of course there's not going to be

>> teachers doing academic teaching because this can do it better and so that's where you get the okay that seems like that 10% of just of pushing to it you know and and today you know our two-hour

learning engine you know and 2x in two hours right that thing is just going to right >> you're just going to go >> well there's no reason why not to because the kids you know 100 facts and

ideas an hour in their head with the Tik Tok interface. It's just whatever this

Tok interface. It's just whatever this is, well, let's just let's just do more.

>> Um, and you know, I generally think, you know, and on the scale when you say I'm the 10%, you know, it's Elon Musk is always a thing. Like, but you you know, you you go to dinner with him, right?

And he's like, you know, 100x like I'm like, "Oh, I I really suck. Like, I'm

terrible, right?" He's like, "I don't understand why you don't have a thousand schools already. I don't I don't know

schools already. I don't I don't know what's going on." I'm like, well, what's all these issues, you know, you know, and so the the it's all it's all a continuum, right, on on where you sit.

Uh, but yes, it's, you know, that's that part of it is, you know, designing the system like in designing the ecosystem, you know, well, whether it's a product

or whatever, you're like, what are those things? What are the levers that if you

things? What are the levers that if you really push them, that's what, you know, keeps going. So, so learning sort of

keeps going. So, so learning sort of happens at the limit would be like the cap.

>> Learning learning happens at the limit and it's it's learning and how do you there's always the ideas, right? And

then actually how do you implement it and scale it, right? It's the it's the Steve Jobs thing of like it's really easy to visionary a good product and there's 10,000 decisions you have to

make to make them all work together, right? that there's 10,000 decisions

right? that there's 10,000 decisions we've made in the alpha system and the two-hour learning system in this ecosystem. There's 10,000 decisions that

ecosystem. There's 10,000 decisions that you need to make and they reinforce each others, >> right? That if you, you know, it's a DNA

>> right? That if you, you know, it's a DNA strand and if you like, you know, one of the things people often say about me is they're like, I want 85% Joe,

>> right? I want what Joe's doing, but I'm

>> right? I want what Joe's doing, but I'm going to do the 85% version of it. And

the answer is and they find out it doesn't work >> right >> 85 if if it if 85% worked I'd do that but it doesn't I'm pushing it to where it needs to be for it to work and if all

of a sudden you back off those it's going to fail for some reason. Right? If

you don't believe your school needs to have kids love school they'll go instead of vacation.

>> You're not it's not gonna work.

>> Right? It's and people are like that standard is so ridiculous. And you're

like, >> "Yes, >> that's the one that makes it work."

>> Right. That is the one that makes it work.

>> It's the uh spinal tap approach to product building. When was the first

product building. When was the first time you experienced that? Like like

this this spinal tap approach turn it to 11.

>> I'm so curious about its roots in you like was were you like that as a kid?

Like did you find yourself What was the first time you remember pushing something to 11 to see what you could learn at the limit >> in high school? This is a dysfunctional 11 I guess which was I was always about

what's the minimum academic score I can get but still hit >> my goals.

>> So like I would sit there and be like well if I get an 89.5 that'll round to 90 which gives me an A which is the same as getting 99 or 100. And I literally

would just do the work to get an 89.5.

And so like right at the limit. Um,

there's a time where I literally turned in a test where I didn't finish all the questions because I'm like, "Oh, it's enough now. I hit my 89.5 and turned it

enough now. I hit my 89.5 and turned it in." Right? The teacher's just like,

in." Right? The teacher's just like, >> "God, I hate you, Joe." Like, really?

You can't just like finish it. So, the,

you know, it just it was the limit side, you know, that would be the I didn't like school side and I was trying to figure out how to game it.

>> How many days could I skip school and not get expelled when I really turned it on and was when I started dropped out and started trilogy. So, you know, the the the story here is, you know, my

parents were very unhappy that I dropped out of school. You know, my dad was definitely more of the rule follower type and I was too much of the renegade.

And, you know, my mom was very upset. Uh

there's that Forbes article where they're like, "You're a moron." You

know, it's famous uh title. Uh but, you know, this was uh little over a year after I'd started uh Trilogy. I was with

my dad. My dad was like, "I know I

my dad. My dad was like, "I know I didn't like you. I'm so excited uh that you started Trilogy because I was so worried that you were a lazy little

I was so worried about it and it was just because you were in academics and you didn't care and so you were always trying to sherk and do the minimum." He's like, "You know, I we're

minimum." He's like, "You know, I we're working 100 hours a week. We're sleeping

under the desk. We're just doing everything right." And he he saw that I

everything right." And he he saw that I found what I loved, right? And that was that unlock that you want to say that feeling of limit that that feeling of

limitless and that I would just write we would run through walls to do that. Um

you know and for him that was that was the point. And so that would be the

the point. And so that would be the first time when I really >> you know demonstrated that at least to him would have been would have had that.

I I agree that you know acade you know I I I strongly believe every kid has a thirst for learning. It's just not always academic, >> right? And you're just trying to tap

>> right? And you're just trying to tap into that, you know, and for me it became starting a business and learning everything about it. And you know, I was one of the world's expert in configuration. I can't tell you why, you

configuration. I can't tell you why, you know, you know, but it was a means to an end. I wouldn't have just done, you

end. I wouldn't have just done, you know, I I'd sit in the Stanford comp CS library, you know, read back then you had to read papers, you know, and and all that stuff. It was it was finding that unlock and then once I did it,

you're like it's it brings the energy and excitement uh to it.

>> What was the switch over from Trilogy to ESW? What was the first time that that

ESW? What was the first time that that new unlock happened?

>> Yeah, that's there really wasn't it was all it was a like to me it's all trilogy. There was a name issue. There's

trilogy. There was a name issue. There's

like a corporate legal entity, but it's all it's all the same trilogy. And so

there there really wasn't which was we bought a couple companies >> and we're like, "Oh, we really are good operators."

operators." >> Yeah.

>> Right. We're like, "Oh, we, you know, we we we actually is really one." Yeah. Oh,

wow. Look at this. And, you know, we bought a company and we made, I don't know, 10 times our investment on it.

You're like, "Oh, wow. This is like >> this is cool."

>> Yeah. This is really cool.

>> It's so interesting the Limitless thing.

Maybe it's a nice place to start to wrap up. Is that the same person I mentioned

up. Is that the same person I mentioned earlier, my friend whose name is Graham Duncan. He has this idea who had the the

Duncan. He has this idea who had the the the teenager selling the sweatshirts that would be so motivated by it, an amazing kid. um he has this notion of

amazing kid. um he has this notion of trying to get people into positive feedback loops. And it strikes me that

feedback loops. And it strikes me that that is what you were doing now with your time and your money and your attention. You know, I haven't quoted

attention. You know, I haven't quoted numbers, but it's an enormous amount of your own personal money that you're putting behind this. And it's pretty amazing for me as a dad and I'm sure for everyone listening with kids to think

about your time and your energy and your money that basically what you're doing is putting kids into positive feedback loops where they can feel that feeling of limitlessness which for anyone that's felt that knows you don't have to talk

about it. They know that is the biggest

about it. They know that is the biggest unlock of their lives. And so I'm very thankful that you're doing what you're doing. I think it's the one of the

doing. I think it's the one of the coolest projects happening in America that people are just starting to learn about. hopefully now a lot more we'll

about. hopefully now a lot more we'll learn about. Um I think you know my

learn about. Um I think you know my traditional closing question. What is

the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you? I've had so many right kindness is um my wife runs a kindness campaign um uh around all this stuff and

the the kind world of that we live in is just when you look at the kids um at the school and you just sit there and say

when I wake up every day the kids who are in the schools right we are like forging new ground right this is a startup school and there's all these

kids who buy in and are like we are part of it and to a large extent they're putting their faith in the adults and that includes obviously me to be like

this seems really crazy >> right this seems you know very different but I'm all in and I buy in that's the part that for me I'm just like you know

it at the end of the day it all comes back to the kids and their buy in around this stuff and their willingness to be part of um is the thing when I think of

gratitude and kindness that's that's the core that makes this all happen. Um and

that's where my appreciation goes like immense amounts to to all of them. And I

you know there's a few of them who are watching this you know who are going to be like it's time to receive feedback Mr. Limont

here is my critical yet constructive feedback right Alex or Tatum or Ella is going to you know do that and that's the part of this whole thing when you think about to and to your point there's

nothing more important for a society than to raise kids >> we have an opportunity because of things that have been invented and where we are in the world >> to totally make it awesome right for the

kids and there is nothing not just more valuable there is nothing more rewarding Right. And so to the point of, you know,

Right. And so to the point of, you know, if I can assemble the dads and the moms who wake up every day and are like, I want this change for the kids, right? We

have the opportunity we need to, you know, get all together um and make this available to a billion kids, billion plus kids, you know, around the world.

Um, and I'm in, right? I'm in for the next decade, uh, two decades, 20 years.

Uh, I'm putting in the first billion, right? Transforming this is going to

right? Transforming this is going to require more than that. It's a trillion dollars a year, right? It's it's going to require more than that. Um, but

there's nothing more important than all of us to work on it.

>> Joe, this is unbelievably fun for me.

Thank you so much for breaking your 20-year streak with with us here. Can't

wait for everyone to hear. Thanks so

much for your time.

>> Thank you.

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