Assertion Not checkable as stated
Allred: Lambda School grads are financially $250K ahead of university peers
“By the time the student's graduating from university, the Lambda School student has three years of experience and has paid Lambda School off and is a quarter million dollars ahead, at least, of the university grad.”
Assertion Contradicted
Allred: Lambda School graduates more than 85% of its starting students
“Now we're graduating, you know, more than 85% of students that start day one, and a lot of the dropout is because of reasons outside of our control.”
Opinion
Allred: Human capital is the most unoptimized asset class in history
“Human capital is the most unoptimized asset class we've ever had.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Allred: ML will soon predict candidate software engineering success before tuition
“Pretty soon you can underwrite the likelihood that a person will be a successful software engineer before they've paid a dollar.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Allred: Lambda School grads get six-figure job offers immediately upon applying
“Like the minute they start applying, they get interviews, they get hired, they get a six-figure job, and it's like, what were we waiting for, right?”
Opinion
Allred: MIT PhDs and 1600 SATs do not correlate with startup success
“But just because you went, you have a PhD in computer science from MIT and you got a 1600 on the SATs as a freshman doesn't necessarily mean you'll have a successful company. It's not directly correlated.”
Opinion
Allred: University of Phoenix incentives are misaligned by government-backed loans
“They're backed by, the loans are backed by Uncle Sam, and whether or not you're successful, they get paid. So the incentives are fundamentally misaligned, and if the University of Phoenix can get you to sign a piece of paper, they get 80 grand.”
Opinion
Allred: Advising students to attend college at any cost is bad advice
“Everybody growing up just said, go to college. Doesn't matter what it costs. Just get a degree. It doesn't matter what you study and you'll be successful. And I think my generation is now realizing like that's fundamentally untrue. It isn't only not good advic…”
Opinion
Allred: Debt-funded liberal arts degrees are impractical for mid-career switchers
“The prospect of, let's take out 50,000 dollars of loans to study Shakespeare is not a bad thing per se, but probably not the right thing at the right time.”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Allred: Lambda School may launch a nursing school by late 2019
“So you know, we're not working on it right, right now, but don't be surprised if you hear by the end of this year, an announcement that Lambda nursing is going live and we're launching a nursing school”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Allred: Lambda School's top engineers are more diverse than Stanford students
“Our students who are great engineers are generally speaking more diverse than Stanford would be.”
Insight
Allred: Software engineers need C, but shouldn't start with memory management
“Like, you do need to know how to write C to be a good engineer. You do need to know how memory management works, but maybe let's not start with memory management as like an entry level point to software engineering.”
Opinion
Allred: Remote work is not yet established enough for junior engineers
“A, I don't think remote work is built into enough companies yet where I would be comfortable telling somebody that I love that they should start their career as a remote junior software engineer.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Allred: The best high-growth companies will continue to be built in Silicon Valley
“I think the best high growth companies are still going to be built in Silicon Valley for right now, or at least they'll have an executive team in Silicon Valley.”
Insight
Allred: Quantitative analysts consistently underestimate product quality because it resists measurement
“There's no way you can quantify product quality very well. So people who are looking at things from a quantitative standpoint underestimate it every single time.”
Opinion
Allred: Tesla Model S build quality is worse, but user experience wins
“The Model S, like, the materials are worse. The build is probably not as good. Like, they're not as good at, like, assembling the pieces, but just the experience of that car versus the other one, it's not even close. And so Tesla's probably the canonical examp…”
Disclosure
Allred: Lambda School will eventually operate as a talent agency
“The future we're going to look a lot like a talent agency basically for software engineers and designers and whatever else.”
Disclosure
Allred: Lambda School is fundamentally a vocational trade school
“So we are, yeah, we are entirely Vocational we're a trade school basically, and we want to help you make as much money as you can.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Allred: Lambda School was already profitable prior to joining Y Combinator
“We were profitable by any definition.”
Assertion Supported
Allred: Google spent $100 million in compensation to retain Sundar Pichai
“Google has in the past spent a hundred million dollars to retain Sundar and stuff like that.”
Disclosure
Allred: Lambda School is testing living stipends for students
“We have experiments running where we pay people living stipends. That will be expanding greatly. We'll be announcing something in the near future along those lines in concert with a few other tech leaders here in the valley.”
Disclosure
Allred: Lambda School is currently hiring 37 interview sourcers
“We are hiring right now, 37 interview sourcers.”
Assertion Contradicted
Allred: Lambda School's student body is less than 50% white
“So we're, I think as a school, we're less than half white, which is not the traditional makeup of a code school by any stretch of the imagination.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Allred: Only 50% of people who bought his $100 book downloaded it
“50% of the people that bought the book ever downloaded it, even.”
