The AI School Kids Love More Than Vacation | Alpha School's Joe Liemandt

1. 0:00 – 0:40

   Intro

   1. JLJoe Liemandt0:00

      Are you willing to redesign your school day so kids love it more than vacation? With cognitive science and learning science, plus the advent of LLMs, you can build a learning engine that teaches kids ten times faster.

   2. GBGagan Biyani0:11

      The shift that I think you've been able to make is the believability of it. Pretty soon people are gonna ask, "Why would we ever do it any other way?"

   3. JLJoe Liemandt0:18

      I want this next generation to be the ones who are optimistically capable with AI and saying, "We're gonna build an awesome future." That's what our job as educators are, is to go build that world.

   4. GBGagan Biyani0:29

      What would you say to the parent who's saying, "I'm sending my kid to Ivy League school. I know it's not perfect, but this is a new institution. Why should I take a risk?"

   5. JLJoe Liemandt0:39

      So-

2. 0:40 – 6:44

   How Alpha Teaches Kids 10x Faster

   1. GBGagan Biyani0:41

      Joe, welcome to the podcast.

   2. JLJoe Liemandt0:43

      Thank you very much.

   3. GBGagan Biyani0:44

      So we've had the luxury of spending some time together this year and to-touring the schools, and what you've built with Alpha is just incredible, and it's inspired us at, at HAA. We're grateful to have your, your involvement. And for, for people who are unfamiliar, what-why don't you just briefly describe what you think of as the s- the central innovations or what, what you've really brung to, to the space with, uh, with Alpha?

   4. JLJoe Liemandt1:04

      Sure. So we're reinventing how K-twelve school is. Um, uh, you know, the, the school day, right? How kids spend their six or seven hours that they're in class, um, uh, or in a school building, what is that like? And sort of the, the first part that you have to understand and buy into is that, uh, you know, instructional design and delivery hasn't changed for a hundred years, right?

   5. GBGagan Biyani1:29

      Yeah.

   6. JLJoe Liemandt1:29

      You throw a teacher in front of the classroom, and what's the right way to do this? And now, if you look, you know, over the last couple decades with cognitive science and learning science, plus the advent of LLMs, you can build a learning engine that teaches kids ten times faster, right? And so as soon as you have that ability where kids can learn ten times faster than they could the last hundred years-

   7. GBGagan Biyani1:52

      Yeah

   8. JLJoe Liemandt1:52

      ... with a teacher in front of a classroom model, the question is, what do you do with it? And so that's what we're doing at Alpha, which is how do you reinvent the school day? And so, you know, in our model, um, you know, we make three commitments to the kids, which the first is they love school. Um, and I just got the surveys back, uh, last week. Ninety-some percent of our kids say, "I love school."

   9. GBGagan Biyani2:13

      Wow.

   10. JLJoe Liemandt2:13

       Fifty percent of the kids at the school said, "I would rather go to school than go on vacation."

   11. GBGagan Biyani2:18

       [laughs]

   12. JLJoe Liemandt2:19

       I actually have one campus where it's at sixty-five percent of the kids-

   13. GBGagan Biyani2:21

       Wow

   14. JLJoe Liemandt2:21

       ... are like, "You know, uh, I'd rather go to school than vacation." Um, and so, you know, build a school where kids love it if you're gonna be there for twelve years. But then the second part with this engine, what we do is the kids learn twice as much in two hours a day as sitting in class for six and doing homework. And so, you know, it's, it's two hours a day, right, of the academics, and they learn more, which, you know, if you're compounding and learning twice as much as you would at your other school, right, you're gonna get the top one percent, you know-

   15. GBGagan Biyani2:51

       Yeah

   16. JLJoe Liemandt2:51

       ... sort of no matter where you start, given time. And so the kids crush it, and all, you know, the best-- On standardized tests, we're the best academic performing school. And then the second and the sort of the third commitment is, well, what would you do the rest of the day? And I think that's a whole thing of what we're talking about now.

   17. GBGagan Biyani3:06

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JLJoe Liemandt3:07

       I believe now every school, and it doesn't matter, K-twelve, university, has to say if the traditional way and the traditional curriculum is now ten times faster, well, what do you do with the rest of the day?

   19. GBGagan Biyani3:17

       Yeah.

   20. JLJoe Liemandt3:17

       And as a principal, I can definitely tell you the one thing parents would hate is if I sent the kids home after two hours.

   21. GBGagan Biyani3:24

       [laughs]

   22. JLJoe Liemandt3:24

       Right? You got them all day. You-

   23. GBGagan Biyani3:26

       Yeah

   24. JLJoe Liemandt3:26

       ... six out, six, seven hours a day, right? And the kids wanna be there, right? And they love it, and, and you make it. So it's what we do is it's what are all the life skills that we consider critical to thriving in the world that's coming, right? The world's changing, right? What do we do? And so we have, we have five categories, uh, of life skills, leadership and teamwork, entrepreneurship and financial literacy, socialization, relationship building, storytelling, public speaking, grit, hard work, right? And so then you're doing projects, you know, in a group with all your friends, with an adult, right, who's, who's, who's running them, and that's how you spend your afternoons, right-

   25. GBGagan Biyani4:03

       Yeah

   26. JLJoe Liemandt4:03

       ... the rest of the day. And so we've, you know-- So Alpha, you know, we started, we had, we were just in Austin. Then, um, you know, we added twelve campuses last year. We're up to fifty. You know, demand's insane, uh, that, you know-

   27. GBGagan Biyani4:16

       Yeah

   28. JLJoe Liemandt4:16

       ... people want this, this new thing. But I think it's, you know, we're, we're sort of first, but everybody's gonna have to look at this. That is, you know, today no one believes, oh-

   29. GBGagan Biyani4:25

       Yeah

   30. JLJoe Liemandt4:25

       ... does the two hour work, and we have to get scale and, and more proof points. But once you realize, wow, kids can learn, you know, everything they need to in two hours-
3. 6:44 – 10:40

   Why Kids Love School More Than Vacation

   1. ETErik Torenberg6:44

      are you tackling that as well?

   2. JLJoe Liemandt6:45

      Yeah. I, I think the biggest thing is, um, you know, ed tech historically hasn't done well in, in schools, you know, hasn't had the impact, uh, that people wanted. And if you look at this learning engine and say, "Oh, this is like ed tech, and I'm just gonna put it into a normal school day," it'll fail, right? It'll be just like everything else. And you know, when I talk to somebody who hears about Alpha and they hear all this learning engine, I, one question, and this is the core of everything, which is, are you willing to redesign your school day so kids love it more than vacation? And if you have a head of school who says that, right, then you're all set, right? But that, that leap, right?

   3. ETErik Torenberg7:21

      Yeah.

   4. JLJoe Liemandt7:21

      And that motivation falls under that-

   5. ETErik Torenberg7:22

      Yeah

   6. JLJoe Liemandt7:22

      ... obviously, which is if you are waking up and saying, "How am I gonna make kids love this?"

   7. ETErik Torenberg7:27

      Yeah.

   8. JLJoe Liemandt7:27

      Right? That is the core of what allows us to do everything else. And people are worried, you know, when they hear that, of, "Oh, it's Disneyland, and they're just running around, and they're not learning, or it's not rigorous"

   9. ETErik Torenberg7:40

      Video games or TV.

   10. JLJoe Liemandt7:41

       Yeah, and all these things, and it's literally just the opposite, which is, you know, one of the things we talk about is, you know, the key to your child's happiness is high standards. Kids wanna go do hard things-

   11. ETErik Torenberg7:50

       Yeah

   12. JLJoe Liemandt7:50

       ... right? They love to do hard things, and they love to do hard things with their friends, right? If it was just playing video games all day, they can go do that at home, right? And but to sit there and say, "I wanna do this instead of vacation," it's because they're doing challenging things with their friends that they love.

   13. ETErik Torenberg8:04

       Yeah.

   14. JLJoe Liemandt8:04

       Um, and it's, and it's just, it's not hard. Like an example, like an easy example is, you know, so like teamwork, right? And, you know, uplifting your classmates as a, as a team. You know, in traditional school, they don't teach this, right? After-school sports, absolutely in America-

   15. ETErik Torenberg8:19

       Yeah

   16. JLJoe Liemandt8:19

       ... teamwork, leadership. But in schools, they don't. Actually, most team projects in school, group projects are terrible. One person does it.

   17. ETErik Torenberg8:25

       [laughs]

   18. JLJoe Liemandt8:25

       Everybody else just sits around.

   19. ETErik Torenberg8:26

       [laughs]

   20. JLJoe Liemandt8:27

       Right? You always remember those. They were terrible.

   21. ETErik Torenberg8:29

       Yeah.

   22. JLJoe Liemandt8:29

       Right? And so you learn the opposite of teamwork. You learn like the anti-pattern. And you know, in our school, actually a good indication of that is, you know, the Wharton has an MBA challenge where they have a simulation that you take, and it's go up Mount Everest. 50% of MBAs fail the teamwork-

   23. ETErik Torenberg8:44

       Hmm

   24. JLJoe Liemandt8:44

       ... because they never were taught teamwork sort of their whole, you know-

   25. ETErik Torenberg8:47

       Yeah

   26. JLJoe Liemandt8:47

       ... stack through, through school. We take every third grader, right, and we mic 'em up, and we throw 'em into an escape room.

   27. ETErik Torenberg8:56

       [laughs]

   28. JLJoe Liemandt8:56

       Right? And they're all getting through the escape room.

   29. ETErik Torenberg8:58

       Wow.

   30. JLJoe Liemandt8:58

       And at the end of it, we have AI analyze the transcript. What percent of your language, right, were you team-oriented, were you helping, or were you... And the answer, I can, I can give you the answer. Less than 20% of the language is uplifting.
4. 10:40 – 15:14

   The 85% Rule That Keeps Kids Engaged

   1. ETErik Torenberg10:40

      basically.

   2. JLJoe Liemandt10:40

      Yeah. Well, and it's, well, it's like that, would you-- That escape room-

   3. ETErik Torenberg10:43

      Yeah

   4. JLJoe Liemandt10:43

      ... like it's, it's a high bar for your parents.

   5. ETErik Torenberg10:45

      Yeah.

   6. JLJoe Liemandt10:45

      The second is to your point of what else kids... You know, kids don't like school. A lot of ca- Let's talk academics versus life skills.

   7. ETErik Torenberg10:53

      Yeah.

   8. JLJoe Liemandt10:53

      There's sort of two different, different. On the academic side, kids don't like to do things they fail at.

   9. ETErik Torenberg10:59

      Yeah.

   10. JLJoe Liemandt10:59

       That's true on academics. That's true on anything. It's why in America we hold kids back on sports, right? 'Cause you wanna give them, they're bigger, right? Then all of a sudden-

   11. ETErik Torenberg11:06

       [laughs]

   12. JLJoe Liemandt11:06

       ... they're playing better, and they win, and then they get the accolades and-

   13. ETErik Torenberg11:10

       Yeah

   14. JLJoe Liemandt11:10

       ... okay, right, and you get 'em on that path. And then academics in America, because we're a time-based system, right, once you fall behind, right-

   15. ETErik Torenberg11:19

       Yeah. It's just stuck

   16. JLJoe Liemandt11:19

       ... then it's just now it's torture the rest of the time, right?

   17. ETErik Torenberg11:21

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JLJoe Liemandt11:21

       Wherever you fall behind, right, and it's just, it's you're... And in our system, because our learning engine will give you a personalized lesson-

   19. ETErik Torenberg11:31

       Yeah

   20. JLJoe Liemandt11:31

       ... right, it doesn't matter what your age grade is. You can be in eighth grade, and if you need a fifth grade lesson, 'cause whatever, before you came to Alpha you missed it, it's gonna give you the fifth grade lesson, right?

   21. ETErik Torenberg11:42

       Yeah.

   22. JLJoe Liemandt11:42

       And you're gonna be able to do it, and you're gonna be able to get it... You're gonna be able to pass it and then move forward. And so, you know, we engineer wins for the kids in the academics that, you know, if you had to say the core value of what the engine does is, you know, for the kids, you, you basically want kids in this 80 to 85% correct zone, right? Like, just what percent of the time if you're engaging with something is it too easy or too hard? If it's 100% correct- It's too easy. You're not even learning anything. You're just regurgitating what you know. And any video game developer will tell you, if you drop below two-thirds and you're failing more than two-thirds of the time, you're gonna disengage. So one of the things that, you know, a learning engine can do that a teacher in front of a classroom with 30 people can't do is make sure the kid gets an unending stream of lessons and questions that's 80 to 85% accurate, right? And we can just do it. And if it gets too hard, right, we can give them scaffolding lessons to catch up, right? Too easy, you progress them faster through the material. And if you keep kids engaged because you're giving them work they can do, right, then they like that. And when kids actually do well, right, and you hold them to high standards, right, they get very excited, you know?

   23. GBGagan Biyani12:57

       Yeah.

   24. JLJoe Liemandt12:57

       And just they see themselves crushing their academics instead of struggling with it. And when they're doing well, right, they-

   25. GBGagan Biyani13:05

       Yeah

   26. JLJoe Liemandt13:06

       ... they love that. Gagan, I'm, I'm curious how you think about this conversation and what Alpha's doing, you know, in K through 12, and how that informs what we're doing with, with HAA.

   27. GBGagan Biyani13:16

       Incredibly inspired. I think that I've been inspired by Alpha School since I first visited, and it proves, I think, the thesis that we have at the Horowitz Andreessen Academy that if you redesign the system for the modern era with modern tools, that you can have everything that you want in terms of outcomes. You can have more network. A lot of people say you go to school for network. We're gonna take your network and make it 10x better. Everyone says you're gonna go to school to become a better person. Like Horowitz Andreessen Academy absolutely wants you to become a better person. We're gonna engineer the system so that you're more likely to become a positive-sum human. You wanna have high agency, and you wanna do hard things. Like Alpha has given me a lot of inspiration on how to ensure that students get that. I think the one difference is that at every age range, you have to do something very different. So if you actually listen to Joe talk, K8, high school, very different. When you go from high school to college era, very different. And so now all of a sudden you have to make the right changes. You can't just copy everything over. That is, uh-- And so ultimately, if you have a student-centric mindset, you know, if you just told the leaders of any major university in the country that their number one job and no other job was to make sure that the students were, like succeeding, I'm sure that there would be many great schools in the United States. Um, unfortunately, there aren't many, uh, because most university leaders are required to m- spend 90% of their time focused on all the adults around them and not enough on the students. And one of the things you see with Joe's is he's always talking about the kids.

   28. JLJoe Liemandt14:59

       Yeah. Joe, I'm curious. You've, you know, very generously, uh, gotten involved with the HAA as an investor a-a-and advisor. What, um, what excited you about what, what we're up to, and how, how have you thought about the differences between, you know-

   29. GBGagan Biyani15:12

       Yeah

   30. JLJoe Liemandt15:12

       ... college and, uh, and high

5. 15:14 – 23:01

   Why This Summer's Interns Are Terrified

   1. JLJoe Liemandt15:14

      school?

   2. GBGagan Biyani15:14

      Yeah.

   3. JLJoe Liemandt15:14

      So I'm, I'm super excited because I absolutely believe that university needs to be reinvented just like we have in K12, right? And so I'm focused on K12.

   4. GBGagan Biyani15:23

      Yeah.

   5. JLJoe Liemandt15:23

      But I'm very excited, uh, that you guys jumped in and, and said, "Let's do this." So anything I could do to help, I, I want it. One, I need places for Alpha kids to go.

   6. GBGagan Biyani15:32

      Yeah.

   7. JLJoe Liemandt15:33

      Right? That there's, you know, there's gonna be a whole set of kids who are like-

   8. GBGagan Biyani15:36

      Can't wait

   9. JLJoe Liemandt15:36

      ... I wanna, I wa- I wanna go there. Um, and, uh, you know, and so what, what have we done? You know, and what have we thought about? To your point, it's completely different, right? Each, each-- Our high school is very different than our K8, um, and I believe university needs to be different. And I don't believe the whole concept of, you know, is university, is everybody just gonna come out of high school and not go to university anymore? I actually don't think that's true. I believe there's a huge opportunity to reinvent university and make it awesome. No one wants to go to a bad school, right?

   10. GBGagan Biyani16:03

       Yeah.

   11. JLJoe Liemandt16:03

       And where it's terrible, and it's not getting the kids ready. You know, uh, as an example, we got, we had, um, uh, we had, uh, over 70 MIT and Stanford kids, and UT, came to Alpha this summer, um, as interns. And w- part of what we were saying is, "Tell us about university. How's it going?" You know, "What do you think?" And I was like, "How many of you guys th- expect that, you know, this university getting you ready, whatever one you're going to, is getting you ready for the world when you graduate?" And one kid raised his hand.

   12. GBGagan Biyani16:34

       [laughs]

   13. JLJoe Liemandt16:35

       Like, it was just like, I was like, "Seriously? Like, none of you?" And they're like-

   14. GBGagan Biyani16:38

       Thank God

   15. JLJoe Liemandt16:38

       ... "We're terrified. We do not feel... You know, we worked, you know, our 12 years really hard to get into these great universities, and now we're terrified that, you know, when it comes time to graduate, there's not gonna be those jobs that you used to get coming out of it. You know, those first one and two-year jobs aren't, aren't there, you know, and AI is gonna be doing it. So what do, what do we do?" Um, and so we-- they spent a lot of time this summer's interns, you know, coming up with what they thought, you know, would be, um, you know, reinvention of university and what they would want. Um, and, you know, w- and back to kids wanting to do hard things, right? You know, these, they were interns, and they came in, and they came up, you know, "We're gonna build this educational LLM, you know, so we can make it free for everybody in the world," 'cause every sovereign is gonna need its own, you know, uh, LLM, educational LLM, small language model s- you know, so not an L-- small language model that sits on a, on a device.

   16. GBGagan Biyani17:35

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JLJoe Liemandt17:36

       And those kids worked 80 hours a week, right, figuring out, doing research, figuring out the concepts of learning s- right? They're gonna be published, right? Um, and, you know, at the end of it, they're like, "This is what we would love the university-

   18. GBGagan Biyani17:49

       Yeah

   19. JLJoe Liemandt17:49

       ... to be, where we're all working together on this super hard thing, right, that has meaningful impact to the world, right, that could, could really help change the world." And they're like, "I wish these could be classes at, you know-

   20. GBGagan Biyani17:59

       Yeah

   21. JLJoe Liemandt17:59

       ... MIT and Stanford and UT." Um, but they're, they're not, [chuckles] right? And that's when I think about what you guys are doing of reinventing it and letting kids really build, right? It's not just about the classes. It's about getting ready for the real world and all those skills you need. I believe those are different at university, but I'm very excited about what you're, you're building around that.

   22. GBGagan Biyani18:22

       Yeah. I think it's really important to, uh- understand that an average student who's going to university who's really ambitious, they need to get their hands dirty. Like, they are entering the real world in three to four years, and it's super critical for them to be going and building things and understanding what it's like and making mistakes and dealing with the challenges. And you know, I really love that you said that they were studying-

   23. JLJoe Liemandt18:53

       Mm-hmm

   24. GBGagan Biyani18:53

       ... as part of the 80 hours. So they, they're i- they're in Austin for an 80-hour-a-week internship, and you mentioned studying, and I'm guessing you didn't assign any textbooks.

   25. JLJoe Liemandt19:04

       No. They-- and back to this, they had to go do all the research to build an LLM. So they literally are researching learning science, researching it. The, you know, we have this data structure called the brain lift, you know, that they... And they were working hard-

   26. GBGagan Biyani19:16

       Yes

   27. JLJoe Liemandt19:17

       ... right, on what would be considered classical, you know, stuff you need to do at a university. But it wasn't just the studying part. It was, how do you apply it and be a builder, right? And I think your point of getting ready is, is it's both.

   28. GBGagan Biyani19:29

       Well, you talk about learning as being 90% motivation.

   29. JLJoe Liemandt19:32

       Yeah.

   30. GBGagan Biyani19:33

       And when you're 18 years old, you're motivated by building things that people will use. You're motivated by revenue and getting a job and that kind of thing. And so why not make the entire learning experience, uh, driven by that motivation and using that motivation to actually go and learn things? 'Cause my, my concern with college is I, I mean, I know Erik and I had this experience. We've talked about it. Like, I didn't learn very much because I did not like the format.
6. 23:01 – 27:21

   Why Ivy League Parents Are Switching

   1. JLJoe Liemandt23:01

      that-

   2. GBGagan Biyani23:01

      Yeah

   3. JLJoe Liemandt23:01

      ... you give them. Great. So, you know, yeah. So I, I talk to tens of thousands of parents now, you know, sort of in the K12-

   4. GBGagan Biyani23:07

      Yeah. Yeah

   5. JLJoe Liemandt23:08

      ... K12 range, and I've been shocked actually at the, at the switch, which is there's still some families who are like, you know, "I'm a kindergarten parent, and I j- I wanna see the direct path right into the Ivy League." Um, but an equal number, maybe even more, of parents who went to Stanford or Harvard who are like, "No, I know I don't want my kid on that path. How are you gonna get them ready for a world that's not that?"

   6. GBGagan Biyani23:35

      Yeah.

   7. JLJoe Liemandt23:35

      Right? And they absolutely wanna see this alternative path 'cause when they look, especially even in kindergarten, they're looking forward 12 years from now, and they're like, you know, "What am I gonna do?" You know?

   8. GBGagan Biyani23:47

      Yeah.

   9. JLJoe Liemandt23:47

      "How are you preparing my kid for the world?" And my m- their vision of the world is, "Yes, I went to the Ivy League, but that's not gonna be for my kid. I don't think-

   10. GBGagan Biyani23:55

       Yeah

   11. JLJoe Liemandt23:55

       ... that's gonna get him ready. And if you're telling me that, I don't, I don't want your sc- I don't want your K12 school."

   12. GBGagan Biyani24:00

       Yeah.

   13. JLJoe Liemandt24:00

       And so we're-- That, that's happening a lot now. Um, and they're, they're looking for what, what are they? 'Cause I, I think there's recognition now, you know, versus maybe the last 30 or 40 years, that the world is really changing.

   14. GBGagan Biyani24:12

       Yeah.

   15. JLJoe Liemandt24:12

       Right? And, you know, if you're an 11th grade or a 12th grader and I'm talking to you, the parents are sorta done. They're like, "Just get my kid into college," right? [laughs] Or, you know-

   16. GBGagan Biyani24:21

       [laughs]

   17. JLJoe Liemandt24:22

       ... they're sort of like, "I've, I've been on this route and I'm at the five-yard line.

   18. GBGagan Biyani24:25

       Yeah.

   19. JLJoe Liemandt24:25

       I'm not throwing all the cards up in the air." But when you look younger- Right? Those parents are like, there's just no way that the current path is gonna-

   20. GBGagan Biyani24:34

       Yeah

   21. JLJoe Liemandt24:34

       ... gonna be the right one. And so when I think, you know, of, of this, I would expect, and I don't know when you get your demand, you're gonna have massive demand from all the kids, right? Who are gonna be like, "Okay, I have to go do this. It's so obvious."

   22. GBGagan Biyani24:46

       Yeah.

   23. JLJoe Liemandt24:46

       "This is awesome." And then you will have to have a separate sales job, right? With the parents, right? To show them, "Look, while it wasn't the way you did it," right?

   24. GBGagan Biyani24:57

       Yeah.

   25. JLJoe Liemandt24:57

       "This is the way." And, you know, um, you know, there's, there, there, there's a historical precedent for this that, um, you know, might be useful for you, right? If, if you wanna go through it, which is, you know, in 1910, you know, 90% of America had an eighth grade education.

   26. GBGagan Biyani25:14

       Hm.

   27. JLJoe Liemandt25:15

       Um, there were no high schools basically.

   28. GBGagan Biyani25:17

       Wow.

   29. JLJoe Liemandt25:17

       Right? And over 30% of America's a farmer, right? And so everybody's on the farm, eighth grade was enough, you work in the fields, right, in high school. And then, um, in 1910, the tractor, Case tractor rolled up on the American farm, right? And literally you can go look at the ads, it literally looks like an anthropic ad.

   30. GBGagan Biyani25:36

       [laughs]
7. 27:21 – 35:37

   You Just Need Someone to Go First

   1. JLJoe Liemandt27:21

      Yeah. Um, so I've been living this actually at the K-12 level now [laughs] for four years.

   2. GBGagan Biyani27:26

      Yes.

   3. JLJoe Liemandt27:26

      And it, it is one where, you know, back to w- the, the lucky part is you don't need everybody, right? It's-

   4. GBGagan Biyani27:34

      Yeah

   5. JLJoe Liemandt27:34

      ... there's gonna be that set... And when we would ta- when I talk to families, you know, it's, there's a, you know, it's an adoption curve just like any other one, and there's a set of families who absolutely realize the current system's just not there, right? Or the people who sit there and say, "I feel it, but I just need to be, you know, moved over."

   6. GBGagan Biyani27:54

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JLJoe Liemandt27:54

      Um, you know, I, the number, you know, I r- uh, both my daughters, right, you know, were told they're not gonna get into college, you know, when they were at eighth grade, you know, if they went to Alpha and they had to go to a traditional school, right? And there was just no chance that, you know, uh, that would occur. And so you're, y- there, there is that, you know, dichotomy, but for parents, you know, if you look, you know, sort of across the families who went to Alpha four years ago, right? And the ones who didn't, you know, went to Alpha High versus not, there's a lot of more families who are like, "I totally should have sent my kid to Alpha," right? That-

   8. GBGagan Biyani28:33

      Yeah

   9. JLJoe Liemandt28:33

      ... "I went the traditional path," right? "I thought it was the safe path, and it totally wasn't."

   10. GBGagan Biyani28:39

       Yeah.

   11. JLJoe Liemandt28:39

       "And look at how those Alpha kids are thriving, and I thought those guys were crazy and risky, but now looking, l-looking at the reality of what happened with my kid who didn't go to Alpha versus those, they regret it." And, you know, I believe that y- you have to get through the first year 'cause you don't have any data, but one year in, people are gonna see that the students are thriving, right? And once you see that, then you-- that's the comparison.

   12. GBGagan Biyani29:05

       Yeah.

   13. JLJoe Liemandt29:05

       And I'll, I'll even go back to my own experience on this, which is I sort of am talking very positive and optimistic, but I, I didn't start Alpha 12 years ago, right? McKenzie Price and, and Brian did. And, you know, uh, I had my-- I went to Catholic school, my kids were in Catholic school. I didn't like it, but, you know. Parents want their kids educated the way they are.

   14. GBGagan Biyani29:23

       Yes.

   15. JLJoe Liemandt29:23

       That's the legacy. That's the problem.

   16. GBGagan Biyani29:24

       Yeah.

   17. JLJoe Liemandt29:25

       Right? That's what we ha- you have to overcome. And so my kids are in Catholic school, and now, you know, and, and McKenzie's like, "Well, come to my new school." Right? And I, I dropped out of college. Like I, I started a startup in a garage, and I'm like, "Schools shouldn't be in a garage." Like, that's so weird, right?

   18. GBGagan Biyani29:40

       [laughs]

   19. JLJoe Liemandt29:40

       You have a janky, weird school, McKenzie. And I was totally... Right? I was... Right?

   20. GBGagan Biyani29:44

       Right.

   21. JLJoe Liemandt29:44

       And then it took two years for me. So I was the slow, I... Right?

   22. GBGagan Biyani29:49

       Yeah.

   23. JLJoe Liemandt29:49

       It took me two years to move over. Um, and, uh, and then finally, and that was 10 years ago, and it-

   24. GBGagan Biyani29:55

       Yeah

   25. JLJoe Liemandt29:55

       ... you know, obviously turned out great for, uh, you know, our family. But, uh, I look at that. My, my kids still yell at me for being slow those two years, right?

   26. GBGagan Biyani30:03

       [laughs]

   27. JLJoe Liemandt30:03

       They're like, "You should've started earlier, Dad." Um, but that concept of, you know, finding those families. And so we travel all around the country, right? We've opened 50 campuses, you know, and you get, you know, 1,000 people in the info session, and you're like, "Who wants to be the first 10? Who wants to be the first 25 or 50?" Right? And a year ago when we were opening the 12 campuses, literally 1,000-plus people in info sessions, and we couldn't get 25. Right? We would get, you know, 10, right? We opened New York City with, you know, 10 or 12.

   28. GBGagan Biyani30:34

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JLJoe Liemandt30:34

       And, uh, now the campus is full.

   30. GBGagan Biyani30:36

       Yeah.
8. 35:37 – 42:12

   "My Son's a Moron": Joe's Dropout Story

   1. GBGagan Biyani35:37

      ... so, you know.

   2. JLJoe Liemandt35:38

      No, and I think that's-- I'll, and I'll tell the personal story on this, which is, you know, um, I-- During my K12, I was always in trouble, right? I was skipping school all the time. I did the minimum to get into Stanford, you know, and then I dropped out, right? And when I dropped out, my dad had a famous quote that was like on Forbes or whatever, you know, "My son's a moron."

   3. GBGagan Biyani35:56

      [laughing]

   4. JLJoe Liemandt35:56

      You know, and, you know, and it sort of, right? [chuckles] And, uh, he was not happy. And, um, you know, but then the part that didn't get in the article was, you know, a couple of years later. So I dropped out, and then I started, you know, my company, and it was awesome. And then all of a sudden I'm working 100 hours a week, and we're sleeping under the desks, and it's just, you know, it's crazy, crazy, crazy. And, you know, two years later, he's like, "You know, I, I gotta change my mind. This was the greatest thing ever-

   5. GBGagan Biyani36:23

      Wow

   6. JLJoe Liemandt36:23

      ... that you dropped out." He's like, he's like, "You know, I, I have to admit, you know, I was really worried that you were gonna be a lazy little shit." You know, and 'cause that's was your academic career, right? And he was like, "As a dad, you know, I was just terrified that I had, you know-

   7. GBGagan Biyani36:39

      Yeah

   8. JLJoe Liemandt36:39

      ... done poorly." And he's like, "Now I see that now that you're doing what you love, right, and you're fully engaged, goll, I should've, you know, gotten this done earlier." And I think that's the same thing. When you have a student, like when we talk about building a school they love more than vacation-

   9. GBGagan Biyani36:54

      Yeah

   10. JLJoe Liemandt36:54

       ... you're engaging them around stuff they love, right? And when you do that, that's what causes... Well, all the parents who say, "My kid changed in a month"-

   11. GBGagan Biyani37:01

       Yeah

   12. JLJoe Liemandt37:01

       ... it's because we have them doing hard things that they wanna do.

   13. GBGagan Biyani37:04

       Yeah.

   14. JLJoe Liemandt37:04

       Right? And all of a sudden it does change, and it's that quick.

   15. GBGagan Biyani37:07

       Yeah.

   16. JLJoe Liemandt37:07

       Right? And, and having a, a school where your kid wants to go to it because they're going to be doing hard things-

   17. GBGagan Biyani37:14

       Yeah

   18. JLJoe Liemandt37:14

       ... right, is, you know, is as, as, is it's a great thing, and I believe that's why, one of the reasons why I think this is gonna be a home run, 'cause you're gonna get all these kids- [laughs]

   19. GBGagan Biyani37:23

       Yeah

   20. JLJoe Liemandt37:23

       ... right, who are like, "I know it's hard. I wanna go do this. I can coast through normal school-

   21. GBGagan Biyani37:29

       Yeah

   22. JLJoe Liemandt37:29

       ... and I'm not gonna pick that path.

   23. GBGagan Biyani37:30

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JLJoe Liemandt37:31

       Instead, I'm gonna pick this." And this is gonna be harder than all the other schools, right?

   25. GBGagan Biyani37:35

       Yeah.

   26. JLJoe Liemandt37:35

       In what you're doing-

   27. GBGagan Biyani37:36

       For sure

   28. JLJoe Liemandt37:36

       ... in all of those.

   29. GBGagan Biyani37:37

       [laughs]

   30. JLJoe Liemandt37:37

       And, and that's the, you know, that's part of it. And, and kids love it. You know, we ha- we have in our high school, we have a world school where they're spending a year in Africa, a year of service, and they have to sign a contract that says, "I realize this will be the hardest year of my life."
9. 42:12 – 48:31

   What You'd Study If You Were 18 Today

   1. ETErik Torenberg42:12

      You know, there's a lot of questions around what is AI doing to coding? What is AI doing to math? You know, what's it gonna do to, to physics? If, if you were, you know, knowing what you know now, but i- if you were 18 years old today with, with, with your interests, how would you think about, you know, if you had the flexibility at something like HAA to kind of design your own ed- education, how would you think about what you would be motivated to learn based on what, where you see the world going and-

   2. JLJoe Liemandt42:32

      Yeah

   3. ETErik Torenberg42:32

      ... your own interests?

   4. JLJoe Liemandt42:33

      Yeah. So I, w- w- I sort of have this, this, this framework, right, and, um, of, you know, load, there's sort of cognitive onload, right? And AI allows you to fill your head with knowledge 10 times faster.

   5. ETErik Torenberg42:45

      Yeah.

   6. JLJoe Liemandt42:46

      Right? So these y- these kids can become domain experts in their field that they want to faster-

   7. ETErik Torenberg42:51

      Yeah

   8. JLJoe Liemandt42:51

      ... than ever.

   9. ETErik Torenberg42:52

      Yeah.

   10. JLJoe Liemandt42:52

       Right? I mean, I, I have kids in my high school who are rebuilding the timeback software stack that I wrote, right?

   11. ETErik Torenberg42:58

       [laughs]

   12. JLJoe Liemandt42:58

       And they're becoming experts in learning science-

   13. ETErik Torenberg43:00

       Yeah

   14. JLJoe Liemandt43:00

       ... and, and, and being able to do this, right? ... which wasn't able to be done before in high school.

   15. GBGagan Biyani43:07

       Yeah.

   16. JLJoe Liemandt43:07

       So the cognitive onload part, because it's 10 times faster, you do it and it doesn't take that long.

   17. GBGagan Biyani43:12

       Yeah.

   18. JLJoe Liemandt43:12

       Right? And so I can get the equivalent of a master's, you know, while I'm, you know, in a year, right? And, you know, uh, do that part. But then the second part is the AI gives you a chance to be a builder, right? It gives you superpowers to build like no one else, right? And I believe that's the kids who are [laughs] at your c- university, is they're gonna realize, "I wanna build something and I'm gonna learn faster than I ever have whatever-"

   19. GBGagan Biyani43:34

       Yeah

   20. JLJoe Liemandt43:34

       ... prereq. Just like those, the, the interns this summer were doing it, right? They were doing research, right? Learning all this stuff, but they were doing it, doing it to build. And I believe just, you know, if you talk to our high school kids at Alpha High, they're definitely not doomers about, like, AI in the future. They're like, "You adults are cooked."

   21. GBGagan Biyani43:52

       [laughs]

   22. JLJoe Liemandt43:53

       Like, "We're coming for you."

   23. GBGagan Biyani43:54

       Yeah. [laughs]

   24. JLJoe Liemandt43:54

       "And we have superpowers."

   25. GBGagan Biyani43:55

       Yeah.

   26. JLJoe Liemandt43:55

       Right?

   27. GBGagan Biyani43:56

       Totally.

   28. JLJoe Liemandt43:56

       And they do.

   29. GBGagan Biyani43:56

       They do.

   30. JLJoe Liemandt43:57

       Like, that is, these kids-
10. 48:31 – 55:50

    Founders School: Earn $1M or Get Tuition Back

    1. GBGagan Biyani48:31

       Uh, Joe, this was an amazing conversation. I think the last thing that I'm thinking about is you're actually building an entrepreneurial school, right, for high school students called Founders School. Can you tell us a little bit about why you built it, how it, how it works, and, and why you think it's a good model for us to be inspired by?

    2. JLJoe Liemandt48:49

       Sure. I mean, I-- Back to skills. You know, one of our, our life skill stack is entrepreneurship and financial literacy. You know, we actually have a very strong point of view of when we look at the jobs of the future. You know, big Fortune 500 comps are gonna be smaller, you know, because of AI, but I believe it's gonna be, lead to an explosion of entrepreneurship, right? AI gives entrepreneurs this great opportunity and- It's something we just don't teach, right? We just don't teach kids this, so we, we teach it. We have a stack starting in kindergarten, right? We literally teach every kindergartner, you know, how to earn and save, spend, invest, donate, right? Get them-- get that foundational going, right? We have a currency called Alphas to, to start teaching them this. Um, but back to, it's a... Entrepreneurship is not, you know, a bolt of lightning, and it just happens. It's a set of skills, right, that you can teach people. And so, uh, you know, we teach them. But by the time you get to high school, we have a high school Founders, uh, which is sort of our peak specialized school for that. This is for kids who wanna spend their high school building businesses.

    3. GBGagan Biyani49:50

       Yeah.

    4. JLJoe Liemandt49:51

       Um, you know, the part that's crazy that parents don't believe, you know, is we, you, we guarantee that you'll start a business that will earn a million dollars of profit while you're in high school, or we give you all your tuition back.

    5. GBGagan Biyani50:04

       Huh.

    6. JLJoe Liemandt50:05

       Right? That we absolutely believe that these are skills that can be taught, right, repeatably and reliably, where I actually can build a business on that. And, you know, so it actually opened in August. We actually have, from Alpha High kids, right, people who've been able to build businesses over the last four years, so we have data points, but this is now a specialized school for that. And, you know, we-- it scaffolded. You know, they come in, and they have to earn $100, and there's a set of skills they have to learn. Then $1,000, then $10,000, $100,000, and, and a million dollars. And, you know, we're only a couple months in, you know, to where the process is, and kids are speed running it. And we're like, "Okay, they're gonna earn a million dollars in the first year." Like I'm-

    7. GBGagan Biyani50:45

       Oh, my God

    8. JLJoe Liemandt50:45

       ... out a curriculum, and they're freshmen, right? And I'm like, "Okay, well..." You know, and the, the, the kids are like, "Okay, well, I'm gonna then obviously just do a bigger one after that." But that concept of, can they do this, you know, can you build it? And I believe a lot of it is just, you know, there's a set of skills around it. Um, there's also the, the relationships and networking, right? And I think that's... You know, one of the things that, uh, I believe that you guys are bringing at the university level that we're trying to bring even down to the high school level-

    9. GBGagan Biyani51:16

       Yeah

    10. JLJoe Liemandt51:17

        ... is just, is, is, um, networking, relationship building. You know, on the networking side, a lot of it for kids, you know... I always thought a lot of the magic of Stanford was you had all these luminaries come, and then you'd meet them, and you'd be like, "Oh, this is, like, a normal human." Right?

    11. GBGagan Biyani51:35

        [laughs] Yes.

    12. JLJoe Liemandt51:35

        I mean, they're obviously really impressive, but they're just like a normal human, and it makes it accessible to you-

    13. GBGagan Biyani51:41

        Yeah

    14. JLJoe Liemandt51:41

        ... to be able to say, "Well, I can do that too."

    15. GBGagan Biyani51:43

        Yeah.

    16. JLJoe Liemandt51:43

        Right? Especially when you're young and dumb and super arrogant. You're like, "Oh, I could do that."

    17. GBGagan Biyani51:47

        [laughs]

    18. JLJoe Liemandt51:47

        Right? And that is, that is part of it.

    19. GBGagan Biyani51:49

        Yeah.

    20. JLJoe Liemandt51:49

        And, you know, we're doing the same thing here at the high school level, where they're able to build up relationships. You know, actually, one of the stories is one of our [chuckles] 14-year-olds cold called Jensen, right? Literally, and, you know, he was having a cold call thing, and he literally called him. And, you know, and, uh, Jensen returned the call and, uh, you know, realized it's a kid.

    21. GBGagan Biyani52:10

        [laughs]

    22. JLJoe Liemandt52:11

        You know, gave him 90 seconds, right, for his pitch, and then in the end gave him, like, really good feedback.

    23. GBGagan Biyani52:17

        Right.

    24. JLJoe Liemandt52:17

        Which basically, if I had to summarize, was, "You know, all these qualification questions you're asking me? You could have done research or asked other people in my organization about it, and you just used your bullet with me, and you should have done your prep work-

    25. GBGagan Biyani52:32

        Yeah

    26. JLJoe Liemandt52:32

        ... and it would have been much better, right? Instead of wasting it-

    27. GBGagan Biyani52:35

        Yeah

    28. JLJoe Liemandt52:35

        ... by calling me. So, you know, kudos for, you know, aggressiveness, but, mm, you get an F on-

    29. GBGagan Biyani52:41

        Yeah

    30. JLJoe Liemandt52:41

        ... on call prep."

Episode duration: 56:00