Silicon Valley GirlAI Schools Are Here: How kids learn 2h/day and become top 1% nationally | MacKenzie Price
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
60 min read · 12,200 words- 0:00 – 1:00
Intro
- MPMacKenzie Price
We're gonna start seeing in the next six months our friends and people that we work with, or maybe even ourselves, losing jobs to AI. We have to prepare our kids for a different reality.
- MMMarina Mogilko
This is MacKenzie Price, founder of America's first AI-powered school, where kids do academics two hours a day and test in the top 1% nationally.
- MPMacKenzie Price
We're using technology to provide a better learning experience for kids, and as a result, our classes are crushing it.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And they don't have teachers, right?
- MPMacKenzie Price
They are not in charge of delivering academic content. Our AI tutor is doing that.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Education is changing, and most of us were prepared for a world that no longer exists.
- MPMacKenzie Price
The Industrial Revolution model of education did a great job of raising factory workers who knew how to follow rules and be obedient and compliant. I think the world's in for a pretty big wake-up call. What's this world gonna look like in five, 10, 20 years? I don't know a lot of those answers, but here's what I do know.
- 1:00 – 2:40
What's wrong with the traditional education system — Soviet, China, and what AI can't replace
- MMMarina Mogilko
Education is what I breathe because, uh, I have a business in education. I have a whole channel where I help people speak English more like Americans and S and everything. And I came here from Russia 10 years ago, and so went through school in Russia.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Mm-hmm.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Which is, like, a completely different system compared to what my kids are doing here in the US. Strong focus on academics. Nobody cares about your feelings.
- MPMacKenzie Price
[laughs]
- MMMarina Mogilko
But at the same time, we, we see a lot of people who come from that system, or like in China, they have similar system, and then they win all the world Olympias, right, in maths. Or we see people who came from post-Soviet countries start amazing companies.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
T- if you look at top researchers, right, a lot of them are Eastern European. Do you think that system can still survive or is it useful in today's world?
- MPMacKenzie Price
I think that what you're describing that your school experience was, was an environment with really high standards, but probably the support was a little more minimal. It was sort of just this, you know, top-down, you will do as instructed.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
And I think that, uh, what's happened in the United States is that, uh, we've gotten much more into, like, let's be supportive, let's be thoughtful, let's meet kids a little bit where they're at. But the system can't actually do that, so as a result, standards have gone down. And what we've done at Alpha and what I think is really the key is that if you can build an environment where there are high standards, and we believe high standards are key to kids' happiness, along with high support and mentorship and connection, um, and that's where you really see true motivation lies.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah. I, I like how you, um,
- 2:40 – 4:42
Why we need to reform education for our kids
- MMMarina Mogilko
mixing these two systems, and I think both should exist. But also when I think about my education, I remember times when I was sitting in a class absolutely hating the subject-
- MPMacKenzie Price
Mm-hmm
- MMMarina Mogilko
... not liking the teacher. But now when I think back about that experience, I think it actually taught me, uh, persistence.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Mm-hmm.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Like, okay, I can handle this. It's a tough situation. I don't like being here, but I can also talk to myself internally-
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah
- MMMarina Mogilko
... and I can overcome this.
- MPMacKenzie Price
There's a bunch of things there.
- MMMarina Mogilko
[laughs]
- MPMacKenzie Price
But I think that, you know, the importance of building resilience is, is critical. What I think is there are so many other ways that you can teach resilience and grit and how to work with difficult people. You know, that a lot of times people say, "Well, y- sometimes you have that bad teacher or that teacher that's hard to get along with. You have to get used to that." There's so many other ways that we can do this while making sure kids are able to stay engaged and not be bored. And I also think that, you know, in the US, that's happening in a lot of classrooms, too. I think if you look at, you know, a, a rural school in India, or you go to a high-end private boarding school in Connecticut, you're going to see the same thing. You're gonna see a teacher in front of a classroom teaching kids in a time-based system all at the same pace when those kids are at wildly different levels.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
You know, there are kids who are sitting there before the teacher's even opened her mouth to explain a concept. They understand and they know that concept, so as a result, it's like, okay, I'm bored. And at the end of that explanation of the concept, there are kids who it's, like, totally over their head. They have no idea what's going on. In either case, the teacher just has to continue moving forward, and that's a real testament to the fact that the model is broken. The one-size-fits-all time-based system, it doesn't work. And it doesn't work in Russia. It doesn't work in the United States. And what it's doing is it's leading, uh, to a large group of kids who are just sort of going through the motions or not participating at all-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm
- MPMacKenzie Price
... and just refusing.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And you've
- 4:42 – 6:08
The AI-powered school: no teachers, 2 hours a day, top 1% nationally
- MMMarina Mogilko
been running this system, which is a two-hour-per-day academics system, and y- you measure your success by standardized test scores, correct?
- MPMacKenzie Price
We do.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And, uh, s- sorry, I've seen some stats that some kids succeed. Like, can you talk to me about, like, a median outcome?
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah. Uh, so our schools are full-day schools. Kids get dropped off at 8:30 in the morning and pick up at 3:30. Uh, but what we do during that school day is, uh, very different. We are only spending two hours doing the academic part of our day. So when you think about the traditional classroom that you and I each grew up in, where you're spending 45 minutes in every, every class, and maybe you get one elective, uh, and a little bit of lunch, uh, instead, our students are just doing these 25-minute focused sessions of math and reading and language and science and history, uh, those types of core academics that kids are learning in a traditional school, uh, but in so much shorter time because they're getting personalized learning that meets them at their level and their pace. And as a result, our classes are crushing it. So top 1% across all grades and all subjects. Uh-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Ooh
- MPMacKenzie Price
... and one of the things that's really cool about this, uh, that I'm very proud of is we're not choosing students for our school just based on the kids who already come to us at 95th percentile. Uh, we can take those kids that are 95th percentile, and we can have growth rates in the 80s and 90s,
- 6:08 – 6:38
How AI helps kids go from 25th to 90th percentile
- MPMacKenzie Price
but we can also take kids who show up to us in the 25th percentile and give them e- exponential increases in their learning, and it's really what's so awesome about leveraging artificial intelligence to finally allow kids to have that one-to-one mastery-based tutoring experience that for years researchers have known results in kids learning two, five, 10 times faster. It just hasn't been possible in our current system.
- MMMarina Mogilko
So can
- 6:38 – 8:00
Top 1% in every grade, every subject
- MMMarina Mogilko
you read the top 1% across every grade?
- MPMacKenzie Price
Every grade, every subject. Yeah, our classes are, and-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Wow
- MPMacKenzie Price
... and that's, uh... Yeah, no, it's, it's... I think it's so much an example of what's needed, uh, in education. Um, but more than that, it just points to when you can help a student find, you know, here's what you know-Here's what you don't know, which is part of what our standardized assessments are able to do. They're, they're really just feedback tools for, okay, this is what maybe this sixth-grade student might be, uh, having holes in their math knowledge down in fifth, and fourth, and third grade.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And you go back and-
- MPMacKenzie Price
And you can go back and fill holes, uh, and really get that mastery learning. And, you know, I think math is a great example to talk about with this because, uh, you know, I remember sitting through math class being like, "I am so confused. I don't know what I'm doing." Well, probably the reason I was struggling is because there were some foundational concepts that I didn't fully understand. And so as you get more and more sophisticated in the material you're learning, uh, it gets harder if you don't have that foundational concept, right? Learning algebra, if you don't have your multiplication tables memorized-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MPMacKenzie Price
... is, is harder than if c- if you do. And, um, that's what's really cool about this, this true ability to finally have a mastery-based system where kids are learning at the pace that's right for them. Okay. And so, and you don't have teachers, right? It's
- 8:00 – 8:58
AI tutor instead of teachers
- MPMacKenzie Price
just, you know, it's so funny that that comes up very often. We're always that school with no teachers, and here's the thing. We have the most unbelievably incredible adults in our classes. Uh, our ratios are, like, 1 to 15, you know, 1 to 5 for, for younger students. Uh, but we don't call our staff teachers. We call them guides. And the reason we don't call them teachers is because they are not in charge of delivering academic content or teaching that material. Our AI tutor is doing that. Uh, but instead what they are doing is they are truly coaching and supporting and guiding students on their learning journey. Uh, and so their focus is motivational, emotional support, and they're also the ones who are really running the whole school day around life skills development and building out the ability for kids to become self-driven learners. Uh, and you know, you probably talk to a lot of people in the ed tech world
- 8:58 – 10:50
The one focus that helps Alpha students outperform
- MPMacKenzie Price
and see technology. You know, there is a huge graveyard of failed ed tech platforms.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Here's the reason. Our ed tech is not better than some other ed tech platform. Our reason for success is because of what our guides are able to do, which is focus on what is 90% of creating a great learner. They're motivated.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Motivation, 100%.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah. That's-
- MMMarina Mogilko
That's-
- MPMacKenzie Price
If you're not motivated-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MPMacKenzie Price
... it's like if, if the kid's spinning in a chair and not even looking at the material, how are we gonna help them learn? And that's, that's the key, is focusing on that motivation part. And, uh, it's funny because we'll often see... You know, I'll read articles or something that'll say, "Well, Alpha only works for, like, motivated kids." And it's like, no, no, no, that's the whole point of our school, is that our guides have the time to focus on figuring out what motivates this kid, what gets him excited. And here's the really cool part, Marina. When a child is motivated and starts doing the work, and they're met with the same level, you know, and pace that's right for them, they, they develop competence, and then that competence turns into a confidence. They start seeing themselves as like, "I'm capable. I can like-- I can go crush my academics. I can learn that." And I think that's one of the coolest things, uh, to watch kids really, um, change how they feel about themselves and what they're capable of.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And that's the key difference. So I'm thinking back about my school system, and my best friend was not doing well in any subject.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Mm-hmm.
- MMMarina Mogilko
So the teachers would always tell him, "You're like a failure."
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And I feel like when you live with that, you, you don't even wanna try.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
So whenever I think about those kids in those systems, they are the ones really struggling. 'Cause if you're, if, like when you're trying-
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah
- MMMarina Mogilko
... to navigate the system, then you get all the good grades, and you feel great-
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah
- MMMarina Mogilko
... and you develop that confidence.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
What about the kids who can't navigate the system?
- MPMacKenzie Price
I know. And that, by the way, is the majority of kids nowadays.
- 10:50 – 12:28
(Sponsor) HeyGen — how I scale my Lingua Marina channel
- MMMarina Mogilko
This part of the episode is sponsored by HeyGen. I wanna break here because what MacKenzie just said is really important for me personally. I've been talking about learning English on Lingua Marina for 10 years, and in that time I've tried everything: long form, short form, live streams, courses, and recently we started something new. We created an animated character of me to deliver some of the lessons. Our methodologists build the content, the AI character presents it, and the channel keeps posting consistently while I focus on this podcast, Silicon Valley Girl, 'cause it takes a lot of my time. And honestly, it fits right into what MacKenzie is describing. Alpha School uses AI tutors, adaptive methods, video, text, a mix of everything to create more visual, more personalized, more on-demand content. Animated educational content is part of that shift. Even three years ago when I was thinking about this, like creating a cartoon for English language learners, making an animated educational video meant weeks of work and thousands of dollars. Now we can do it in 15 minutes. What we decided to do for our channel is the animated cartoon version of me. And the way we did it, we uploaded a photo, wrote a few prompts, and the short was done. One thing I actually appreciate, HeyGen only creates an avatar with your explicit consent and identity verification. They don't use your face or your voice without your permission. The AI handles delivery. Humans handle the thinking. If you're running a course, an educational channel, or any business where consistency matters more than you have hours in the day, HeyGen lets your team scale without faking who you are. Use my link in the description and try it yourself at HeyGen.com.
- 12:28 – 13:57
Who Alpha hires instead of teachers — coaches, athletes, business pros
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah. And you hire ex-, uh, sports people, right?
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Who are really good at motivating.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah. So what we really look for is, uh, we want the people who come work in our schools, uh, to be world-class at motivation. And about 50% of our guides come from a traditional teaching background. Uh, and they get so excited when they finally have been given the, the room to really make that positive impact that they got into teaching for. But this whole other population of people are also coming in to work as guides that probably wouldn't wanna be traditional teachers-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm
- MPMacKenzie Price
... but they love the idea of connecting and motivating, uh, young people. And so we get a lot of people who are, uh, former coaches, former athletes, uh, people who are in the business world, all kinds of stuff that, uh, they're bringing their kind of talents, their experience into the classroom, uh, and focusing on that, that motivation piece. And it is so much fun to see, uh, you know, that-type of person. We're, we have had really incredible, uh, success with, with just so much interest because unlike in the traditional teaching world where teachers are leaving the field in droves, and it's hard to attract good talent, uh, we're finding really good talent. Part of it is we pay them really well, uh, because I think anybody who is working in a classroom every day with kids, they're a hero, and they should be well compensated. Um, and we've just made their jobs, um, a lot easier to really provide that, that impact.
- 13:57 – 17:30
What if a kid can't understand the material from AI?
- MMMarina Mogilko
I get how they're great at motivating, but I also remember when at school, like there was a concept in algebra that I don't understand, and sometimes I would use like books, technology, and I still don't understand.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
What happens in that situation where it's something really complicated and someone whose ex-coach like didn't really take that subject?
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
What happens in that situation when a kid needs an explanation from a human?
- MPMacKenzie Price
So there's a couple of things that can happen there. Let's say a student is, um, working through a math concept, and they are struggling to understand that. First of all, they have a variety of resources that their guide will be coaching them through. Like, "Hey, did you check a different video explanation, or did you read this other thing, or did you see, you know, uh, this part that you can learn?" It also is able to understand, you know what? Maybe the reason the student is having trouble with this particular concept is because we need to go back and revisit a concept from earlier just to help you, again, understand this. Let's go back and refresh your, your understanding of something else as you're going into this difficult material. Um, but let's say a student still is struggling with that. Uh, then what they have the ability to do is, um, schedule basically an academic coaching call. So we have a learning science team and academic coaches who are able to go in, and one of the things that's great about that is during this experience, our, our coaches and our AI system are able to understand where is this student getting tripped up in the lesson? Because if this one student is getting tripped up here, there's a chance that, especially as we scale to millions of kids, that there'll be lots of other kids that could get tripped up.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
And so it helps us improve the quality of, you know, the, the teaching concept that's happening both in our technology and where students are struggling. And I think one of the things that sometimes people have a really hard time understanding, 'cause we're so used to the way we all grew up, which is at some point you have to have a teacher sit down and talk with you-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MPMacKenzie Price
... and work with you or a parent, you know, more often working through the subject.
- MMMarina Mogilko
You have a, you, you have an academic conversation.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah. You, you think you have to do that. But then I also go back to, well, it seems like it's working 'cause our results are showing-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm
- MPMacKenzie Price
... that our kids are, you know, learning the mastery. They don't move ahead until they've mastered the concepts, and the results are showing that it does. And I think the other thing that happens is just I, I go back and remember how often when I was confused about something, I, I'm sitting in class, it wasn't like I had the teacher standing over me saying, "Let me help you with this," 'cause the teacher's busy trying to teach everybody.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
So maybe you get to go into office hours-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yep
- MPMacKenzie Price
... or more often you're asking, you know, a friend or a parent for help.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Private tutor early. Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah, or t- tutoring. Yeah. I mean, the amount of money that families spend on their private tutoring and their-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MPMacKenzie Price
... Russian math after school and all of those types of things-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yep
- MPMacKenzie Price
... is just insane.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Um, and you know, and that's something. So I think, um, sometimes what happens is, uh, people have this romanticized, what I think of as mismemory of what's actually happening-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm
- MPMacKenzie Price
... in traditional classrooms. And as much as we would love to believe that every English class is this Socratic discussion where all the kids are super engaged, and they've fallen in love with Shakespeare-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MPMacKenzie Price
... that's not really what's going on on there. And so what we're seeing instead is like we're using technology to, uh, provide a better learning experience for kids that is getting results, again, for, for every kid wherever they're at. Um, and then where it gets even more exciting is, is what that really enables the rest of the day to be, which is where I think the human element and the human experience are just, like, on fire.
- 17:30 – 22:00
The Alpha student who turned her TikTok scrolling into a successful business — and what if adults DO know better?
- MMMarina Mogilko
Interesting. Okay. We talked a lot about motivation. Uh, another concern with motivation that I have from my childhood-
- MPMacKenzie Price
Mm-hmm
- MMMarina Mogilko
... is that, uh, kids get motivated by weird things.
- MPMacKenzie Price
[laughs]
- MMMarina Mogilko
Like I, I heard this story, which is a cool story, of a girl who was, when the coach asked her what she was motivated by, and she said nothing. And then he asked, "What do you do when you're alone at home?" And she's like, "I'm scrolling through TikTok, and I think about boys." Think about boys. That's like a typical 80% 16-year-old female answer, right?
- MPMacKenzie Price
It is.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And when I tell something like this to my par- well, my, my interest was different. I told them, "I love English, so I'm gonna become a translator from Russian into English." My parents told me, "Sounds amazing, but you're gonna do math."
- MPMacKenzie Price
[laughs]
- MMMarina Mogilko
And I'm so glad they did-
- MPMacKenzie Price
Mm
- MMMarina Mogilko
... because what is, I don't know, like how does a 16-year-old understand the world? Like from what they see around themselves. But adults who are guiding them have a different experience. I'm rich- actually glad that my parents didn't follow my passion. They're like, "You can do whatever you want as a second degree," which I did eventually. [laughs] But you know what? I studied mathematics and economics, and I, I'm really happy I did because that really helped me build a business.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
'Cause you learn all the concepts. You learn how to, um, think through very complicated problems, and yes, I under- didn't understand 50% of what was going on in the class, but it actually helped me navigate that world. So I'm like thinking, what if my child, I don't know, 12 year old says, "Oh, I'm..." Like my, my daughter tells me she wants to be a puppy yoga teacher.
- MPMacKenzie Price
[laughs]
- MMMarina Mogilko
I'm like, what kind of job is that? [laughs] Isn't it helpful to sometimes not follow the passion of a child and tell them like, "Hey, you know what?"
- MPMacKenzie Price
So I think that what your line of thinking is assuming it's gotta be either this or that, and in our opinion, we believe that it can be and. So for example, that student who really did say, "You know what? I guess I'm like the world's best TikTok scroller, and I am thinking about boys."
- MMMarina Mogilko
[laughs]
- MPMacKenzie Price
And actually, the way that she came to that conclusion is we have our students do a workshop called 168 Hours where they track the, uh, amount of time in their week, what they do with it. You know, how much time are you doing sleeping? How much are you studying? Where are you spending time with friends? Are you playing music? What are you doing? And that's where she had this realization of like, "Gosh, yeah, I don't, I don't like doing anything."
- MMMarina Mogilko
I wish I, I think we all need to do-
- MPMacKenzie Price
I just spend most of the day on social media. We should all do that exercise. And so it was there. Now her guide, when she toldUh, her guide, that story, first of all, I love that they had a relationship where the student felt comfortable enough to be honest and didn't feel like they had to make up a, "I am interested in curing cancer," right? She was very honest about that. Her guide could have said, "No, get your head out of the gutter. 14-year-old boys are not worthy of having a lot of thought around right now. Like, you, you shouldn't be doing that, and get off social media. Go focus on math and ec- economics instead."
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Um, she didn't do that, and she also didn't say, um, "Hey, you know what? That's cool. Just hang out. You should enjoy your TikTok experience." Instead, she said, "Well, let's figure out how we can go in deeper to, um, understand if there's, if there's a problem there. Like, what's going on in the teen dating world?" And so it allowed, uh, her to say, "Okay, I'm gonna take this interest and see if I can create something productive out of what a lot of people would think was just a random kind of superfluous, you know, silly girl's, you know, interest."
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
And, um, and so what she did was she went through and she, uh, you know, proceeded to do research and understand that, boy, the dating world is incredibly unhealthy for teenagers right now, and she started building out expertise in what does healthy dating habits look like. And to be clear, it wasn't even dating habits. This is coming out of COVID when kids didn't even know how to, like, say hi to someone that you're interested in. You know, like, say hello, introduce yourself, any of those things. She built up an audience, which when you think about any product or business that you're gonna do, a podcast, if you don't have an audience, you're kind of out, out of the water. So she built up an audience, uh, got millions of views on TikTok with her advice. Then she was able to build an AI, uh, avatar that was able to give advice, and she built an LLM that was based on this expertise. Now, that led her down the path of let's actually do some research to understand is the expert, expert advice that she's giving, is it good? And so she ended up doing a research paper where she looked at, uh, the quality of advice from her LLM, a ChatGPT, and suburban moms.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Hmm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
And of course, I think most of us would guess, I certainly would as a mother,
- 22:00 – 23:40
How her project could land her in Nature — the world's top scientific journal
- MPMacKenzie Price
uh, of two girls, well, moms give the best advice. We really do. And what she ended up finding out was that moms were actually dead last. Uh, her LLM was, was top rated, and ChatGPT was in the middle. Now, again, you go, "Okay, well, cool. I guess this is like she wrote a research paper." Well, that research paper is now in the final stages for approval in Nature, which is the number one scientific journal in the world, and if she goes through that last hurdle and gets submitted or gets in, uh, she'll be the youngest female ever and the only high school student to ever be published in Nature. And that same student is actually right down the street today at her admitted student days at Stanford University.
- MMMarina Mogilko
That's amazing.
- MPMacKenzie Price
And so you really take-
- MMMarina Mogilko
It's a beautiful spinoff from just scrolling TikTok.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah, you take this thing. So I think that's the answer is, you know, let's say it's okay, I wanna do, I wanna be a puppy yoga instructor. Um, and you know what? This is actually a really fun exercise that you can do with your six-year-old is like, "Okay, let's think about this. What if we were building a business? How would we go about building that, and where can we make it like, you know, 10X?"
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
In fact, for our high school students, when we're, when we're talking about our Alpha X projects, we call them Olympic level projects, and the reason we use the term Olympics is because it's such a clear standard for being the best in the world, right? If somebody is an Olympic runner, you don't think, "Oh, they must be a pretty good runner for being 18 years old." They are literally the best runners in the world. Um, and so we, we put that kind of classification because we don't want our kids to just be good for their age. We truly want them to be, you know, the best and seen as experts in that, and there are so many places you can do this. I'll, I'll never forget, and this is
- 23:40 – 25:50
The 6-year-old who made $1,600 selling cookies
- MPMacKenzie Price
another year-- kids are a perfect age for this. My oldest daughter came home one day and she said, "Mom, I saw some kids doing a lemonade stand, you know, down the street. Let's do a lemon- lemonade stand." I said, "That's a great idea. We should totally do that." And I said, "But then let's go through and think about this. Where would we do it?" And she's like, "Well, I guess at the top of the driveway." And then I said, "Well, let's think about this. Let's count how many cars go by."
- MMMarina Mogilko
How many cars, yeah. [laughs]
- MPMacKenzie Price
Well, we live in a pretty quiet place, so not a lot of cars. And so we started thinking, "Well, if we really wanted to sell, what would we do?" And, um, she was about six years old, uh, when this was happening, and her little sister was four, and she's jumping into it. And we walk through this thought exercise where, okay, where do you find a lot of people? And she said, "You know, Mom, your, your exercise place that you go to seems to have a lot of people. Maybe we could do something there." I'm like, "That's a great idea." And I said, "But do you think exercise people, do you think they wanna drink, like, lemonade or something else?" And we land on, no, they probably would like coconut water and, you know, waters. And then we came up with this idea of they might need a snack after they're done exercising, but it's gotta be a healthy snack. So she ended up creating these paleo cookies and, you know, called the gym owner and, and asked at six years old, "Would it be okay if I came and sold?" And she did this, and it worked so well, and actually her product was so good, she ended up getting to go to larger and larger gyms and athletic competitions. Um, now here's the only problem, the, the backfire of this story. Uh, she went to an athletic competition where she was selling her paleo cookies and her coconut water and water, and she made about $1,600 in profit. Well, here's my problem. Six-year-old's like, "I'm set for life. I never have to work another day in my life." [laughs]
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah. And they don't understand that they're getting paid because they're so cute and everything. [laughs]
- MPMacKenzie Price
No, it was a really good product. I was doing, it was a great exercise. But then I was like, "We should do this like you can do this every weekend." She's like, "Why? I, I like I, I bought a Barbie doll. What else am I gonna do with this money?" Uh, which is funny, but I think these are examples where you can take an interest that somebody has and figure out how do you take that further. And, you know, I, I'll tell you, there's some crazy, uh, puppy yoga and goat yoga businesses that, that business owners are probably doing pretty well at. And so I think sometimes weWe
- 25:50 – 30:17
Consumers vs. creators: raising builders
- MPMacKenzie Price
underrate what kids could be capable of, and what we need to do is reframe. There's some interest that a kid has, how do we take that? Video games is another example. I mean, there are so many moms and dads out there going, "I wish I could get my kid off the game console. All they wanna do is play video games." And we, we see boys come into our school who are literally will say, "If you could just pay me to play video games for my whole life, that's all I'd wanna do. It'd be the best job in the world." And then when you start saying, "You know what? We could, like, teach you to vibe code a video game, and then maybe you could, like, host an event, and you could be the show caster and, you know, work on these things." And suddenly these kids get excited about something that they're doing, and they start realizing, like, oh my gosh, great. We have a student who, you know, was absolutely that boy who would say, "I would play video games every day for the rest of my life." And now he's like, "I'm too busy to play video games 'cause I'm out building this business," you know, and doing these things. And, you know, if you can inspire kids to try something hard-
- MMMarina Mogilko
It's gonna go behind the scenes then. That's what I'm seeing, right?
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Not just go straight into this, like, scrolling, playing the game, but go behind the scenes and become the creator behind your home-
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah. What does it ... And really, that's what, what I think is another thing that is so important to teach young people, especially in our society today, where being a c- a consumer is so easy to fall into. It's like, okay, I can just, I can scroll TikTok, I can play video games, I can just hang out and watch YouTube. What we need to do is instead create creators and contributors. How can you go out and be someone who builds? And you know what? People naturally, they want to be builders.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
They just often aren't given the tools, the time, or the mentorship-
- MMMarina Mogilko
The confidence. The confidence that you mentioned
- MPMacKenzie Price
... or the confidence to do that. And you know, again, not to bag on traditional school too much, but you know, kids go to school every day, and they say, "Okay, I'm gonna sit in this chair, and I'm completely, uh, beholden to what the teacher is going to be giving out for curriculum," instead of saying, "Hey, I, I know I've gotta learn this material, and I can go forward, and I can go as quickly as, as I'm capable of doing well." Uh, and they're sit- sitting here just like, "Do this." Or let's say, you know, they're working on this, you know, project in a class. As soon as that class is over, it's like project's done. And last spring, in the spring of 2025, it was about May, a bunch of our students were doing a pitch for a VC firm, uh, you know, for funding for their businesses. And one of the questions, uh, that one of the VCs asked was, "So what's gonna happen this summer when school gets out?" And the kids look at him like, "What do you mean what's gonna happen? I, I keep going. I got work to do." And in fact, our high school students came to us last spring and said, "Can we please keep our high school open for the summer?" Because they didn't have-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Wow
- MPMacKenzie Price
... this attitude of, well, my business is done because I got the A in the class, and so it's over. They're like, "I got work to do, and why would I not wanna be, uh, surrounded by my friends and classmates and getting the mentorship and, and support that our guides are able to provide while they're going forward with this?" And it just creates this, like, amazing energy and environment where, um, it's an ambitious-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm
- MPMacKenzie Price
... and it's exciting, and it's also supportive and collaborative because every kid is working on something different. It's not like there's only one spot at the varsity tennis captain, you know, and you gotta y- you get that, or, you know, you can only have the one winning robotics team at the competition.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Um, we've got kids doing things from such varied backgrounds, uh, and they're all there kinda saying like, "Let's support each other. Let's help." And we really find that, that when you put kids in that environment and call them to something greater with that support, they, they get just psyched-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm
- MPMacKenzie Price
... and it's a fun place to hang out.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah. That, that sounds incredible. Hearing that story, the thing I keep coming back to is that it wasn't talent, it was the system around her, and it made me think about something very simple. Most people use Claude like a search engine. They type in a question, they get an answer. Most times they're not really satisfied with it, and they close the tab. I did the same thing for months, and I was looking at people who were saying AI is changing their life, and I'm like, "Hmm?" Then I spent one afternoon setting it up properly, uploaded a few files about how I think and how I work, and it completely changed. I wrote the whole process up step by step. You get it when you subscribe to my newsletter, Future Proof. It's free. The link is in the description.
- 30:17 – 34:14
Is screen time actually harming our kids' cognitive development?
- MMMarina Mogilko
Let's, uh, talk about screen time some more.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yes.
- MMMarina Mogilko
That a lot of parents are concerned with. And also Sweden did this experiment. I don't know if, if you know about this.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yes.
- MMMarina Mogilko
They abandoned books, they introduced iPads, and then literacy went down, so they had to ban iPads and intro- reintroduce the books. Do you have books in your school, or is it just iPad even for four-year-olds? Is it, like, two hours on the screen?
- MPMacKenzie Price
No. So we do start, um, as early as four years old in a pre-K program. They are doing some work on screens, um, and but it's a shorter period of time, uh, than that two hours. And actually, fun fact, the, you know, average amount of time kids are spending on screens in the United States right now is two and a half hours a day.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
So our kids actually spend less time on a screen, uh, than kids there.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Oh, that's cool.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah. But here's the other big key component. There is not equality between all screen time. I, myself, with my kids, we were a screen-free family, and I recommend that. Like, you know, putting an iPad in front of your kid, you know, at the dinner table or even in school to say, "Hey, let's do this online," you know, that could've been just a worksheet, right? But we're doing, doing it online. It's just, it's like technology for technology's sake. And the key difference here for us is it's not just doing something on a screen, it's having that engaged level of interaction with your academics-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm
- MPMacKenzie Price
... that's keeping you in what's called the zone of proximal development, where the ans- you know, the, the, the work isn't so hard that you've kinda turned off and so easy that you're not really engaged. So it creates a very proactive, uh, kind of connection with what students are doing, uh, which is why we're seeing, you know, better learning results than just putting something on screen. That said, uh, yes, of course, we have books. One of the things that I think is such an important thing for kids to learn is we gotta teach them not just to read, but to fall in love with reading.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
And what better way to do that than, first of all, teaching them the skill of reading, which we're able to do very well with this environment, and I will say, uh, the importance of one-to-oneOut loud reading with a human is so critical. And so that's what our reading specialists are able to have time to do that one-to-one pull-out reading time with every kid, uh, as part of their learning. Um, but then it's also teaching them to say, "Okay, let's figure out how we can encourage you to love to read." And an example of that, we have an app that we have created called Teach Tales, and what it does is it's, uh, basically an AI app that allows kids to create stories that match their interests, and it's at the difficulty level that's exactly right for them, that keeps them in that zone of proximal development. So basically, you can take that little boy who maybe would rather be just, like, going around on his scooter than sitting down and reading a book, but suddenly he's the main character with his best friends in a save-the-world kind of adventure that matches his favorite, you know, movie that he's got, and all of a sudden he's excited about reading. And these are things we have to do. So yes, our kids get to be exposed to Shakespeare, and yes, our kids are reading the great books, you know, and they're doing that stuff. Um, it's, it's one part of, you know, what I think is important to, for education. Edie Hirsch has 5,000 facts, concepts, and, and what, what they call core pieces of knowledge that are considered important to be an educated person, and we're able to put that information into our curriculum in order to make sure that, you know, the kids are, uh, getting that education. And so, you know, the wonderful thing that I think people often forget is that when you only have to spend two hours working on that academics, it opens up the whole rest of the school day to be able to do things like, okay, you're gonna do a great book. Check. Uh, we call it a check because it's on a check chart. You better read a certain number of books, and then you're writing reflections on them, you know, and, and having kids have that opportunity.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Are they writing on an iPad or handwriting?
- 34:14 – 36:20
What Alpha kids learn besides academics — cursive, sewing, biking, swimming
- MPMacKenzie Price
No, so we-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Well, I hope it's handwriting. [laughs]
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yes, we do. We teach cursive. Uh-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Okay
- MPMacKenzie Price
... we teach cursive.
- MMMarina Mogilko
This is what I really want my kids to learn-
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah. Oh
- MMMarina Mogilko
... 'cause I spent days and weeks learning, well, months probably learning how to do it.
- MPMacKenzie Price
I... You know what's crazy? I only write in cursive.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Like, I still think cursive is, like, a pretty important art. I-
- MMMarina Mogilko
I think it's a great skill.
- MPMacKenzie Price
I... Oh, it's a great... Well, and it's a great skill because of what it does with just your hand-eye coordination-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Right
- MPMacKenzie Price
... how it helps develop the brain. Same thing with music.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Same thing with art. There's so many different, different types of things that we wanna give kids to do. And so, yes, they're doing that on pencil and paper. Here's another thing that our kids get to, to do. They're learning to sew, right? They're doing a woodworking class. Like, stuff that, you know, has actually been torn out of the traditional school day because there's not enough time. Everyone thinks we just need more time on academics in order to see success rates go up, and that's not really true. We're showing that in less time, kids can learn more effectively, and then open up all of those other kind of life skills experiences. But if it's anything like when our kids, you know, our 5 and 6-year-olds were riding back and forth on the Golden Gate Bridge in their Alpha biker gang where they finished, uh, finished that ride as a team, uh, or, you know, they climb 40-foot rock walls, or our middle schoolers have been able to complete a triathlon together. Um, there are so many different activities that we're seeing. Kids can absolutely rise to the occasion, and part of what, what helps us do that is we're making sure that it's fun.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Like, that the kids are having fun even when it's hard, right? It doesn't mean when we talk about kids loving school, which we think is critical. Kids need to love school. In fact, it's our first commitment that we make to our families, which is that your kid will love school. The reason that's so important isn't because every day is Disneyland. It's because when kids feel this fire in their belly and are like, "I like being at school. I love being at school," it allows us to challenge them to do hard things, to take on, uh, tasks that maybe they wouldn't know how to do, uh, and they've got that support. Uh, and it, it's what
- 36:20 – 38:28
2x learning in 2 hours: how it actually works
- MPMacKenzie Price
helps unlock potential, which is what I think school needs to be.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And so you basically compressed... I'm thinking about a typical school day. It's six hours of academics, right? In a typical school day.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah. So you compress it to just so 3x less.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm. And you still cover the same material.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Mm-hmm.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And same depth just because everybody moves individually with their own style.
- MPMacKenzie Price
I would actually argue we cover it in greater depth.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Um, because again, when you think about what, let's say, fifth-grade, uh, academic knowledge, you know, is for math as an example, kids in a traditional system, they're moving through the math concepts, uh, and whether they know it or not, they kind of move forward. Again, it's why a third of kids in this country are actually proficient in their grade level in math or reading. That means two-thirds are not at mastery. Um, whereas in our system, kids don't move up in their academic grade level until they've mastered. They've gotta be above 90% in order to master. And so it, it goes to a, a larger depth. This is the other reason we get sometimes this question. So our second commitment is that kids will learn twice as much in only two hours. And so often-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Twice as much.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Twice as much, and we measure that with something called the NWEA MAP assessment. It's a, it's a standardized assessment that's taken by about 10 million kids all over the country, homeschool, public school, private school.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And, and they actually remember what they learned?
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah. And then again, what happens is, is when you set kids up for success by giving them mastery of earlier content, it again, it makes more sophisticated content easier-
- MMMarina Mogilko
'Cause it can be deeper. Gotcha. Okay.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah. You can go deeper on that. And so at our high school, our kids are taking the same advanced placement courses that, you know, some kids are taking. They're taking four years of English and foreign language and science and math, uh, and all of those types of history. Uh, they're doing that, but they're doing it in less time. At the high school level, it's, it's three hours. Uh, it's a little bit longer on there. Um, but yeah, we have basically been able to compress that time and make it more efficient and-More effective. Uh, so I think they are learning at a deeper level than kids in a traditional classroom.
- MMMarina Mogilko
That's very interesting.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Okay. So
- 38:28 – 39:17
How much Alpha School costs per year
- MMMarina Mogilko
if somebody's listening to this, and you have a pretty high check, right? Is it like se- 70? How much is it?
- MPMacKenzie Price
So, um, our Alpha schools, Alpha school is kind of the school that's gotten a lot of the attention, um, and that is like super high-end private school kind of redefining what parents expect out of their kids' private school experience. So, you know, when kids are learning teamwork and adaptability through sailing, and then they get to sail from Florida to the Bahamas, you know, over time they're doing that, and that's basically between 40 and $75,000.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Um, those schools are opening all over the country. Um, and it's been really cool to see the amount of demand we have from families who are excited about not just the, the part we've spent time talking about, the academics, but really all the life skills.
- MMMarina Mogilko
So somebody who can't afford 70K, if it's just, well, two hours a day, can a parent
- 39:17 – 41:54
Can you replicate Alpha at home for free?
- MMMarina Mogilko
like me r- replicate part of this experience?
- MPMacKenzie Price
Oh, yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
'Cause I'm a dedicated parent. I spend like two to th- three hours at least per day with my kids just doing-
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah
- MMMarina Mogilko
... stuff with them. If I want to do something like that, what are the steps that I need to take? I also feel like it's really, 'cause all the skills that you're teaching, it's not just for kids, it's for adults-
- MPMacKenzie Price
[laughs]
- MMMarina Mogilko
... who are understand that the world is changing and they need to be constantly learning, adapting, uh, basically world changes every week.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
So that's, that's what we're up for.
- MPMacKenzie Price
I love this question, uh, because it's been so fun to watch people who are replicating a lot of, um, the Alpha magic, um, in their own homes with what their kids are doing. And so that's everything from, you know, we've got, uh, families that are using our Alpha Anywhere homeschool program. That's $10,000 a year-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm
- MPMacKenzie Price
... to get the same academic platform-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm
- MPMacKenzie Price
... you know, that our kids in school are getting. And then their afternoons get to be, you know, the life skills development that the family decides-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MPMacKenzie Price
... that is interesting. And, you know, there are so many ways that you can teach great life skills. You know, sports obviously has always been a really popular way of, um, teaching grit and resilience and teamwork and leadership, uh, and receiving feedback, you know, and learning the mastery as well. You know, one of the things we think about with sports that i- it's harder to understand with academics, but we're taking the same approach. You know, if you're a basketball player, you're not working on your dunking if you don't know how to dribble the ball down the court, right? It's start with the basics, master the basics, and then move up. Uh, you know, you analyze game film when you're finished, you know, w- with a game, you're watching to see where you can do better. We're doing a lot of that same stuff on the academic side. Um, but there are things that families can do at home. I always think entrepreneurship is such a great tool, and we talked about that with the lemonade stand. So those are great ways to learn financial literacy.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Um, and those are things that parents can be doing at home. Now, here's the challenge. A lot of times, uh, the big, big issue with this is there's only so many hours in the day. So when kids are going to school all day long, they come home, they get hopefully a little bit of a break. They often are ending up doing homework, which is starting earlier and earlier. They've got homework, you gotta eat dinner, you're doing piano practice, or you're going to play soccer, whatever it is. There's only so much supplementing that can be done, and that's one of the reasons I think, uh, families are starting to realize, like, it's time for us to, to demand change in our school districts and to ask our schools, "What are you doing to try and improve academics?"
- MMMarina Mogilko
What about academics? If somebody wants to deploy part of your system at home, what can they do
- 41:54 – 43:15
The programs: Math Academy, Claude, and AI for parents
- MMMarina Mogilko
with their kids? Is it like watching particular videos or I don't know.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Like coding an app.
- MPMacKenzie Price
I'm gonna give you an example. On the academic side, there is an app called Math Academy that we absolutely love. It's not one of our apps. Um, it's built by, uh, you know, an, an outside team that they've just done a great job with Math Academy. It's a great app. And so that's an example of something that, you know, if you're wanting your kid to be able to spend some time doing, you know, some app work going there. Um, I think the other thing that's, you know, so much fun now is, you know, working on so many of these AI tools that are coming out. In fact, a bunch of our, our students went to New York, uh, last month, and they did an Openclaw class for parents-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm. [laughs]
- MPMacKenzie Price
... you know, to teach them what to do. And, you know, when we're thinking about a, a super important skill, uh, as an employee, uh, in order to have a job, you're gonna have to always understand, like, how do I take whatever I'm doing and add the most value from it? How do I become AI first?
- MMMarina Mogilko
Oh, yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
How-
- MMMarina Mogilko
How do I automate part of my skills and rise up to the next level?
- MPMacKenzie Price
Use AI to give me superpowers, right?
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
That's what's gonna make people job resilient, you know, when, and, and employable, is if they are constantly knowing, all right, here's how I can take something and use it to my advantage to build something big.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And also use personal judgment when interacting with AI, like-
- MPMacKenzie Price
Absolutely.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
You know, and, and here's the other thing. I think there's a lot of fear around AI. Uh, and in schools there is, and it's rightly so because
- 43:15 – 44:15
Why ChatGPT is banned at Alpha School
- MPMacKenzie Price
chatbots in schools are cheat bots. Um, and, you know, we don't use chatbots in our schools because kids need to learn from this.
- MMMarina Mogilko
How do you block them from switching apps? Do you have like a blocker? [laughs]
- MPMacKenzie Price
So, yeah, so our, our kids are working on computers.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
So they've got, they've got, um, basically in the TimeBack platform, it's, it's monitoring so that they can't say-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm
- MPMacKenzie Price
... okay, I'm moving from here to here.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Or if, if, if they're able to somehow we can see it. We're screen recording to be able to see how kids are moving through this. It's also what allows us to give coaching to kids when it's like, "Oh, okay, I noticed that you, you maybe skimmed the reading. You didn't spend enough time reading the whole-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm
- MPMacKenzie Price
... uh, the whole thing in order to do that." And then coaching, you know, oftentimes slowing down will actually help you go faster than trying to rush through something. And, you know, getting that kind of skills, um, is important to do. Uh, so it's a, you know, there's a lot to do, but yeah, in education we've gotta make sure that we're implementing AI in a, in a good way. And what I would hate to see is just, you know, every kid gets a computer with, uh-ChatGPT on it
- 44:15 – 45:25
What to watch with your kids — what good content looks like
- MPMacKenzie Price
and say, "Wow, we're AI first."
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah. That, that's my concern with screen time.
- MPMacKenzie Price
That's the wrong thing.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Like, I really want them to watch some videos. There are some TED Talks I absolutely love, which are also very visual-
- MPMacKenzie Price
Uh-huh
- MMMarina Mogilko
... so I can show my kids. But my concern is that if there's a phone call and I leave the room, they're gonna figure out how to switch to Shorts. [laughs]
- MPMacKenzie Price
Oh, yeah. If your kids like Mark Rober, who does all the cool science stuff-
- MMMarina Mogilko
I just showed them... Yeah, yeah. I just showed them that glitter bomb. They were fascinated.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Uh-huh. Yeah, no, there's some interesting ways to do it, and you know, that's another thing that I think we have the ability now to, like, be able to watch a heart surgery, you know, on YouTube versus, you know, just dissecting a pig, you know, in class. There are so many cool ways that we need to take advantage of what the world has to offer in the right way-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MPMacKenzie Price
... where, where we can say, "Okay, let's learn this. Let's get inspired by something here." Mark Rober's a great example of a really good influencer who makes kids fall in love with science and activities, um, like that. And so you gotta pepper in that right amount, and I think, uh, you know, parents at home who are kind of being able to say, "All right. I'm gonna intentionally have my kid do some work using adaptive apps. I'm going to also have, you know, a way for them to develop life skills at home."
- MMMarina Mogilko
We grew up in a particular
- 45:25 – 47:20
Will universities matter in 5-10 years?
- MMMarina Mogilko
system, and we think it's the best system for our kids, but then what I also do realize that the world has really changed. Do you think higher education matters? Do you think universities are gonna matter in 5 to 10 years?
- MPMacKenzie Price
Here's what we're telling our students, is that we want you to be prepared to go do whatever it is that you wanna do, and if that means you wanna go to an Ivy League school, then you should be able to have, you know, the resume that gets you into that. And if you wanna be ready to go out and hop into business or go straight in the working world, you should be prepared to, to do that as well. Um, so I think that's a very personal choice. Now, if you ask me in general about higher education, I think the university system is, you know, following very closely behind the, the K through 12 one, which is that, you know, if you took AI tools, just like what Alpha's doing, and said, "Hey, let's do all our basic courses, you know, this way," and then free up the professors' time to s- to really spend time in more sophisticated discussion with kids who are, you know, at that level. Let's go be doing research.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Let's go build up, you know, build a-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MPMacKenzie Price
... build a startup together, do whatever that is. Um, I think that would make it really exciting. Now, I believe university, and I've got one daughter who's, um, in college and another who's heading there next year, both those girls were so excited to go to college because they're excited to be around other ambitious young people, right? They're excited to build their network, and I think university does an amazing job at building out, you know, networks. It's where you often can meet your, your spouse.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Uh, there's your best friends for life. That's what they wanna go to college for. They wanna have that experience. But I think, again, their time spent in classes is, you know, pretty inefficient.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah. How do they adjust-
- MPMacKenzie Price
Well-
- MMMarina Mogilko
... from two hours to eight hours?
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah. It's funny. Uh, we actually looked at this 'cause that, that's a big concern that people have is, okay, what happens when your kids go
- 47:20 – 49:00
What happens when Alpha students go back to a traditional system
- MPMacKenzie Price
back into a traditional environment? And here's what we've found: they do great. They are able to very quickly understand, okay, here's how I can, I can learn. Uh, and I- they have a, an, a proactive attitude of taking on ownership of their learning. Um, but they will say, and my daughter was one of them, she called me up after the first week of school, and she's like, "Wow, Mom, I mean, these lectures are so inefficient. Like, in a 45-minute class, you know, there's probably five minutes of real information that was worthwhile." But do they do well in grades? Absolutely. Uh, more importantly than that, though, I think what it feels like our Alpha grads tend to do is they have a desire towards just mastery even when the system isn't doing it. We had a student, uh, who went off to university, and he wrote a paper for one of his classes, and he got the paper back, and he had a 95%, but there were no notes. So he went and met with his professor, and he said, "Hey, I see that I got a 95%, but I don't see any notes on how I can improve." And she just said, "Well, you know, that's a good grade. That's an A. You should be happy with that." He's like, "I am happy with it, but I just wanna know what would make it better."
- MMMarina Mogilko
How she could... Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Like, what would get 100?
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm-hmm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
And she said, "Well, you know, writing, you're never gonna get to 100. There's always improvement." He goes, "Great. Share with me what, what I could improve upon." And you know, she looked at him, and she just crossed out the 95 and put a 99 and sent him on his way. So he didn't get... He actually didn't get the feedback he was looking for.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Um, and it's just an example that even teachers are programmed to be like, "It's just about the grade. Just here's the grade. Go on your way." And you know, I think Alpha students realize, like, oh, I can go learn this because, you know, it's interesting, and I have a ability to get better.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Interesting. Okay. So you're saying all of this, and I'm like, what
- 49:00 – 50:40
A self-imposed Alpha school for adults
- MMMarina Mogilko
would be the version of, uh, self-imposed Alpha school for adults at home? [laughs]
- MPMacKenzie Price
Oh. Um, well, first of all, I think, um, you know, for me, if I had a little bit more time, I sometimes think, you know what? I'd love to go back and do some, you know, hole filling, you know, and remember where am I at in, in, you know, my math and history, uh, those types of things. So I mean, I think that one of the things that, that parents can do is start doing some of these apps with their kids. Not with them, but, but do them too so that they can understand how they work-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm
- MPMacKenzie Price
... uh, and what they do. Find a thing that you're interested in learning more about and go deep. Our middle school students, we do this all the time. Actually, we start earlier than that, which is we'll have kids go down a two-week long rabbit hole around a subject that they find interesting. And so that's something as an adult, go, go find a, a topic that you're interested in learning about and say, "I'm gonna go, and I'm gonna build what we call a brain lift," uh, which is basically a, a list of everything I learned. Who are the experts in this area? You know, I'm at the point where I'm starting to think, oh, I should start learning about hormones and, you know, menopause and all those kinds of things that are, that are gonna be happening in my next stage. So go and, and find out who's the expert, who's built, who's doing this, and then this is what a lot of our students do, is they, they spend, you know, a half an hour each day doing research on their topic of interest. They build a brain lift, and then they can actually build an LLM, uh, out of that, and they can search constantly, you know, okay, here's... What do I know about this topic, you know, from what I've studied, and they're continuing to add. And so I think it's a great example of, um, really encouraging this idea of continuing to go deeper and learn and becoming
- 50:40 – 53:00
The professions AI is rewriting first
- MPMacKenzie Price
an expert in something.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And when you talk about professions to your kids, do you... W- what is your thinking around this? You're, you're basically replacing teachers, and you, you're moving them to more like a coach cohort.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
The thing that I'm getting from this conversation is that you're raising a lot of entrepreneurs, which is amazing, and I feel like if you don't have entrepreneurial qualities, it's gonna be really hard to survive in 10 to 20 years when a lot of manual work is automated. Uh, who else do you think doesn't have a future?
- MPMacKenzie Price
Um, I don't like asking young people, "What do you wanna do when you get older?" Like, "What do you wanna be when you grow up?" There's a few reasons I don't like that. First of all, I think it can box kids in to think, oh, I have to say I wanna be a lawyer, right? Or something like that. Um, so I think, I think one of the things is you have to say, "What are the things you enjoy doing?" And, uh, my daughter's a great example of this. I think, uh, she would probably wanna be a lawyer. I think the field of law is gonna be a really interesting place, 'cause now you can literally write up a legal document in two seconds, you know, and save the money on this. And so I think the law profession is an example of, you know, lawyers are gonna have to elevate themselves to say, "Okay, here's how we're automating the things that can be automated, and here's where the real focus should be is, you know, as we're incorporating strategy, and what are we doing and how are we, uh, negotiating and communicating, you know, on that." Uh, I think there, there's gonna be so much change. You know, doctors, you know, I don't think... Are we ever gonna replace doctors? Absolutely not. But it's so interesting. I was at my last, uh, dermatology appointment where they're doing my yearly skin check, and instead of the doctor coming and looking at my moles with a little mirror, uh, you know, the doctor is literally taking a camera and scanning my body and using AI to analyze if anything. And guess what? They have the record from last year to be able to know, "Hey, that mole looks different than it did this year."
- MMMarina Mogilko
This is going, yeah.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Versus a human eye who's like, "I don't know." Now, does bedside manner become even more of a, an important skill? Absolutely, right? Y- you know, those are some places where we're gonna have to see change. So I, again, I think with, with our students, we have no idea what they're gonna wanna be when they get older, but if we can help them develop the skills that, that will be helpful in whatever they do.
- MMMarina Mogilko
I think it's a very important question to ask yourself. W- instead
- 53:00 – 53:42
How we'll need to pick a profession in the future
- MMMarina Mogilko
of what profession you want to be doing, what you actually enjoy doing.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
The skills, the process.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah. Well-
- MMMarina Mogilko
And that's the key, 'cause professions are gonna change.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Absolutely. We have our middle school students and our high school students do an Iggy Guy values chart. What are you good at? What do you love to do? And what does the world need? And that is something that I think we should all be revisiting on a regular basis.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Absolutely.
- MPMacKenzie Price
You know, as, as adults too, um, these are things that we should do. And, and that helps, um, people kind of see, like, who do I wanna be? What do I wanna do? How do I wanna contribute? How do I wanna build and create? Uh, and then where can this be helpful? Plug into what, what you can see as a need that's, uh, that you can meet.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Have you ever
- 53:42 – 55:30
What if your kid graduates and can't get a job?
- MMMarina Mogilko
thought about what to say to your daughters if they graduate and they don't get a job? [laughs]
- MPMacKenzie Price
[laughs]
- MMMarina Mogilko
Like, in this world that's changing so fast.
- MPMacKenzie Price
That's a really interesting question. That's a great question to ask. So, um, yeah, I've got a daughter who, um, is a sophomore in college, and she's, you know, was, was hustling to find her internship for the summer. And, um, I've got another daughter who's really different actually, 'cause she's a very well-known influencer. So-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Oh
- MPMacKenzie Price
... uh, she's, now she's got a different thing, which is she's gonna have to make sure to, to take advantage of her 15 minutes of fame and figure out how to grow and develop, you know, and move through that, uh, and so this. But gosh, if, if they didn't get a job, I... That's a very interesting question, and I, I think I'm such an optimist that I really struggle to ever think that kids are gonna be in a position where it's like, "I can't get a job." Um, here's what I do believe. I think the value of knowing how to work hard is important, so I would say there's gotta be some place that you can find, you know, work to get to do, and make sure, you know, now that you're building those skills that are gonna be resilient and, you know, find that work. Y- this, this opens up such a, another question, you know. I think I was reading something that Elon Musk had posted, you know, on X the other day around, you know, what happens when we really are in a world of total abundance-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm
- MPMacKenzie Price
... right? Where we can have universal income. Again, I think there we have to help people plug into what they believe their purpose and their passion is so that they have a desire to get up each day and go create, even if it's not out of necessity.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And that's what you help kids figure out, which is amazing.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Instead of just following whatever is, whatever teachers tell them to do-
- MPMacKenzie Price
Mm-hmm
- MMMarina Mogilko
... they explore themselves.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Okay, my last question. Let's do the one-sentence takeaway. If one person watches
- 55:30 – 56:45
The one action every parent should take this week
- MMMarina Mogilko
this, takes one action this week, what would it be? A professional, a parent, whoever was watching.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Uh, if you're a parent, ask your kid, like, "What's interesting to you these days?" I think that right there is something that, uh, can open up so much. Like, what are you f- what are you interested in? What do you find yourself curious about? And then you take that, and actually, you can even do that with your spouse, right? Or your business partner, someone, your friend that you're at dinner with. You know, what's something that's been interesting to you that you've been thinking about learning, learning about? And then say, "Hey, if we were gonna go do a deep dive on learning about this, how would we go about learning this?" You know? And maybe that turns into this book that was recommended, or maybe it turns into, uh, going into ChatGPT and, like, you know, uh, following something. But I think getting curious and asking questions, uh, is something that I would absolutely do, and I don't think there's a better way, uh, to connect with your kids than ask that kind of open-ended question. Not a yes-no question, but like, what's something you're curious about these days? And then how do we go into, into depth on it?
- MMMarina Mogilko
I love that. And also maybe, I don't know, 10 cents from me, just changing the mindset around
- 56:45 – 58:55
Why we can't rely on the old system anymore
- MMMarina Mogilko
the fact that your kids don't have to be raised the way you were raised.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
That's such a tough thing for me.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
'Cause because I grew up in the system, and my parents grew up in that system, and my grandparents, I'm like, "My kids have to follow the same system."
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah.
- MMMarina Mogilko
And they're in a different country, they're in a different age. We're in a different world.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Yeah. Well, we often will say, "Hey, I turned out fine, so how bad can that be?"
- MMMarina Mogilko
Exactly. Exactly.
- MPMacKenzie Price
Um, but I think it's also, it's a mindset change, uh, from, uh, you know, just kind of a scarcity, like what do, what do you need to get by, versus abundance.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Mm.
- MPMacKenzie Price
You know, what can really set us up for that? And you know, I talk to families all over the country who are looking in Alpha School, and our founding families, the, the families that say, "Hey, I wanna be one of the first 25 families to come into a new city," um, they're my, like, my spirit twins, because I was very much like, I cannot watch my kids go through this, you know, obedient, creating, just follow the rules, go through the, the, the system experience. Um, but there are other families who say, "I gotta wait and see how this looks," you know? "Let me just wait and see." Um, and I think there's gonna be some level of that, but the other thing I think we're gonna start seeing in the next six months is when we start knowing our, you know, friends and people that we work with or maybe even ourselves losing jobs, you know, to AI and starting... We're gonna start to realize, you know what? We have to prepare our kids-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah
- MPMacKenzie Price
... for a different reality than the one we've grown up and the one your parents were in-
- MMMarina Mogilko
Totally
- MPMacKenzie Price
... and grandparents. And you know, the Industrial Revolution model of education, uh, you know, it's been around for a couple hundred years, and it did a great job of raising factory workers who knew how to follow rules and be obedient and compliant. Um, but I think the world's in for a pretty big wake-up call, and it's one where we don't have to be doomsday about it. I think it can actually be a really exciting place if we're equipping ourselves and our kids with the skills to be successful.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Yeah, being open-minded and trying new things. Thank you so much. This is fascinating. I think this is a conversation I really need to [laughs] 'cause I'd be like, you know, with, uh, this new country, I'm like, "Oh, are they doing the right thing?"
- MPMacKenzie Price
Well, thank you for having me.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Thank you so much.
- MPMacKenzie Price
This was so much fun.
- MMMarina Mogilko
Thank you.
Episode duration: 58:55
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode WOmRB6jNiSU
