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Hey everybody, and welcome to another
episode of React Roundup. This week,

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on our panel, we have Lucas
Heish, Hello for everyone, nat Or

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Davitt Hello, Hello, I'm Charles
max Wood from dev chat dot TV.

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This week we have a special guest
and that's Ben Nelson. Ben, do

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you want to say Hi, Hi, Good morning everyone. Now you're from

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Lambda School, which is kind of
an interesting thing that we're going to talk

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about here in a minute. Are
there other things that people should know about

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you? So? Yeah, I
was a software engineer from Utah and uh

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yeah, I left the ski and
get up in the mountains and but now

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I'm living out here on the Bay
Area. Yeah, Utah. I don't

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know about people from Utah. Awesome. Well, let's jump right in and

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talk a little bit about LAMBA School. I kind of want to make this

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a little bit broader discussion about boot
camps and people getting into code, but

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I think explaining what Lamba School is
and how you guys operate is probably going

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to inform the discussion fairly well.
So do you want to just kind of

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give us an elevator pitch for LAMB
to school and explain why you operate the

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way you do. Yeah. So
I was a lead instructor head of code

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boot Camp part time one for a
while. You know, it was dead

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Mountain and Utah out of their program, and you know they were doing some

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things right, but you know,
part time program it's hard to get people

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up to speed, you know,
in three months, and you know,

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just kind of the boot camp space
in general is trying to address the problem

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of you know, adults trying to
get re educated. And then you know,

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and then there's just companies need more
engineers and boot camps some of them

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are are you know, are pretty
good, and a lot of them,

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you know, not so much.
And we kind of worked backwards from a

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boot camp. I thought, okay, like where are the deficiencies and what's

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really the sweet spot between you know, like a four year you know,

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full on CS degree and you know, in a three month boot camp.

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And that's where we kind of settled
on LAMB to school. So with LAMBA

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School, that's thirty weeks long,
so seven months instead of your typical three

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month model. And then we also
go deeper into computer science fundamentals, so

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it's quite a few more hours,
go a lot more in depth. The

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students get exposure to multiple stacks,
So we tried to make this more more

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in depth, more intense. But
because it's thirty weeks long, you know,

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that's a more expensive course to run. It's difficult to charge more upfront

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for that. So what we did
is we came up with this income Shore

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Agreement model. And what this does
is it our students. They don't pay

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upfront, they pay once they're employed. And it's great too because it's it

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aligns our incentives with our students.
It makes it so people that otherwise wouldn't

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have an opportunity to attend a program
like this. You know, they don't

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need to put a deposit down,
they don't need any upfront money. They

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just need to be willing to work
hard. And we made it online so

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it's live, structured online and have
students all over the United States and we're

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launching in the United Kingdom at the
end of the year. Awesome. That's

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really cool. I don't want you
to bad mouth dev Mountain or anything,

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but it seems like they follow the
traditional boot camp model and that works for

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some folks. But yeah, I
don't know if I completely follow what the

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real issues were, other than maybe
that it was part time for the students

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you were working with, and that
makes it really hard to really focus in

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and get where you need to go
to get a job. Yeah, like

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three months part time. That's it's
just really hard if you don't have you

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know, some type of a technical
background coming into it. And you know,

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we did see quite a bit of
success, you know, students that

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would come through, but it was
a grind, it was it was really

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really hard for the students. But
yeah, it's there. You know.

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The full time program is you know, is much more doable. You mentioned

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that it's online. Is it only
online or is there also like an in

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person part of the Yeah, so
we're one hundred percent online. We started

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to we wanted to be online first. Our company is remote first as well.

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We decided just to own it.
This is something that probably wouldn't have

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been possible, i mean four or
five years ago, but now with Slack

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and zoom like, we slack and
zoom like that's that's our classroom. And

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yeah, it makes it. It
helps with recruiting too, so we're able

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to find great instructors that you maybe
don't want to live in the Bay Area

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anymore, want to be able to
actually own a house, so they move

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back home, and you know,
we're able to find a lot of good

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instructors that way. So that's pretty
interesting. I follow Austin all Read,

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and I guess that you work closely
with him. I'm sure, but he's

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he's like really really good at being
in the social scene. I guess you

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would say, I don't really know
to how to explain it. He seems

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to do a really good job of
getting the word out. And I know

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that I've seen him mention that you
were a part of YC when twenty seventeen,

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Is that right? Yep, yeah, summer seventeen. So like how

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long was Lamba School around before that? And how has that affected Lamba School?

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Yeah, so Austin all Right on
Twitter, Yeah, he's my co

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founder, absolutely brilliant when it comes
to like you know, Twitter and social

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media. I mean, you would
not believe how much value like Twitter has

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brought to our company, just like
with recruiting and you know, finding investors

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and just like positive pr I mean, it's been amazing. But yeah,

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so Austin and I know we both
grew up in a you know, the

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same kind of smaller town at Utah. Anyway, he was out in the

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Bay Area working at land Up and
you know, I've been working at Dedva

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Mountain and he had started up this
online school teaching functional programming. That's where

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Lambda School came from. It was
just like some my little paid class,

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kind of like a you to me
model, and then his co founder at

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the time bailed. But they,
you know, Austin's a brilliant marketer and

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had several thousand people signed up for
a free class that they had going and

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needed somebody to teach it. So
reached out to me, and you know

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and kind of at the drop of
a hat, I was able to jump

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in and teach this Python class that
they were doing. And yeah, so

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we were both working full time jobs
as a software engineer. He was working

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you know, Atlenda doing growth marketing
and and just on the side, we

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built up this This following we get
up to over ten thousand students and these

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just totally free classes we were doing
in the evenings, and yeah, and

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then we started doing some paid classes, some paid upfront classes, and using

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those, you know, that pool
of ten thousand and students that we had,

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we were able to get some of
them to come in and pay upfront

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for some different classes. That we
did, and and you know, got

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enough revenue, were able to bootstrap
it. I was able to quit my

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job go full time on it.
And you know, we both had always

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wanted to do Y Combinator. I
mean, you know, they're they're the

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experts when it comes to starting a
new company. And so as we're going

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through the application process, you know, something we were thinking about was,

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you know, how does this scale
like what we're doing right now? How

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do we take this from just like
a normal boot camp, and how do

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we make it special and unique?
And you know, one of the things

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is online just because we can,
we can scale better and and with technology

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now we can provide a you know, a great experience. You know,

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it could be comparable to being in
a classroom and in many ways better.

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And then the other thing was in
conversations with these thousands of people we had

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in the free classes, trying to
get them to sign up for our paid

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ones. You know, there were
so many people that wanted to do it,

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they just couldn't afford it, and
debt was just way too much risk,

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you know, to take that debt
on and if it doesn't work out,

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they're stuck with debt and That's where
we came into this idea of an

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income shore agreement where we could you
know, increase top of funnel and then

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also it would expand and you know
allow us to help a lot of people

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that wouldn't didn't have these opportunities otherwise. And so those were like the main

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ideas that we pitched when we went
into Y Combinator and said, hey,

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we're going to do this online because
we're flipping the payment model, we can

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make the course longer, be more
of a premium offering and fill it,

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you know, hit kind of a
sweet spot between a boot camp and a

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CS degree, and then we'll use
an income shore agreement that you know,

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incentivizes the school to really perform well
for the students. And yeah, we

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were I think we were kind of
on the bubble. They interviewed us,

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I think twice as many times as
they typically interview you know, A candidate

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brought us in a bunch, decided
to bike. That's so we got in

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and it was a great experience.
That's really cool. Yeah, you mentioned

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the scalability and it's kind of like
when I think of Why Combinator, I

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think of them investing in companies that
have the potential to scale, you know,

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but I don't know if that's always
the case or if that's just my

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perception is wrong. But this doesn't
seem to fit in that category. But

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now that I didn't know you were
online only actually, so now that I

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know that, that kind of makes
a little more sense. But also it

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doesn't do you Do you all have
any other like plans for the company other

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than kind of being a school.
Yeah, so we're starting with software.

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You know. The internal analogy that
we like to use is, you know,

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Amazon started with books because that was
the easy first thing to start with,

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but then eventually we want to branch
out and teach lots of different topics.

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So you know, so so tech
is the is the clear first step

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because there's a proven market there on
both sides. Then you know, nursing

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is something that we're looking at.
There's there's a few others as well.

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Interesting. I kind of want to
dive back into just getting people into programming

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and things like that. I mean, what's your placement rate for people?

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Yeah? So right now, you
know, it fluctuates, and one of

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the nice things about having our our
models you know, incentivized, is that

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it you know, like we don't
get paid if our students don't get jobs,

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and so, you know, so
and we launch it in the very

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beginning too, we made the decision
to launch a new class every month,

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so our classes started overlapping pretty quickly, and what that allowed us to do

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is to quickly iterate. So our
first class, you know, first couple

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of classes, you know, it
was like like eighty three percent was you

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know, it was the very first
one. And then you know, we

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had the sum that were in like
the mid sixties seventies, and so that's

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kind of where it's fluctuating. That
the goal, the main like objective that

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our company is focused on right now
for you know, for this next quarter.

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The big push is you know,
is ninety percent hired in ninety days,

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you know, and that's it's a
bit of a moonshot. And if

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you look at the sir like cr
R like reporting for most like for the

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boot camps that do report there,
you know a lot of them like hack

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Reactor, you know, they're they're
sitting in the mid sixties. So it's

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something that we hired a full time
business development guy who's out there, and

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you know, we have some companies
that have you know that are starting to

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come back for repeat hire. So
you have a couple of companies that have

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hired you know, once hired eight, once hired seven. You know.

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So it's you know, initially there's
there's a little bit of a stigma that

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we have to fight against in our
brand. And it doesn't have any weight

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because you know, boot camp grads
to an ex have been seen as like

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with some companies, you know,
they kind of look down a little better

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the nails up at boot camp grads
and and you know, we get kind

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of lumped into that same category.
And you know, and not all boot

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camps are the same, and so
I don't want to you know, pay

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in the entire industry, as you
know, is a part. It's just

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there's a there's a wide very like
wide scale of quality there and so you

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know, but now we're now we're
beginning to position ourselves as you know,

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on the top end of that,
we're getting repeat hires from companies and you

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know, strong NPS scores. So
yeah, Ben, one question, So

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this is a new education model,
right, and I think that this boot

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camps they sell that they are much
more like hands on right. One thing,

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one thing that we complain A lot
from about universities is that they're very

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like disconnected from the real world,
from the real working world a lot of

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the time. Right, you go
to a university course and like the teachers

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are not in the market, Like
it's disconnected. Right, you leave the

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university and you say, like,
oh, I'm really not prepared to just

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have like a piece of paper.
A lot of this is off course as

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a cartoonistic version of but it's a
real thing. So how can you make

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sure when you are teaching a lot
of people, how can you make sure

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that your course is going to like
be relevant for the years to come.

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Yeah, you know, sometimes like
investors will ask us, like, you

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know, how do your graduates compare
to CUS grads? And you know,

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we we can't compete on the four
years of depth you know that a lot

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of them get and you know,
and we can't teach the same the same

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depth and you know, operating systems
and all that. Like we can do

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a little bit, but really where
our strength is. You know, we

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don't have tenured track research PhDs teaching
our classes. You know, all of

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our instructors are senior level to you
know, to VP level engineers at their

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previous companies that have been working hands
on for you know, I think the

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least experienced one probably has like seven
years of work experience, so it's you

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know, so they're all experienced software
engineers that have actually done it and they've

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used these things in practice, so
that really informs it. But yeah,

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as far as like keeping up to
date with the community, I mean that's

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something that we recruit for. We
make sure that the instructors that we hire

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are you know, that are passionate
involved, the types of people that you

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know, we're contributing the open source
projects, the types of people who are

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going to meetups and you know,
and we pay for them to go to

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conferences and you know, we really
want them to be on the cutting edge

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and cliche term. But but yeah, that's you know that that is actually

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one of the areas where we feel
that we can't compete, you know,

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with CS degrees is that we give
you know, a seven months thirty weeks

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actually comes out to about one year
of college hour wise of focused training on

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relevant skills. Like we work from
the job backwards instead of necessarily starting from

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like a pure like first principles,
bottom up type of approach. Yeah,

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I think you've got a major disadvantage
there hiring these people out of the industry,

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because you know, oh my gosh, you know these these tenured PhDs,

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you know, they have absolutely no
idea what it's like to work in

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the industry. I mean, it's
insane. I got my four year degree

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in computer engineering, and I can
tell you that I had a grand total

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of two professors who had worked out
in the industry. Two. Yeah,

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that's crazy. I mean it was
ridiculous, right, And it's a fairly

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well known university here, and they
do put out good CS grads, and

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you know, I was in the
engineering department, so I got to split

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my time between electoral engineering and computer
science. But still, I mean,

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I don't know, I tend to
see less and less value in the four

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year degree. I mean, it
shows that you have a certain level of

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discipline, you probably know the theory
better than people who are going through the

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boot camps. But I mean it's
insane that they put people through four years

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and then they get out there and
they still have to go through a whole

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bunch of on the job training before
they can actually be really useful to the

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companies. Irom, Yeah, exactly. You know, and ever university is

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different. Like you look at MIT, you know, and they're a lot

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more you know, hands on,
and they're coming out, you know and

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doing multi hagathons things like that.
But like you know, when I was

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studying CS in college too, I
mean my one adjunct professor was the best

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professor I had, you know,
as he was an engineer, you know

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that they brought him to teach.
Yeah, it's it's definitely a mixed bag,

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you know, with when it comes
to universities and trying to stick to

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a static four year model. Like
I'm not sure that you know, that

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makes makes a lot of sense.
I'm not going to you know, totally.

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I don't want to say this,
but like I don't want to like,

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you know, shoot down the whole, like you know, higher education,

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Like you know, that's not bad. And getting his degree is like

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a mark that you know that you
do know some basics and you know how

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to work hard. But but yeah, maybe it's interesting because, like you

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know, the four year degree is
spread across so many different job titles and

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so many different professions. Every profession
is different, and when you look at

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like each one, can you really
in twenty eighteen, lump everyone together and

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a set amount of time for a
set amount of skills, Like, it

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just doesn't really kind of make sense. I think we're going along again with

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like a model that was created a
long time ago. That's kind of just

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in people's heads. It's kind of
the normal thing to do, and that's

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just kind of what they're used to
doing. But I think one of the

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reasons that we're seeing that computer science
is harder to keep up with is just

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because everything changes so fast, and
what we're doing in the real world.

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They might not change. The theory
behind everything might not change, but the

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actual implementation and the abstractions that we
work with and the languages, and then

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to get something new into a computer
science program at a typical university, it's

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a very bureaucratic process. So but
by the time something gets in there,

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it's outdated anyway, you know.
And what you're talking about natter. It's

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funny because I think a lot of
the computer science fundamentals don't change that quickly.

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But I mean, ten years ago, this iPhone was a brand new

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thing, right, you know,
And now we're talking about AR and VR,

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we're talking about IoT, We've got
a zillion different devices that you can

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write software for. I mean,
you can write it for a thermostat and

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a coffee maker. I mean it's
crazy, and so so I think that's

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where we're seeing these things change,
is that, Yeah, the fundamentals of

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good software are generally applicable everywhere,
but I mean they're just they're not teaching

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you at that level. And yeah, like you said, you know,

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by the time they get around to
talking about it even you know, I

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think some universities finally have like a
web development class. Hello, it's not

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the nineties anymore, you know.
But at the same time, I mean,

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you know, yeah, you get
a lot of the fundamentals. You

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spend a lot of time in those
classes. Of course, I also spend

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a ton of time screwing around in
college. But you know, it's just

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interesting. And I wonder a little
bit, too, though, if my

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bias comes out of the fact that
I see boot camp grads. Most of

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them were pretty motivated to even get
involved in one in the first place,

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And so I wonder if you get
a different caliber of people, you know,

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where it's not a twenty year old
who's expected to show up at the

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university and come out of it four
to six years later. Yeah, it

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took me six years to get my
four year degree, you know, versus

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you know people who are like,
look, I need I need a change,

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and they're going in and they're really
motivated to make a career out of

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it. So I don't know.
I mean, I think I have some

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bias here, especially since I don't
feel like my degree really prepared me for

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what I wound up doing. You
know. The flip side is is that

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there is value and for some people
they need kind of the regimented process that

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you go through at a university.
Yeah. Well, and fortunately for you

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too, you know, being in
Utah, you know, you probably didn't

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have much student loan dad, if
any, you know when you finished college,

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and and I didn't have a lot. Yeah, and why is that?

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Well, yeah, I don't know
anything about Utah and all this cool.

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This sounds pretty cool. Yeah.
So I went to a church run

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university and the tuition was comparatively low, to the to the point where I

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could work part time at the university
and pay my tuition most semesters. And

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then I also was on the student
council for the College of Engineering my senior

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year, and that was half tuition, so you know, I found ways

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to make it work. But I
graduated with like four five branding student own

299
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debts all my take on this part. I'm also not a CS graduate,

300
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right, so I don't stop studying. Like sometimes we say that maybe CS

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degrees are not very important things like
that, and it sometimes it sounds like

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you are against knowledge, But like
the fundamentals the theory, it's not that,

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Like I don't stop studying. I
study every day. But I believe

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that the order of putting EU into
the workplace first and the fundamentals coming after,

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Like I think that's an order that
I think makes more sense. Most

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of those fundamentals, you're just like
they're just thrown at you when you're like

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nineteen twenty years old. You don't
know, like you don't know why why

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those things are for After like one, two, three years working with the

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database, and then you start making
questions, then you start to let me

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understand this a little bit, like
oh, now I see like one year

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working with like Docker and then you're
like, oh, how does os like

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actually works? I think this is
a much richer knowledge in the end of

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the day, Like when you put
the practice before the theory. That means

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that usually you see you feel the
problems before actually looking at the solutions.

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You know, are throwing like a
bunch of solutions, and then you go

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to the world you find some problems, try to apply some of that.

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So I like this order of putting
people like to work work knowledge go there

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like this is web dev. You're
learning JavaScript, react and stuff, and

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then after you are working for one
year is like how does this GPU thing?

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I'm doing? Csays like what is
a GPU? And then you start

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for that. I think that it's
Uh, every time I learned theory after

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like understanding what problem I'm actually trying
to solve what problem? Did like generate

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that theory? I think I learned
much better than the other way. Yeah,

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I think that's fair. I mean
I took operating systems classes, and

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yeah, I know how the operating
system works because of that, or at

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least parts of it where I just
never used it in my web development career.

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So that's fair. And the universities
are where they're doing a lot of

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the research that informs the field going
forward, so there are definitely things to

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be said about that. Yeah,
like so something that like, So that's

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that's exactly what we focus on a
land to school, Like we start with

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you know, we start with a
script, but then they learn front end

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web development, so they're you know, they're they're working on things that are

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interactive, that are visual, and
that is that is so much easier for

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a new student to get into and
enjoy. And then you know, and

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then we teach big O and data
structures you know, three months later,

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you know, once they've you know, got in and the understand it and

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they're not confused about you know,
like you know, the all the different

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syntax and you know, and stuff
like that, and it definitely works a

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lot, you know, a lot
better for our students work with that model,

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you know. And the other thing
to look at. Something that you

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know, I like to tell people
is is if somebody were to come through

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and do the seven month Flama School
program and you know, and then let's

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say it takes them, you know, five months to get a job,

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you know, and that's that's like
below average you know, for five months.

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But so they come to the program, they get into a job,

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and then we add on three years
of work experience. So now you know,

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take that student after that four year
period, compare them to a CS

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degree. You know, I have
three years of paid experience. You know,

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you didn't have any student loan debt, and I mean you had your

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income. Sure, that's all paid
off and done by then, you know,

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And they compare that to someone who's
just now finishing with a CS degree.

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Maybe you didn't get the same social
experiences and all that, and maybe

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so maybe this isn't appropriate for an
eighteen year old, if that's what you're

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looking to get out of it,
But for an adult who's trying to get

355
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into a new career. I mean
it's you know, you're miles ahead.

356
00:21:41.079 --> 00:21:45.200
Oh yeah, that's completely that's a
completely interesting take on this. I haven't

357
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really thought of it that way,
but when you put it in, when

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you frame it that way, and
it's actually absolutely true, that's kind of

359
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what is going to happen. You're
right, that's there's no comparison, especially

360
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taking into consideration in the student lene
that that people have these days. Yeah,

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I mean we've kind of been talking
about college degree versus boot camp,

362
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and you know, and I've kind
of been negative about the college degree,

363
00:22:07.319 --> 00:22:10.079
but I think I think it does
have a place. I want to change

364
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tactics a little bit though, and
I want to talk a little bit more

365
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about just people coming into the field. So who do you see applying to

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the boot camps? I mean,
is it generally you know, twenty somethings

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that decided not to go to college
and then it's like, you know what,

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I don't want to be an auto
mechanic or something. Or maybe they

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did get in a great degree and
figured out they didn't want to be an

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accountant or a lawyer. Or are
you seeing people that are a little bit

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older, you know, that have
already had a career, or retirees that

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are trying to have a second career. I mean, who are you seeing

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come at you? Yeah, so
it's a mixed bag. So we see

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a little bit of everything. It's
pretty concentrated around people who got into their

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career like they've been working for you
know, five ten years, they don't

376
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like what they're doing and you know, and they want to switch. So

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you know, you get you know, smart people that you know, maybe

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they're doing construction and they don't like
doing that anymore and they want to get

379
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into offer engineering, you know,
they you know, or there's people who

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you know, they studied finance in
college. And you know, and they

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hate their life now, you know, and you know, working a finance

382
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job, and so you want to
switch it. Like you get some of

383
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that, you know, but yeah, we get we get some college students

384
00:23:12.559 --> 00:23:15.119
you know that come and do this, you know, instead of college or

385
00:23:15.160 --> 00:23:18.119
well, they'll what often happens is
they'll take a semester off to our course

386
00:23:18.160 --> 00:23:22.559
and then they never go back because
then they're employed. Interesting seeing that happen

387
00:23:22.599 --> 00:23:26.839
a couple of times. But yeah, it's it's more definitely more adult,

388
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you know, retraining, and eventually
our marketing focus and I think will shift

389
00:23:30.640 --> 00:23:34.279
to uh, you know, trying
to to leave more students away from you

390
00:23:34.319 --> 00:23:38.119
know, from universities more that demographic. But but the nice thing though about

391
00:23:38.200 --> 00:23:42.359
older people who have families who you
know, like work in their construction job.

392
00:23:42.759 --> 00:23:47.200
You know, they you know,
they're desperate and and they you know,

393
00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:49.279
are hungry, and they're willing to
work hard and you know, extremely

394
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motivated. You know, we had
this guy recently who you know, twenty

395
00:23:52.680 --> 00:23:56.359
thousand dollars is you know what he
was making. You know, he comes

396
00:23:56.400 --> 00:24:00.759
through the line of school program,
you know, nine months later he's making

397
00:24:00.200 --> 00:24:03.079
it was like eighty five k and
you know, we just nem we're talking

398
00:24:03.079 --> 00:24:07.880
to him and he was just you
know, crying how and saying how his

399
00:24:07.039 --> 00:24:10.680
daughter could have her own bedroom now, you know, and it was just

400
00:24:10.759 --> 00:24:14.279
it's just really cool to see this
this upward mobility that we're facilitating for a

401
00:24:14.319 --> 00:24:17.480
lot of these people that you know, that don't have a strong or just

402
00:24:17.519 --> 00:24:21.319
you know, didn't make the right
career choices early on. And you know,

403
00:24:21.319 --> 00:24:22.720
so we get a lot of that
people that are you know a little

404
00:24:22.720 --> 00:24:26.640
further on it, that want to
shift and do something better. That makes

405
00:24:26.680 --> 00:24:30.680
sense. How many students are you
able to take on every however long it

406
00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:33.920
takes people to get through your program. Yeah, So our philosophy is,

407
00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:37.640
I mean, so you look at
Stanford, Mit, Harvard, you know,

408
00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:45.160
Berkeley nir CS programs. That's a
lot of the value comes from the

409
00:24:45.799 --> 00:24:48.480
gating and the filtering, and so
they get this positive selection bias where they

410
00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:52.319
have you know, all the top
students that apply, they skim the top

411
00:24:52.359 --> 00:24:55.119
off that and you know, and
so some of the value comes from from

412
00:24:55.240 --> 00:24:57.119
you know, closing that gate.
You know, we don't want to operate

413
00:24:57.119 --> 00:25:00.920
in that capacity, so we set
a ibar and a high standard and then

414
00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:04.599
we're willing to take everyone who can
reach that. Because we're online, we

415
00:25:04.599 --> 00:25:07.319
don't have to buy new buildings.
We just have to hire new teachers.

416
00:25:07.720 --> 00:25:11.559
And so if we have an extra
large class that's coming up, we'll divide

417
00:25:11.559 --> 00:25:15.119
it out into sections, make sure
we have another teacher that's hired you know,

418
00:25:15.240 --> 00:25:18.960
higher additional tas, et cetera.
So we can be flexible on the

419
00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:22.720
staffing. But really it's like we
set a standard and then we try to

420
00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:25.440
get as many people above that high
standard as possible. Will be like as

421
00:25:25.480 --> 00:25:29.559
Stanford said, everybody with you know, a thirty act you know, and

422
00:25:29.559 --> 00:25:32.880
a three point a GPA can come
now, and then we'll just make room,

423
00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:36.720
you know, like like without sacrificing
quality, you know, but but

424
00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:40.000
you know, adapt to to make
sure that endrom can get in. So

425
00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:41.599
that's more of our aproaches. We
spend a lot of time and money training

426
00:25:41.640 --> 00:25:45.599
people before the course to get them
to where they can meet our standards to

427
00:25:45.759 --> 00:25:48.440
enter. Right now, we we
only accept about five percent of applicants just

428
00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:52.599
because we do have pretty high standards
and most people just get bored of it

429
00:25:52.880 --> 00:25:56.279
or you know, or give up
before they before they reach that point.

430
00:25:56.519 --> 00:26:00.000
Because it's it's a lot of work. It's kind of like the first cuss

431
00:26:00.240 --> 00:26:03.960
in college. It's it's kind of
like that amount of work and difficulty before

432
00:26:03.960 --> 00:26:06.160
you can get in, you know, and that may change going forward,

433
00:26:06.240 --> 00:26:08.319
but that's that's our approach right now. That makes sense. I wonder a

434
00:26:08.359 --> 00:26:12.359
little bit what the differences are between
like a fully online boot camp like yours

435
00:26:12.920 --> 00:26:17.480
versus you know, dev Mountain where
they actually show up to a building and

436
00:26:17.519 --> 00:26:21.240
sit in the desk and have in
person instruction. Do you think there's some

437
00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:23.640
trade offs there? Yeah, there's
pros and cons for sure. You know.

438
00:26:23.759 --> 00:26:27.680
So there's you know, a creative
energy that you experience, you know

439
00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:32.279
when you're in the same room with
people that you know that's really hard to

440
00:26:32.359 --> 00:26:34.680
duplicate online, you know. And
yeah, yeah that you know, there's

441
00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:37.920
some of that magic that you know
that you miss out on. But in

442
00:26:37.960 --> 00:26:41.359
some ways, you know, by
doing it online, I mean there's a

443
00:26:41.400 --> 00:26:44.599
lot of really convenient things that we
can do. You know, lectures are

444
00:26:44.799 --> 00:26:47.559
you know, it's easy to record
lectures and content and so students can go

445
00:26:47.599 --> 00:26:52.759
back and review everything because it's online, you know, they have access to

446
00:26:52.880 --> 00:26:55.839
a to a larger community, you
know, that they're that they're baked into,

447
00:26:55.920 --> 00:26:56.880
you know, right from the very
beginning, and so you know,

448
00:26:56.960 --> 00:27:00.279
so so they get a lot of
positive interactions that way. But yeah,

449
00:27:00.319 --> 00:27:03.200
you know, there are some trade
off. There's a lot of efficiencies that

450
00:27:03.240 --> 00:27:04.240
we gain, you know, from
doing it online. But yeah, there

451
00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:07.920
is some stuff that you miss.
But I think overalls technology improves I think

452
00:27:07.920 --> 00:27:11.480
the cons will be minimized. But
yeah, I'm kind of curious about the

453
00:27:11.480 --> 00:27:15.799
curriculum. I know that you say
you focus on kind of what companies are

454
00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:19.119
hiring for, but is there just
a set curriculum that everyone kind of uses

455
00:27:19.240 --> 00:27:23.599
every semester or whatever kind of however
you group your students. I'm not sure

456
00:27:23.640 --> 00:27:26.920
if you do that by semester,
but like, how do you come up

457
00:27:26.960 --> 00:27:30.359
with that curriculum and how often is
that curriculum revamped? And I'm also kind

458
00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:33.799
of curious what you are teaching right
now too. Yeah, so right now

459
00:27:33.799 --> 00:27:38.599
we're teaching full stack web development,
iOS development, Android development, data science,

460
00:27:38.680 --> 00:27:44.319
and UX design And so those are
those are the five different courses that

461
00:27:44.319 --> 00:27:47.759
we have. Those are all separate
courses. Yeah, all separate courses with

462
00:27:47.880 --> 00:27:51.839
different faculties. And yeah, so
we work backwards from hiring partners. So

463
00:27:51.920 --> 00:27:53.920
for example, I mean this is
something like this week, we have a

464
00:27:53.920 --> 00:27:59.759
lot of hiring partners that are willing
to very interested in well committing to hiring

465
00:27:59.799 --> 00:28:03.880
a significant number of our graduates if
we can spin up Java portion of the

466
00:28:03.920 --> 00:28:07.160
course. And so now we're looking
at you know, a Java track you

467
00:28:07.240 --> 00:28:10.519
know that will fit in with like
the full stack Web development course, and

468
00:28:10.920 --> 00:28:12.119
you know, we try to keep
them, you know, a pulse on

469
00:28:12.119 --> 00:28:15.839
on, you know, what's what's
happening, and you know what needs to

470
00:28:15.839 --> 00:28:18.759
be taught. So right now with
our full stack web course, it's full

471
00:28:18.799 --> 00:28:22.160
stake JavaScript initially, you know,
so we teach React, we do reducts,

472
00:28:22.519 --> 00:28:25.200
you know, the twenty tools to
go along with that, you know,

473
00:28:25.279 --> 00:28:27.319
and then node express on the back
end, that's the first thing.

474
00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:32.240
And then uh, and then we
do teach Mango. But then we you

475
00:28:32.279 --> 00:28:34.000
know, so that's that's kind of
you know, standard boot camp fare.

476
00:28:34.519 --> 00:28:38.359
Then after that we move in and
we teach Python Postgress and uh, you

477
00:28:38.400 --> 00:28:41.240
know, to teach a different back
end because that's something that there's a lot

478
00:28:41.279 --> 00:28:44.559
of different You're not going to see
a ton of variation on the front end.

479
00:28:44.599 --> 00:28:45.599
I mean, okay, like maybe
view or react, you know,

480
00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:48.920
or maybe like it's an older angular
thing, but like that's a little more

481
00:28:48.920 --> 00:28:52.079
consistent. But on the back end, like there's just pretty wide, you

482
00:28:52.119 --> 00:28:55.880
know, flavors of languages that you
can encounter, and so we try to

483
00:28:55.880 --> 00:29:00.000
give them a totally different, you
know stack, so they're exposed to something

484
00:29:00.119 --> 00:29:02.559
is very different. Yeah, and
then and then it's and then we go

485
00:29:02.599 --> 00:29:06.720
through a CS fundamentals after that,
and so computer architecture and operating systems and

486
00:29:06.759 --> 00:29:11.400
you know, data structures and algorithms
and networking even you know, they learned

487
00:29:11.440 --> 00:29:15.359
CE at that point and so they
they dabble on that to give them some

488
00:29:15.400 --> 00:29:18.759
more technical depth. Also heavily project
focused, so when they finish up with

489
00:29:18.799 --> 00:29:22.920
that, they're working on team like
projects and so by the end of the

490
00:29:22.960 --> 00:29:29.720
course, it's they have five or
six hosted projects that they've worked on collaboratively

491
00:29:29.759 --> 00:29:33.039
and that's and that's really where everything
gets solidified, and that's what helps get

492
00:29:33.039 --> 00:29:36.400
their foot in the door with with
hiring partners. So with LAMB, the

493
00:29:36.440 --> 00:29:38.200
school kind of paying the way for
them to kind of get in there,

494
00:29:38.240 --> 00:29:41.799
and then after they graduate, they
pay their way. What happens when someone

495
00:29:41.920 --> 00:29:45.079
like starts and they drop out,
are they accountable for that? And how

496
00:29:45.119 --> 00:29:48.200
do you kind of vet people to
kind of get the type of people that

497
00:29:48.240 --> 00:29:53.440
wouldn't drop out. Yeah, So
when we first got started, the thing

498
00:29:53.480 --> 00:29:56.000
that people thought would kill us as
drop out rates, you know, that

499
00:29:56.079 --> 00:29:59.920
was the first big hurdle we had
to overcome, you know, And initially

500
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:02.839
we had pretty high drop rates.
I mean we had you know, like

501
00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:07.200
forty percent you know in one of
our classes. And just because it's hard

502
00:30:07.240 --> 00:30:10.279
and you can close your computer and
walk away two different things we're doing.

503
00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:12.759
We use a master based progression system
now, so if a student, if

504
00:30:12.759 --> 00:30:15.519
they don't master, like if they
don't score eighty percent or higher on a

505
00:30:15.839 --> 00:30:19.920
week, then then they repeat that
week. And so then the idea is

506
00:30:19.960 --> 00:30:25.559
that nobody finishes the course unless they
have mastered and like badged on every single

507
00:30:25.559 --> 00:30:27.839
topic that we teach. And this
makes it so students that normally would get

508
00:30:27.839 --> 00:30:32.440
overwhelmed and get behind, they get
a repeat a few times maybe on something

509
00:30:32.440 --> 00:30:34.440
that they struggle with, and students
love it, you know. And that's

510
00:30:34.519 --> 00:30:38.119
so now our dropout rate is now
below ten percent, but I mean five

511
00:30:38.160 --> 00:30:41.400
percent for some of our classes.
But yeah, so with the actual income

512
00:30:41.400 --> 00:30:45.359
Store agreement. In those terms,
they have like a grace period in the

513
00:30:45.400 --> 00:30:47.720
beginning where they can drop out,
you know, for no penalty. I

514
00:30:47.759 --> 00:30:49.160
think it recently changed. I don't. It's like two to four weeks or

515
00:30:49.200 --> 00:30:53.079
something like that. Initially after that, for every week they stay on,

516
00:30:53.240 --> 00:31:00.160
they would owe a pro rated amount
stayed on for two months, they know,

517
00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:03.960
like part of the Income Sure agreement, not the full amount. Once

518
00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:07.559
they've been going full time for for
over fifteen weeks, then then they're bound

519
00:31:07.599 --> 00:31:11.319
at the entire Income Sure agreement if
they drop out. I mean it's they're

520
00:31:11.359 --> 00:31:15.200
only paying if they are making fifty
thousand dollars or more, you know,

521
00:31:15.240 --> 00:31:18.039
in a job that relates to the
skills we taught. So I mean a

522
00:31:18.039 --> 00:31:21.240
lot of people that do drop out, they're going back to their construction job

523
00:31:21.319 --> 00:31:22.480
or something like that. So it's
you know, so they're they're not going

524
00:31:22.519 --> 00:31:26.480
to be on the hook anyway.
But yeah, so where do people get

525
00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:30.119
stuck then? I mean, at
what point do people drop out or you

526
00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:37.720
know that they start reducs. It
changes and and uh that's something that we

527
00:31:37.759 --> 00:31:40.599
look at. I mean, like
maybe we have an instructor you know that

528
00:31:40.680 --> 00:31:42.599
isn't doing a good job. So
like we had you know, an instructor

529
00:31:42.599 --> 00:31:45.400
that we let go, you know, and and the impact on that week,

530
00:31:45.440 --> 00:31:48.279
you know, you can see the
you know, the drop out rate

531
00:31:48.440 --> 00:31:51.799
bump up a little bit, you
know, compared to normal or maybe there's

532
00:31:51.880 --> 00:31:55.160
a certain lesson, you know,
So like reducs is one that we had

533
00:31:55.160 --> 00:31:57.039
to like, you know, really
look at and figure out how to simply

534
00:31:57.119 --> 00:32:00.880
react as well. Like the first
they hit react because going just from like

535
00:32:00.960 --> 00:32:05.920
JavaScript basing on CSS right and to
react, it's pretty steep for somebody coming

536
00:32:05.920 --> 00:32:08.799
from from zero, and so that's
something we had to like simplify, spread

537
00:32:08.799 --> 00:32:12.559
it out over a few more days, you know, take a few things

538
00:32:12.599 --> 00:32:15.319
out and like move to later in
the course and like react, redecks.

539
00:32:15.359 --> 00:32:19.359
Those are some some gatekeepers. And
by the time we got to the really

540
00:32:19.359 --> 00:32:21.519
hard stuff at the end of the
course like that, they were like,

541
00:32:22.200 --> 00:32:25.880
you know, battle proven by that
point and willing to stick it out because

542
00:32:25.920 --> 00:32:29.920
it's it's a different type of model
too, because it's it's full time,

543
00:32:30.079 --> 00:32:32.000
all day, you know, focused
on this stuff, and so it's,

544
00:32:32.119 --> 00:32:36.799
uh, you know, it's it's
pretty intense and it gets a little overwhelming

545
00:32:36.839 --> 00:32:37.559
to keep up with them. So
we have to you know, provide a

546
00:32:37.599 --> 00:32:42.759
lot of emotional support and coach our
students. Yeah. I found this subject

547
00:32:42.759 --> 00:32:47.000
really interesting actually because like I live
in Mississippi and i've actually I started a

548
00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:52.400
cutting school here about five years ago
called Code South Lapse and I ran up

549
00:32:52.400 --> 00:32:53.720
for about two and a half for
three years, and it never really went

550
00:32:53.720 --> 00:33:00.720
anywhere. But we did JavaScript,
the PHP we did I think we did

551
00:33:00.759 --> 00:33:02.839
Angular one back then, and we
did a little bit of React Native towards

552
00:33:02.880 --> 00:33:07.160
the end when it was just coming
out. And we never really were able

553
00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:10.000
to kind of get the number of
people to come. And we even did

554
00:33:10.079 --> 00:33:15.359
free classes and we would still only
have like three or four people. And

555
00:33:15.400 --> 00:33:17.480
I think the problem was that we
were in Mississippi, first of all,

556
00:33:17.519 --> 00:33:22.680
and there just aren't that many people
here that were solved opportunity in and I

557
00:33:22.680 --> 00:33:25.720
guess, but also, you know, scaling it is not an easy thing

558
00:33:25.759 --> 00:33:30.240
to do. Like if you're in
New York or San Francisco, you might

559
00:33:30.279 --> 00:33:34.559
have quite a few people to kind
of pick from a pool of people there.

560
00:33:34.599 --> 00:33:37.519
But the fact that you're virtual kind
of is a really really interesting take.

561
00:33:37.880 --> 00:33:42.160
And I assume that you all kind
of had to overcome a lot of

562
00:33:42.599 --> 00:33:45.559
or solve a lot of new challenges
that hadn't been solved before. I guess.

563
00:33:45.799 --> 00:33:47.880
I know a lot of companies have
attempted to do kind of like virtual

564
00:33:49.319 --> 00:33:52.559
online classroom training, but when you're
working with this type of you know,

565
00:33:52.599 --> 00:33:58.119
when you're working with computer science and
programming, a lot of the answers that

566
00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:01.160
I've been able to get that have
been like from working directly with someone.

567
00:34:01.440 --> 00:34:06.559
So I'm kind of curious, like
what big hurdles that you've had to overcome

568
00:34:06.599 --> 00:34:10.280
to kind of fone tune that the
training model or the actual teaching model to

569
00:34:10.360 --> 00:34:15.199
kind of get people to the point
where they were able to learn and interact

570
00:34:15.239 --> 00:34:21.360
with the instructors without overwhelming the instructors. It's a totally different type of experience,

571
00:34:21.400 --> 00:34:22.800
and there was a lot of a
lot of experimentation that we had to

572
00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:25.559
do. And yeah, and I
mean it's, uh, you know,

573
00:34:25.599 --> 00:34:29.239
one big problem after another, you
know, and that's that's our life right

574
00:34:29.239 --> 00:34:31.480
now, you know, starting in
business. But you know, like yeah,

575
00:34:31.519 --> 00:34:35.280
like so drop out rates that was
one of the big ones. And

576
00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:38.360
yeah, okay, so I mean
the very first big problem was growth and

577
00:34:38.599 --> 00:34:40.800
you know, how do we get
people in seats? Can we prove that

578
00:34:40.840 --> 00:34:44.280
we can you know, find demand
for this, and you know that's the

579
00:34:44.360 --> 00:34:45.840
very first problem that needed to be
solved. And you know the way that

580
00:34:45.880 --> 00:34:49.920
we did it was you know,
through social media, you know, so

581
00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:52.639
we would the guy who runs free
code camp was really nice. He let

582
00:34:52.719 --> 00:34:57.039
us post for our free our free
courses and a lot of their groups.

583
00:34:57.559 --> 00:34:59.519
So we had a lot of people
that signed up for that to you know,

584
00:34:59.519 --> 00:35:02.000
to get our free content. The
uh you know Reddit, uh,

585
00:35:02.199 --> 00:35:05.719
you know, it can be hit
it can be kind of a pretty vicious

586
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:10.000
group in there. But but the
learned Programming subreddit, you know, we

587
00:35:10.360 --> 00:35:15.360
we posted a lot of our of
our free courses in there and we're able

588
00:35:15.360 --> 00:35:16.320
to get a lot of people centered
from there. So like it was like

589
00:35:16.400 --> 00:35:21.800
finding the right online communities that matched
and like overlap with what we were doing.

590
00:35:22.239 --> 00:35:24.440
And you know, that helps us
get people in seats, and then

591
00:35:24.880 --> 00:35:29.920
the income Sure agreement helps us get
them to commit to you know, potentially

592
00:35:29.920 --> 00:35:32.280
paying us at some point with the
drop out rates. One of the big

593
00:35:32.320 --> 00:35:36.000
things that we had to had to
worry about was the thing that solved that

594
00:35:36.119 --> 00:35:40.280
is the accountability. But then's we
you know, kind of suck when it

595
00:35:40.280 --> 00:35:43.320
comes to you know, self discipline, and you know, and there's that

596
00:35:43.480 --> 00:35:45.960
like you know entropy, you know, towards towards laziness. That's you know

597
00:35:45.960 --> 00:35:50.159
that it's inherent and everyone in And
so we had to bake in a lot

598
00:35:50.199 --> 00:35:54.840
of mechanisms to to really help people
stay on task and be focused when they're

599
00:35:54.880 --> 00:36:00.119
alone at the computer and command tee
and enter and they're on Netflix, you

600
00:36:00.159 --> 00:36:04.679
know, and so we have so
we have to like take attendance. You

601
00:36:04.719 --> 00:36:07.719
know, we create all their assignments. They're meeting with thas you know throughout

602
00:36:07.760 --> 00:36:10.079
the day. So we have a
lot of thas. We keep them you

603
00:36:10.119 --> 00:36:14.639
know, really tight ratio on that
so they can you know, more hands

604
00:36:14.639 --> 00:36:17.320
on help there. And then we
block in you know, face to face

605
00:36:17.360 --> 00:36:21.000
time where they're supposed to be in
there see you know, at beginning,

606
00:36:21.119 --> 00:36:22.960
middle, end of day, you
know, things like that to you know,

607
00:36:23.039 --> 00:36:25.840
help them stay there and you know, and and then yeah, with

608
00:36:25.840 --> 00:36:30.320
the tight like attendance tracking, so
like if they miss a class, you

609
00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:32.239
know, or miss part of the
day, we have a student success person

610
00:36:32.239 --> 00:36:35.599
who like reaches out and was like, hey, like you know, ore,

611
00:36:35.639 --> 00:36:37.760
you know class, we didn't have
know that you were going to be

612
00:36:37.800 --> 00:36:40.559
gone, like just so they feel
that that they're noticed, and then you

613
00:36:40.599 --> 00:36:44.199
know, facilitating a positive community.
Like those have been the big things.

614
00:36:44.519 --> 00:36:46.360
The next big one that we're working
on now is just you know, proving

615
00:36:46.400 --> 00:36:51.719
to employers that are graduates are worth
hiring. And we're seeing a lot of

616
00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:54.159
moments in there and a lot of
positive signals and and that's so that's like

617
00:36:54.199 --> 00:36:58.239
the new the new, not the
new, but that's the next like big

618
00:36:58.280 --> 00:37:00.360
thing that you know that we're we're
in the middle of right now is you

619
00:37:00.360 --> 00:37:05.000
know, showing that the Alanda School
graduate is worth hiring and that they can

620
00:37:05.039 --> 00:37:07.519
be a good software engineer. So
I know some of your instructors. I

621
00:37:07.599 --> 00:37:13.960
met an instructor named Luis Yeah Provo
at Framework Summit. I don't know what

622
00:37:14.039 --> 00:37:19.159
course he teaches, but he was
really nice. And then Andrew Madison teaches

623
00:37:19.320 --> 00:37:22.960
your iOS one of your iOS courses, and I know he used to work

624
00:37:22.960 --> 00:37:29.960
for dev Mountain YEP, and he's
one of our panelists on our iOS development

625
00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:32.599
show on dev chat dot TV.
How do you find these folks? How

626
00:37:32.599 --> 00:37:37.719
do you go about And it seems
like you have some ties heer to Utah

627
00:37:37.360 --> 00:37:39.719
because both those guys live here in
Utah, But yeah, how do you

628
00:37:39.719 --> 00:37:43.559
find your instructors? How do you
qualify him? Yeah, I mean,

629
00:37:44.039 --> 00:37:45.760
you know, a lot of it's
been through our network, you know,

630
00:37:45.800 --> 00:37:49.239
in the early days. But then
yeah, like the Hacker news, you

631
00:37:49.280 --> 00:37:52.639
know who's hiring, you know,
just job housing is Twitter. It's like

632
00:37:52.679 --> 00:37:54.480
Austin's Twitter. We get a lot
of you know, job applications that come

633
00:37:54.519 --> 00:38:00.159
through, like tweeting open positions through
that. We started out being for the

634
00:38:00.239 --> 00:38:01.800
Utah based I mean about twenty five
percent of our company is based out of

635
00:38:01.920 --> 00:38:07.920
Utah just because so so Caleb Hicks, who was also over the iOS program

636
00:38:07.960 --> 00:38:13.239
that in so the iOS program,
you know that that was pretty incredible.

637
00:38:13.960 --> 00:38:15.920
It dead mountain and they had amazing
results and you know, and was doing

638
00:38:15.920 --> 00:38:19.239
really well. And several of them, you know I have moved on and

639
00:38:19.239 --> 00:38:21.599
there now they're working for us.
The nice thing is, you know,

640
00:38:21.639 --> 00:38:24.199
we're remote, so like we have
engineers that are just off in the boonies.

641
00:38:24.519 --> 00:38:27.320
You know, a guy used to
or for Google that you know,

642
00:38:27.480 --> 00:38:30.960
lives in you know, a real
place up in Oregon. And it helps

643
00:38:30.960 --> 00:38:34.000
that we can recruit from anywhere.
You know. We pay good salaries,

644
00:38:34.480 --> 00:38:37.400
but it's anyway people can actually own
a home because they are not in the

645
00:38:37.400 --> 00:38:42.199
Bay area. Makes sense. Yeah, Utah. I mean, I'm always

646
00:38:42.239 --> 00:38:46.239
amazed that the number of people that
like are really good at selfware development that

647
00:38:46.280 --> 00:38:50.519
come out of Utah. It's kind
of crazy, actually, Like even the

648
00:38:50.519 --> 00:38:52.920
people I meet in San Francisco a
lot of times from Utah. It's a

649
00:38:52.960 --> 00:38:57.960
growing market, It's yeah, kind
of funny. Yeah, it's definitely interesting.

650
00:38:58.000 --> 00:39:00.440
And we're seeing companies either move out
here, open satellite offices out here

651
00:39:00.440 --> 00:39:05.320
too, from the Bay area.
So it's it's definitely an interesting market and

652
00:39:05.360 --> 00:39:08.400
a growing market. But you can
drive down the freeway and you'll see signs

653
00:39:08.440 --> 00:39:15.119
for HP and Disney and stuff,
and those are all you know, technical

654
00:39:15.480 --> 00:39:20.119
programming jobs. So yeah, something
interesting. So with you being in Missouri,

655
00:39:20.440 --> 00:39:23.480
Oh, Mississippi, I'm sorry.
Something that we were concerned about initially

656
00:39:23.639 --> 00:39:29.159
is like placement. So like with
as it relates to geography, so like,

657
00:39:29.760 --> 00:39:31.719
you know, somebody who's in like, you know, North Dakota,

658
00:39:31.760 --> 00:39:35.320
like, are they going to be
able to get a development job, you

659
00:39:35.360 --> 00:39:37.159
know, and is that going to
be is that going to be an issue?

660
00:39:37.920 --> 00:39:40.840
And what we found is that the
graduates that we have in more rural

661
00:39:40.840 --> 00:39:45.639
communities oftentimes have an easier time finding
a job than the people in the Bay

662
00:39:45.679 --> 00:39:50.119
Area or in New York and because
they have a much less competitive labor market.

663
00:39:50.239 --> 00:39:52.400
So, you know, Kroger out
in Tennessee, you know, they

664
00:39:52.400 --> 00:39:55.599
need to hire a bunch of software
engineers, you know, and there's there's

665
00:39:55.639 --> 00:40:00.239
not a large talent pole to draw
from, and so so that the person

666
00:40:00.280 --> 00:40:04.079
that we have there gets snatched up
really quick. And we've seen that a

667
00:40:04.119 --> 00:40:07.079
lot, and there's and quite a
few companies are willing to pay for relocation

668
00:40:07.199 --> 00:40:10.519
too. But that was something that
was that was interesting. We didn't expect

669
00:40:10.519 --> 00:40:15.760
that. But the rural students actually
have a pretty good it's a little easier

670
00:40:15.760 --> 00:40:19.159
for them to get jobs. Actually
that's spot on. There's so many people

671
00:40:19.280 --> 00:40:22.320
hiring here but in Mississippi. But
the problem is there just aren't any people

672
00:40:22.360 --> 00:40:27.000
that grow up here that are in
this industry. So like a lot of

673
00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:30.159
times they'll bring people from out of
state to fill these positions or they'll just

674
00:40:30.199 --> 00:40:34.719
go and feel like it's really it's
really interesting, like if you if you

675
00:40:34.800 --> 00:40:37.559
move here and you kind of you
can live here and you're you know,

676
00:40:37.559 --> 00:40:40.039
you have the very low cost of
living. You won't have a problem finding

677
00:40:40.039 --> 00:40:45.280
a job. But the problem is
you may have not even become into this

678
00:40:45.360 --> 00:40:47.559
industry if you're from here's the problem. So yeah, having a school like

679
00:40:47.599 --> 00:40:52.159
this is really cool. All right, Well, is there anything else that

680
00:40:52.239 --> 00:40:54.920
we should jump on talking about this
stuff? If people want to apply to

681
00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:00.000
lamb to school, where do they
go? I go to lambdaschool dot com.

682
00:40:59.679 --> 00:41:02.239
I want to be an instructor.
Yeah, we have a careers page

683
00:41:02.679 --> 00:41:06.800
at landa school dot com as well. So yeah, I know we have

684
00:41:06.840 --> 00:41:08.440
a lot of engineers listening to this. You know, we're looking at higre

685
00:41:08.440 --> 00:41:12.119
a bunch of engineers. We're actually
looking at hiring or hiring software engineers,

686
00:41:12.159 --> 00:41:15.480
and we're hiring instructors. We are
launching in the United Kingdom, so if

687
00:41:15.480 --> 00:41:19.639
there's anybody listening, especially who's willing
to work out of the United Kingdom or

688
00:41:19.679 --> 00:41:22.800
that time zone. Yeah, we're
looking for a program director right there,

689
00:41:22.880 --> 00:41:24.400
right now. Awesome? All right, Well, let's go ahead and do

690
00:41:24.440 --> 00:41:28.920
some picks, Lucas, you have
some picks for us, all right?

691
00:41:29.119 --> 00:41:32.920
I have a pick today. It's
not only a technology, because I'm pretty

692
00:41:32.920 --> 00:41:37.679
sure you are ready chose this technology
as a pick. But also a practice.

693
00:41:37.159 --> 00:41:43.360
So I've been using Cyprus a lot
lately and I've been using it as

694
00:41:43.400 --> 00:41:49.239
a development environment for me, like
working with front end. So this is

695
00:41:49.280 --> 00:41:52.159
my peak today. Like usually we
when we are developing a new feature,

696
00:41:52.239 --> 00:41:55.719
we are like changing code. It
hot reloads, and we go to the

697
00:41:55.760 --> 00:42:00.559
browser, like play a little bit, see if it's all ready what we

698
00:42:00.639 --> 00:42:04.159
want, go back to the code. Then after it's done, we're going

699
00:42:04.199 --> 00:42:07.079
to write our integration tests. So
what I'm doing is that I'm almost doing

700
00:42:07.199 --> 00:42:14.239
like a TDD with integration tests now. So in this new project I'm working,

701
00:42:14.280 --> 00:42:20.119
now, we set up a Cypress
so I create the Cypress script to

702
00:42:20.400 --> 00:42:24.000
pilot the browser as I am building
the future, and I think that my

703
00:42:24.039 --> 00:42:29.840
productivity like is much better now.
So this is my pick today. Try

704
00:42:29.880 --> 00:42:37.239
to look at Cyprus as a development
environment. Try to automate your playing with

705
00:42:37.280 --> 00:42:39.199
the browser while you create the features. And in the end, when the

706
00:42:39.239 --> 00:42:44.519
feature is done, I have all
those integration tests for free. So this

707
00:42:44.639 --> 00:42:47.239
is my pick today. Awesome,
Yeah, I love Cypress. It's awesome,

708
00:42:47.639 --> 00:42:52.400
Nat or what are your picks?
My pick is egghead dot iom and

709
00:42:52.480 --> 00:42:54.719
it's the fact not only that Egghead
is awesome, But I have a bunch

710
00:42:54.760 --> 00:43:00.320
of stuff coming out on EGAD.
So I've completed two full courses, one

711
00:43:00.360 --> 00:43:07.800
on building mobile applications with React and
Aws amplified serverless apps. I've also built

712
00:43:07.480 --> 00:43:13.039
a full course on building server list
graph ql apps using Aws apps Sync.

713
00:43:13.360 --> 00:43:15.800
I'm also doing a course on Flutter
that isn't completed yet, but it'll be

714
00:43:15.840 --> 00:43:23.079
a full like fifteen course tutorial and
building Flutter apps mobile applications cross platform using

715
00:43:23.119 --> 00:43:27.480
Flutter. And then I have a
bunch of one off courses and I'm actually

716
00:43:27.519 --> 00:43:30.480
taking suggestions, so if you have
any ideas for one off courses, these

717
00:43:30.480 --> 00:43:34.039
courses are going to be anywhere between
thirty seconds to five minutes long, and

718
00:43:34.079 --> 00:43:37.679
they'll only be a single course or
maybe at the most two or three together

719
00:43:37.039 --> 00:43:40.599
versus like a long ten or fifteen
course thing. But anyway, egghead is

720
00:43:40.639 --> 00:43:45.320
a really great place to learn and
kind of polish up on existing skills or

721
00:43:45.320 --> 00:43:50.400
add like new skills within Like if
I kind of compared to plural site,

722
00:43:50.519 --> 00:43:53.480
Egghead, you can get a lot
of information like a really short amount of

723
00:43:53.480 --> 00:43:58.559
time, so it's kind of more
condensed than a plural site. Is nice.

724
00:43:58.880 --> 00:44:02.559
Yeah, I love Egghead In fact, John Lindquist actually lives within a

725
00:44:02.599 --> 00:44:07.079
mile of my house, so oh
no way, yeah, you're talking again,

726
00:44:07.199 --> 00:44:13.079
right, Yeah, so funny stuff. But anyway, in fact,

727
00:44:13.119 --> 00:44:17.039
the last time I saw him,
I was at the church and I think

728
00:44:17.079 --> 00:44:22.599
he was baptizing his son. They
were having the baptism at the church.

729
00:44:22.679 --> 00:44:29.199
Church. Well, we're both members
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Slaturday

730
00:44:29.199 --> 00:44:31.480
Saints and so, you know,
and most people in our area are.

731
00:44:31.599 --> 00:44:37.280
So there's kind of a central church
and then there are a bunch of satellite

732
00:44:37.360 --> 00:44:40.559
churches in our It's what we call
the stake, and a stake just oversees

733
00:44:40.599 --> 00:44:45.719
a bunch of congregations and that's where
they have the baptisms and stuff is at

734
00:44:45.719 --> 00:44:49.599
that stake center, is what we
call it. So yeah, so I

735
00:44:49.719 --> 00:44:53.079
was there for something else and I
was just sitting out in one of the

736
00:44:53.119 --> 00:44:58.760
foyers and it was a Saturday morning
and that's when they do baptisms. So

737
00:44:59.400 --> 00:45:01.840
anyway, funny, random story.
But yeah, Egghead's awesome. They've got

738
00:45:01.840 --> 00:45:07.119
a ton of content and so I'm
a fan. So let me jump in

739
00:45:07.119 --> 00:45:08.719
here with a few picks. One
of the picks that I have this isn't

740
00:45:08.760 --> 00:45:15.320
coding related at all. But I'm
starting to I'm starting to really get some

741
00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:19.440
clarity around what I want from dev
chat dot tv, which is nice.

742
00:45:19.440 --> 00:45:22.280
I mean I've only been doing this
for like nine years, but you know,

743
00:45:22.559 --> 00:45:28.239
finally figuring this stuff out. And
really what I'm looking for is just

744
00:45:28.280 --> 00:45:35.639
the opportunity to help liberate software developers
to build cutting edge software that makes a

745
00:45:35.679 --> 00:45:39.639
difference. And a lot of that
just comes down to helping people get the

746
00:45:39.639 --> 00:45:45.480
skills and finding the tools and you
know, those kinds of things to do

747
00:45:45.719 --> 00:45:47.199
it whatever it is they want to
do. So if they want a promotion,

748
00:45:47.239 --> 00:45:50.800
they want to be a team lead, or if they want to go

749
00:45:50.840 --> 00:45:53.719
write more open source software or blog, or if they want none of that,

750
00:45:53.840 --> 00:45:58.840
they just want to earn enough to
be able to go home at five

751
00:45:58.880 --> 00:46:00.320
o'clock and play with their kids.
I mean, whatever that is, you

752
00:46:00.360 --> 00:46:04.840
know, for people to kind of
feel like they're free to do what they

753
00:46:04.880 --> 00:46:07.400
want to do. And one of
the books that I've been reading lately just

754
00:46:07.519 --> 00:46:13.480
for my own thing, is called
Extreme Ownership, and it's written by a

755
00:46:13.480 --> 00:46:19.920
couple of Navy seals or former Navy
seals. They fought in Operation Iraqi Freedom

756
00:46:20.559 --> 00:46:25.360
and the book is just incredible.
They came back, people asked them to

757
00:46:25.440 --> 00:46:30.719
speak at their company retreats and things, and it kind of turned into this

758
00:46:30.800 --> 00:46:34.599
business and they put a lot of
their knowledge into this book, and it

759
00:46:34.679 --> 00:46:40.239
kind of trades off between their experience
in Operation Iraqi Freedom and then essentially,

760
00:46:40.280 --> 00:46:44.639
this is what we learned to seals
and here's how we've applied it in the

761
00:46:44.639 --> 00:46:47.440
business sector. And it's terrific.
And I think a lot of times we

762
00:46:47.599 --> 00:46:54.679
fail to focus on building solid team
leads and CTOs, and so we essentially

763
00:46:54.719 --> 00:46:59.679
promote a developer to that position and
then don't actually train them on any of

764
00:46:59.679 --> 00:47:02.719
the skill they need to be good
managers. And so if you're in that

765
00:47:02.760 --> 00:47:07.320
position, or if you're trying to
develop some of these skills, this is

766
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:09.960
a terrific book. A couple of
other things I'm just going to throw out

767
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:15.440
there. I am actually hiring,
so I'm looking for somebody who can help

768
00:47:15.480 --> 00:47:20.159
me with the Ruby on Rails app
that I've been building to manage the podcast

769
00:47:20.159 --> 00:47:23.320
stuff. I want to be able
to focus more on this freedom idea,

770
00:47:23.920 --> 00:47:29.480
and instead what I wind up doing
is, you know, hammering on stuff

771
00:47:29.519 --> 00:47:31.480
that makes the processes run, and
I don't have time to do all of

772
00:47:31.519 --> 00:47:35.880
that well anyway, So I'm looking
for somebody to help with that. I'm

773
00:47:35.920 --> 00:47:39.840
looking for somebody who's interested in helping
with selling and managing podcast sponsorships. And

774
00:47:39.880 --> 00:47:43.800
I'm also looking for somebody who's willing
to write show notes. I'm looking for

775
00:47:43.840 --> 00:47:45.960
a couple of somebodies for that.
So if you're interested in any of those,

776
00:47:46.280 --> 00:47:51.360
just shoot me an email check at
devchat dot tv and we'll set something

777
00:47:51.440 --> 00:47:52.880
up so that I can talk to
you and see how that will go.

778
00:47:54.960 --> 00:47:58.880
But yeah, those are my picks, Ben, what are your picks?

779
00:47:59.400 --> 00:48:02.920
Yeah, So a tool that we've
used that's really helped Land School scale well

780
00:48:04.719 --> 00:48:09.119
is uh it's called airtable. So
it's kind of like parse API, the

781
00:48:09.159 --> 00:48:15.280
thing that that used to exist not
anymore. It's uh like spreadsheets with like

782
00:48:15.360 --> 00:48:19.400
built in APIs around it. And
so we've been able to use that to

783
00:48:19.679 --> 00:48:22.800
uh uh i mean handle all of
our student tracking and things like that and

784
00:48:22.840 --> 00:48:28.320
then build some like simple quick you
know services to connect with it. So

785
00:48:28.400 --> 00:48:31.119
it's been really easy because there's a
really nice guy that's in place, so

786
00:48:31.159 --> 00:48:35.079
our non technical people can get in
and work with the data, you know,

787
00:48:35.480 --> 00:48:37.519
create, read, update, delete, whatever, you know, do

788
00:48:37.559 --> 00:48:40.000
all the stuff that they need with
the data. But then there's these generated

789
00:48:40.039 --> 00:48:45.360
APIs around the spreadsheets that we can
then interact within a dynamic way, which

790
00:48:45.880 --> 00:48:50.320
you wouldn't use it for like you
know a massive like you know, production

791
00:48:50.400 --> 00:48:54.119
and application where you need like you
know, really consistent like like like Facebook's

792
00:48:54.159 --> 00:48:57.159
not going to build off of it, you know, but but you know,

793
00:48:57.199 --> 00:48:59.440
for simple little projects and things that
you're throwing up, it can be.

794
00:48:59.480 --> 00:49:02.599
It can be really nice, especially
for as like an admin interface airtable.

795
00:49:04.079 --> 00:49:07.599
I think I've seen this before.
I think somebody else I know was

796
00:49:07.679 --> 00:49:13.480
using this and was sharing some of
the spreadsheets for people to like enter data

797
00:49:13.519 --> 00:49:16.159
in and stuff. Yeah, they
have like forms and stuff that you can

798
00:49:16.159 --> 00:49:21.880
then send out that populate in and
then yeah, and then like use it.

799
00:49:21.960 --> 00:49:24.760
You can use Zapier then as well
with it. So then like to

800
00:49:24.880 --> 00:49:28.559
like glue it together with a bunch
of other apps, so like conservices you're

801
00:49:28.639 --> 00:49:32.159
using and yeah, we didn't write
any code for ourselves for like the first

802
00:49:32.280 --> 00:49:36.320
year and just use like Zapier and
a bunch of other different apps to just

803
00:49:36.400 --> 00:49:38.039
kind of glow everything together and a
little bit of a house of cards.

804
00:49:38.039 --> 00:49:40.920
But it actually worked really well.
We could spin stuff up pretty fast.

805
00:49:42.400 --> 00:49:45.119
Makes sense, all right. Well, if people want to find you online,

806
00:49:45.119 --> 00:49:49.400
where do they go? So Twitter? And uh, maybe this wasn't

807
00:49:49.400 --> 00:49:51.559
the best Twitter handle, but I
picked it a few years ago. It's

808
00:49:51.559 --> 00:49:57.000
a it's a s U n j
I, E M I and those and

809
00:49:57.079 --> 00:49:59.599
Jammy. I used to live in
Taiwan, so that's my Chinese name.

810
00:50:00.440 --> 00:50:04.760
All right. Well, let's go
ahead and wrap this up. Thank you

811
00:50:04.800 --> 00:50:07.199
for coming, Ben, Yeah,
thanks so much for having me. It

812
00:50:07.239 --> 00:50:09.519
was great to meet you guys,
and you know, it was a fun

813
00:50:09.519 --> 00:50:13.840
discussion. Very cool to meet you
too. I've been following Land to school

814
00:50:13.840 --> 00:50:15.159
for a while, so it's cool
to just kind of talk about it.

815
00:50:15.159 --> 00:50:19.360
So yeah, all right, Well
we'll wrap it up and we'll catch everyone

816
00:50:19.360 --> 00:50:19.800
next week.