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Unbundling Education
Howard Lindzon
October 20, 2019
I really really enjoyed this piece by Byrne Hobart titled ‘Y Combinator, Not Lambda School, Is Unbundling Education’.
The premise:
American universities are some of the most powerful institutions on earth. They provide a valuable brand name to talented people, they create incestuous networks that persist for decades, and their in-house hedge funds are all on the AUM leaderboard. But they’re not the best opportunity for everyone, and in particular they’re not the best opportunity for some of their best students.
As Paul Graham once pointed out, both Facebook and Microsoft were not just founded at Harvard, but specifically founded during the January “reading period,” when students are supposed to be studying for exams. The most lucrative months in Harvard history are the months where class is not in session!
It may not happen in my lifetime, but I expect the dropout rate from colleges to soar as ‘professional’ jobs get automated and the creative and investing class continue to explode. I need to dive into these predictions in a later post.
There is no doubt that reverse globalization will also hurt many universities.
A lot of prime real estate will have to be reimagined.
Have a great Sunday.
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