Ep 61: Austen Allred (Co-Founder & CEO, Lambda School) - Building the Next-Gen Coding School with ISAs

Austen Allred is the co-founder & CEO of Lambda School: a
virtual coding school that is completely free to attend, until
its graduates earn at least $50,000/year. Lambda School is
betting on its student’s success as its success, and has seen its
graduates go on to work as developers in Fortune 100 companies
and prominent startups including Google, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs
and more.


But even prior to founding Lambda School & being accepted
into Y Combinator, Austen has had a wealth of interesting
experiences. From working for two years as a Mormon missionary in
Eastern Ukraine - where every foreigner was viewed as a spy - to
dropping out of college, vagabonding around China, blogging while
being homeless in Silicon Valley (which eventually led to him
securing his first funding & job in the Valley!) & going
through 5 rounds of interviews before being accepted onto Y
Combinator.


We explore all that, including his viral & controversially
titled article in 2012, “Successful Entrepreneurs Are Usually
Liars” in this STIMY episode. 





Highlights:


3:17 Growing up in a Mormon family

6:12 Learning HTML at age of 11

10:06 Going on a mission trip in Donetsk, Eastern Ukraine

15:18 Founding Stubtopia

25:27 Dropping out of college

29:44 Vagabonding around China

31:22 Writing the viral 2012 article, “Successful
Entrepreneurs Are Usually Liars”

33:49 Blogging while homeless in Silicon Valley (which led to
his first job in Silicon Valley & investment for his own
startup!)

38:24 Noticing the discrepancy between Utah & Silicon
Valley in terms of opportunities & pay

39:31 How the concept of Lambda School came about

51:21 The right time to raise VC money

54:58 Getting into Y Combinator

59:13 Biggest takeaway from working with Geoff Rolston (now
President of Y Combinator) & Daniel Gross

1:03:54 Issues surrounding the Income Sharing Agreements
(ISA)

1:06:47 How COVID-19 has impacted Lambda School






Show notes: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/61 


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