In Conversation on College: Weighing in on Two Investors’ Diagnoses and Proposals for Higher Ed Part I

Hey, Michael.

Hey, Diane.

Michael, we've both been listening to another podcast and it's causing us all sorts of emotion. I have to admit I laughed out loud at a few of the texts you sent me because we were both on a bit of a roller coaster while listening to the three part six hour series of the Ben and Mark show on the topic of higher education. And for those who don't know, and we suspect it might be a lot of people who listen to class disrupted and are kind of from our education world. Ben Horowitz and Mark Andreessen are currently very successful venture capitalists at a firm called A16Z. They founded that firm and lead it, and they were both really successful entrepreneurs and they, they come from software and technology backgrounds and their firm has a really successful podcast. And then the two of them get together and chat about hot topics on, you know, this other Ben and Mark show. And from what we can tell, this is, this is a really popular show, especially among young entrepreneurs and folks in Silicon Valley and technology. And so they, they recorded these episodes about higher ed in January and almost immediately we both started hearing from all sorts of people that we had to list and, and, and so we did. And, and things haven't been the same since. In all seriousness, there are at least two big opportunities that, that I think their conversation presents. And you know, Michael, I think you have some perspectives here as well. And the first one is for me at least, to practice what we've been trying to promote on our podcast for five seasons and what I think we both deeply believe in, which is third way solutions, which implies that we don't fall victim to polarized positions and taking sides, but rather we really mine for nuance and extend grace to people in an effort to find win win versus win lose solutions, especially to problems that we really care about. So that's the first one and that's the thing I want to practice today. And then the second simply, you know, to bring things we care about to a much larger audience and a more diverse audience and we can fall victim to only talking to ourselves in education. And I think we are both just honestly thrilled that Mark and Ben are talking about something we care very deeply about and that tons of people who follow them are, are really engaged with the topic and thinking, you know, about how to rethink higher ed to better serve students in soc. So that's just a huge opportunity.

Yeah, look, I think you frame this well, Diane. I like the sort of the approach and the excitement that we have and that anyone would dedicate six hours to higher education, to education in general, coming from the backgrounds that they both do, I think that's a net, net positive. Right. And so taking all that, we're going to do a response in effect to these six hours and we're going to do it in two part. So today's episode, the one that you're listening to now, is going to focus on the first part podcast that Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, Mark and Ben, if we may, throughout the podcast released in which they dissected the problems facing higher education from what they called a systems point of view. And we'll talk more about what that means. We're going to now try to stay away from what they got into in the second podcast, which is when they started to go deep into solutions to what they saw as the problems. And yep, if you're listening, you're probably guessing it. We're going to do this in two parts. So the second episode for us will be mirroring their second episode where they started to get into solutions. I don't think we'll get into the Q and A third episode that they did too much ourselves. We're going to do our best to be systematic. But I'll also say up front they had nearly four hours of content in just these two shows and we are not trying to replicate that part of the performance performance, but we will try to bring the same level of nuance, at least that we attempt to do in all of our other shows.

Michael I really appreciate the caveat because they covered a lot of ground and so we'll do our best to make our conversation accessible and meaningful, even if you haven't listened to Mark and Ben and, and at the same time, we also want to build on what they laid down, if you have heard them. So hopefully for those of us nerds in education, we're going to try to differentiate as best we can. It's a pretty big task. And so we decided we needed some expert help, Michael and fortunately we have a very good friend who's the perfect person to help us think critically about the problems that higher ed today and the way its present form really present and to unpack solutions. And so I personally am so excited to introduce our guest, Stacy Childress. Many of you will know Stacy, but for those who don't, Stacy has a very long list of experiences and accomplishments. And so I, I won't go into all of them, but I will share a few that are really relevant to the discussion today. So let's start with the Fact that early in her career, Stacy was a classroom teacher. She's also spent about a decade as a software entrepreneur, founder and leader. So right there, she's bridging two worlds that are really critical today. She then became a faculty member at the Harvard Business School, where she studied entrepreneurial activity in public education. She wrote three books, tons of case studies and articles, and was a very pop popular teacher who won awards from her students and the dean. And if any of you have ever run into one of her students, you know how popular she is. She followed that up as the CEO of the New School's venture fund and Airdrop, which is a whole new research entity that they help to incubate and spin out. And just more importantly, Stacy's like one of the smartest people I know, period. And in education. And she sees the big picture and can break it down like no one else. And everything I told you takes a back seat to the fact that, in my view, she does what she does because she cares so deeply about kids and that's what drives everything. And so I've had the privilege of working with Stacy for on lots of things for many years and to experience firsthand how her heart drives her work to make things better for young people. And so welcome, my friend. We are so grateful that you've joined us for this, what we think is a really important conversation.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Diane and Michael, for inviting me. It's great to be here and really looking forward to the conversation.

We'll never say that till you're done with us, Stacy, but I should say thank you. I was one of those students, so I'll add that. But in addition to having known each other for years, being friends, we should also just disclose, I suppose is the right word, that we all serve on the board of directors with each other. And it's not just any board of directors. It's the board of directors of a new university, Minerva University, that I suspect we may end up concluding in the second episode, tackles some of the problems that Mark and Ben outlined in their podcasts. But I just want that to be transparent, front and center, because we're not only going to come to this conversation as three individuals with expertise in education, but also as three trustees that are wearing that hat, that are trying to rethink some of the fundamental tenets of higher education. So with that outline, with that out of the way, if you will, let's dive in. In the first question, which I think is a pretty fundamental one, because in the first podcast, and Diane, you helped pull this out, but they lead in with this with Ben saying a very provocative line. And the quote is this. It's we as a society are running a scam and ripping off a huge percentage of our young people with the clear expectation that they are going to get a higher quality job and being able to pay for college. But that is absolutely not the case. So that sort of sets the tone for how they are tackling the problems facing higher Ed. And Diane, maybe I'll have you kick us off here rather than throw Stacy into the deep end, but I'd love your take on Ben's first hot take, if you will, but then maybe also frame it as a general gut reaction, perhaps to their first show where they delve into and diagnose the problems as they see it with higher Ed.

Michael I think it's a really interesting place to start. It's literally where they start. And it's like a fascinating place for us to enter the conversation. Let me start by saying, you know, I wouldn't use the word scam because it implies ill intent and, you know, having being one of the people who's sort of in the system that is behind that comment, I know that I don't have ill intent. I know that most of the people I know don't have ill intent. So I wouldn't use the word scam. And at the very same time, I do think the evidence points to the truth of Ben's statement. And, and honestly, for me, that sums up the tension I feel in this opening teaser statement and throughout the entire six hours of the podcast. So this quote really does a good job representing it in that I, I directionally agree with so much of what they talk about, and I think they really capture so much of the, like, the feeling and the thinking and the conversation. And I'm really challenged by how they say a lot of things because they can seem, and I don't think I'm being overly sensitive here, I think they can seem at times careless, a little bit careless with their language and what they're saying and biased. And we're all biased, obviously, but I think that really comes through. And so they're kind of how challenges me. And what I would say is they get a few really important things very wrong. And given how many people listen and learn from them, that feels like sort of in the best case scenario, a missed opportunity and in the worst case, a setback for addressing a problem that I think we agree on and I think we agree with them on. And it seems like we all want to fix. And so I'm thrilled that we're having this conversation and so many people are engaged because we need the entire country to feel compelled to transform education in America. And hopefully that gives a sense of, like when we talked about a role roller coaster in the opening, like, that's the feeling of the roller coaster of emotion I had while I was listening. And then, and then I would just note one other really important element of their conversation, which is for, you know, the vast majority of the podcast, they're talking about elite universities and elite students and learners. And while I don't. They don't say it explicitly, they. They do a couple of times, but for the most part, they don't. It's really important to note that what they're describing is really about highly selective schools. And it's not a surprise. It's what they know, it's what they've been through, it's the people they know. But, but I think we all have to hold on and remember that there are 4000 ish colleges and universities in America and only a very small number of them are highly selective or even selective. And so, you know, this focus on the elites is important because it's indicative of how our country thinks about higher ed and, and about higher ed. And it's one of the big problems we have because what, what ends up happening is a small number of elite institutions end up driving much of what happens in K12 all the way through higher ed. And it's really the tail wagging the dog. And I think they embodied that in their conversation. So it's very real, but it's also something we need to be aware of.

Great way to set the table. And we're not always going to agree on this, but I think this is like framing a lot of the, framing a lot of the mood of this. Stacy, let me invite you in here and sort of your reactions to the podcast. Diane? Yeah, thoughts. And that quote that they lead off with.

Yeah, well, let me say I enjoyed all six hours of the podcast. Had a little less of the roller coaster feeling you guys are describing, but maybe because I wasn't in a text thread with friends who were listening at the same time. But, you know, like, you guys, I did have Aries I really agreed with and areas I was puzzled by and agreed with less. But listen, I like it so much, I stretched it into eight hours because, I mean, talk about nerd. Because I went back and listened to the second episode twice. Here's why. You know, I have enormous respect for what Mark and Ben have created in the world both as entrepreneurs. I mean, the way we experience the web today is in large part because of the foundation they laid back with Mosaic and then Netscape and just the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs that they've helped create new things through their venture capital firm. And so I was super jazzed to listen to their ideas for solutions and entrepreneurial opportunities that kind of match to the problem statements they came up with. And you know me, I'm always like, that's what gets me excited. What can we do? What are those opportunities? Especially entrepreneurial opportunities. And. And I agreed with a lot of what they said in both of those episodes, first and second, and liked a lot of it. But I think they had some misses. Diane, you mentioned you felt like there were some things they missed. And as I thought about it, I came to this idea that some of the misses might have kind of a common cause or problem, which is, not surprisingly, they were often painting with a very broad brush. So very, very broad, correct, but broad problem statement. And then so when you jump to solutions from that, it can be hard. So I thought the conversation, their conversation would have benefited from some more. I'll just call it granularity. And so I'll give you my big example of that, which is this value prop idea, Michael, that you started us with here, Ben's quote, which is value props broken. College is more expensive than ever. Students are taking on more debt than ever because it's widely available and super cheap. And then all the other bad things that happen, value props broken, okay, that's in the popular consciousness right now. There's kind of general agreement on that. And also the value props actually not broken for some students. It's actually still working for a pretty significant segment of students, and it's not working for lots of different segments of students. And so I think the more interesting question is who is it not working for and why, and therefore what? You know. And so, like, one example of who it's not working for. Students who aren't quite sure what they want to do. They go to the college that they match with, you know, overmatch, under match, or it's just right. And then they end up in some degree plan that they didn't really think through and didn't get a lot of help with. They rack up all the debt for all the semesters, and then they end up with this degree. They may have learned some stuff, but the degree doesn't have any value in the job market or not much value. And so they end up wandering around underemployed, not earning what they should. And that is a problem. And it's a pretty significant segment of students for whom that's true. Well, that's a problem that kind of suggests all kinds of interesting potential solutions and entrepreneurial opportunities or institutional reforms, however you want to look at it. That doesn't really work in broad strokes, but would work for that segment. You know, another segment is students who go to college for a semester or three or five, they're taking on debt all along the way. And then life happens. And for whatever set of reasons, it's different for kids. You know, different kids, they don't finish. So they've got 20% of the debt or 50% of the debt, or maybe 80% of the debt of the whole thing, and they've got nothing. And in fact, they might have less than nothing because at a very critical moment in their transition from adolescence to adulthood, they didn't make the most of a very significant opportunity. They started something and didn't finish. And maybe it's not fair, but life's not fair. And. And that's now something that has happened. And so, like, that's a different set of problems, right? You can start to think about solutions, so to say, value pops broken. Let's think of solutions. Provocative, interesting, whatever. But if we really want to make progress, we really want to get traction and have some actually product market fit, right, for things we might create. Having a better understanding is, I think, super important. And I think that was a bit of a amiss. Let me say one more quick thing because I. We may or may not come back to this, but there was this thing that kept building for me through the first couple episodes. And again, I was loving. I was driving through most of it. I had a couple long car trips. And so if I make steering wheel motions while I'm telling some of these stories, that's why I like what I got the sense, like, maybe halfway through the second episode, it kind of crystallized for me. Like, I wasn't sure if Ben and Mark have a developmental view of human beings, in particular young people, or more of a fixed view. Well, they are as we find them. So now what? Versus, especially for kids, like, you know, there was a stretch where they. I'm going to paraphrase, but it was kind of like, all right, people are different. Yeah, that's true. And young people are different from one another. And that difference is largely shaped by when you're 16, 17, 18, it's largely shaped by your experiences up to that point, your family, your community, the culture you're part of. And I mean, that's just who you are. And so now that you're coming to college, why would we make you be an engineer if what you're really immersed in is music? And, you know, I was like, really all in with. Kids are different. They're coming from different places. They have different interests and skills when they approach the doorway, you know, the threshold of college. And so now what do we do with that? And how might we make things better? And then it was like, don't make musicians engineers. I mean, again, I'm, you know, being provocative myself here, but it made me wonder. I think there was plenty of evidence throughout that they actually do take a developmental view of people and of themselves. But there was just enough of these comments and anecdotes. I was like, huh? Because that really matters. Like, it's an assumption worth examining. Like, maybe you don't really hold it, but if there's some. Some version of it that you're used to operating on, and then you start entering solutions and potential entrepreneurial opportunities, boy, that could go sideways pretty quickly. So I think that showed up a few times. But that's my example of it right there.

No, those are great, Stacy and I think already bringing some nuance to the conversation. It's interesting. I think I'm probably closer to you than Diane, maybe, on my reactions to this, although I think. And we're going to try to hold on the solutions. One that was where I had more struggle and I started texting Diane more. One where I felt like I was like, really on. There's some errors that I want to get into, but I felt like I was more in the bandwagon that growth versus, you know, developmental view versus sort of fixed view. I agree. That is something that sits there throughout the couple episodes. And I felt like Diane's right, that some of the things that they expressed and we're going to get into this more, were not the best way to express it. But they had this underlying view of human difference and leaning into your unique value. That is very top rose that I liked. And it sat against this because. And I think this is what Diane's speaking about, is that it spoke against this. Like, and we're going to get into this more in a moment. But all the value of colleges, maybe in who gets admitted, which is more about the elite schools. Right. And not the rest of it. And so I guess where I came in. And that gets into the nuance you just painted, Stacy. About different schools get different outcomes, different students get different outcomes and so forth. I guess from my perspective, starting with Ben's quote, I heard the frustration in his voice. I think it's indicative of the mood of the country. And I think there's a lot of reasons to be upset at it because the incentives fundamentally underlying federal policy and spending have not been around the outcomes. They've been around just getting the students in the seats. Right. And so, and I think you hear so much anger and frustration, like, why are we spending so much effort to forgive student debt? Right. Like, why didn't it work? And, but I think you're, you know, the other side of this is, right, like if you graduate still from college on average, not for everyone, but on average, this is a good value proposition. Like, it's all for most individuals. And so that's sort of point one. Point two is roughly 38% of students don't graduate from college within six years. Take on debt and you don't graduate. That is a very crummy value proposition. They don't value. Right. And then the second piece of this is there is a whole segment of the population and as we're recording this, there was just a big spread in the Wall Street Journal about this over the weekend. There's a huge number who are underemployed when they graduate from college. Right. And what they mean by that is they take a job that does not require the degree that they just earned. And there's considerable evidence that if your first job is one that does not require the degree by job number five, you're still in a, in a track that does not.

Right.

And that is, that's not okay. Right. And so huge.

Yeah.

And so that, that is where I think Ben's quote is. Right on. And we don't want to confuse the point that, you know, if, look, if you're a low income student and you get into elite college or university, you better go. It's going to be like, I think, you know, I, I will say the other one. And this is a sympathy one for me, for them. I think it's really freaking hard to talk about higher ed in a coherent way because look, I'm the disruptive guy. You know, your office is next to Clay Christensen, Stacy. He got painted with this brush all the time. Like, you know, everyone thinks that we have decided that all colleges and universities are going to disappear five years ago and they're. And it didn't. And therefore we were wrong. As you all know. I don't think Harvard And Yale and Stanford are going anywhere. And I do think a lot of schools are going somewhere. And we're recording this on a day where Cambridge College just announced it's merging with Bay Path University in Massachusetts. It's just the latest, frankly, in New England. So, like, both of these things can be true.

Right.

It is really hard, though, in my writing about higher ed, I struggle with this all the time to, like, talk about which segment am I talking about right now. And so I'm empathetic to that. I'll just throw out a few stats because I think it might be interesting to folks. 59 colleges in the country out of roughly 4,000 admit fewer than 25% of students. That's it. Like when we're talking about selective schools, that's it. I will defend Mark and Ben on this a little bit. Like, I don't think they're only talking about elite higher ed because Mark's alma mater, University of Illinois, I think is like 59% selectivity. So it's a little bit broader. But I think what they are fundamentally talking about is the roughly slightly under 30% of students today who we would have called traditional back in the day. And what I mean by that is that they're residential, they're full time, they're age 18 to 24, they're not holding a job while they're in college. That's a shrinking part of the pie, right? Yeah, much more and more. And they sort of make that point, but then they don't fully wrestle, I think, with what that means. So it's not just elite exclusive, but really more that residential, quote, unquote, traditional experience. I'll say the other thing is, like. And we'll get more into this. I do think they're also talking largely about research based universities, and we can talk about. That's important. They're not really talking about community colleges or online schools or schools that focus over teaching. And I think you just, you nailed it, Stacy. Like, this is why it's important to get below the average, because your solutions will be very different. Right. On what segment you're talking. Maybe I'll pause there for a second before I ask the next question I have in case you all want to. All right, now Diane's like, okay.

I mean, I think we should get into it.

I.

It's great. I actually think collectively everything the three of us have said really sets the experience that I was having in listening. And I'm excited to talk about, you know, how they framed the problem, which I think is really Interesting.

Yeah, well, let's. So let's do that because at the outset of the show, and to frame that problem or problems, Mark posits that there are 12 core functions of a universal. And I want to list them here because this was the framing for their diagnosis. And, and I thought it was a. There were some novel parts of this from my perspective. Number one, he had credentialing agencies, so the degrees. Number two, the courses, the education that you take. Number three, they called it the research bureau. Number four, the policy think tank. Five, moral instruction. We'll talk more about that, I suspect. Six, they had the social reformer, which I don't think actually would have been something that maybe people would have pointed to a decade ago, but with the current news around De and I and a lot of the fervor over that topic at the moment, this is very big. I think, right now. The seventh one they had was immigration agencies. And so just to explain it for folks, basically the notion that higher ed is an attractor of international students, many of whom pay full freight and help make the business models work for these places. Number eight, they had sports league. Number nine, they had the hedge fund, which referred to the endowments. And I'm just going to caveat this up front. Very few institutions have big endowments.

Okay, yeah, yeah, and they did acknowledge that later on.

But, yeah, but yeah, number 10, they had adult daycare, which points to the residential point that they were talking about that segment. Number 11, they had the dating site, which also points to the residential piece of this. And then 12, they had the lobbying firm, which I think referred to the fact that government funding actually sits underneath a lot of the higher ed business model in ways that I don't think are widely appreciated. And so it was an interesting set of points. So I think the question here is, in your view, if Those are the 12 areas that they outlined, what would you have taken out? What would you add? What nuance would you add? What'd they get? Right. And for this one, Stacey, let's start with you.

Yeah, well, listen, I like that they took a systemic approach like that and that they took an operation, operational approach. And we call those operational areas or areas of operation. And I do think it helped, you know, in a good way, kind of categorize the complexity of these institutions. And that's, you know, I'll give them, you know, a little bit of praise for that because that, that doesn't just stay at the surface level and treat everything as kind of a black box, like, let's break it out what are these different roles or operational functions that happen in universities? And you know, you asked, you know, what would we may take out or add to the 12? Surprisingly, I wouldn't take out any of them. People who know me know I hate long lists. Like I make fun of them. You know, if a top 10 list is good, some people think a top 72 list is good. And so then you just say everything you can think of. And so I can be really hard on long lists, but I actually tried to break this one and felt like it was pretty good. You know, you might be able to consolidate a couple of them, but in general it's a, it's a good list. But what I found myself doing, especially during the first episode, you know, the problem identification and analysis was like 12, still a lot. So how might we prioritize these? And if we were to prioritize them based on what, like to what end? And so I was like hungry for, you know, a pull up that was about purpose or maybe purpose purposes, you know, creating what value for whom. And then, you know, can you kind of bundle into some prioritization, you know, groupings the different, the different functions. But in general, I like them all a lot. You know, I know we'll get into this purpose question and whether you prioritize the student or some other actors and can you design around that? But before we started thinking about how to talk about it, like my experience in the moment reaction to the list was, I think this is good also, I think this is good, but I don't know which one would I put on the top three? Because you cannot prioritize at the same level of attention and resources. 12 things. And so I was thinking about that in terms of what I. Well, before I say what I might add, you mentioned, you kind of called out the moral instruction and social reformer Michael. And my reaction to those was, oh good. You know, when they were listing them off, oh good, yes, let's talk about those. And then when we got to their discussion of them in the first episode, I felt like their categorization was like super thin maybe is the right word to describe it. Like moral instruction, you know, just again, from a developmental standpoint, the years of 14 or 15 through age 25 or 26 is like prime time for developing moral reasoning. And we can like that or not like that, but. But it's actually true. So if you've got tens of thousands of young people being adult babysat on college campuses and you're not attending to moral reasoning, at least I think That's a big miss and quite frankly, kind of impossible. So if you're not doing it on purpose, it's happening. And so I heard their critique of what is happening and agree with it. I think, you know, random professors trying to impose their personal moral framework on young people. So advocacy disguised as teaching. I don't like it. I worked hard not to do it in any context, especially in the university context. It's hard to never do it, but I worked hard at not doing it. And so as an alternative to Wild Wild west and what seems to be sort of what, you know, a default dogma and group think that ends up emerging, I'd rather a purposeful consideration of what might moral instruction mean if it weren't imposing a set of values, if it were instead attending to what we know, kind of our inputs into healthy moral reasoning as we enter kind of mid, mid, mid adulthood. And then. Social reformer. Yeah, we will talk about the dei. I thought it was, again, shallow, or I don't mean shallow like dumb or craven, but like thin, to only talk about DEI in that category. Because I do think, you know, I think we have pretty certain agreement on this call. I think we have pretty broad agreement in society that education, including higher education, can be a real engine for social mobility for young people. And in that way it is engaging in a, a type of social reform, which is the class structures as we have them, or it's at least possible to, for them to be permeable. Right. And the education, like, it's the story of my life. None of my grandparents finished high school. None of them. Yeah, my parents finished high school, but they did not go to college, but they made sure my sisters and I all could. And, you know, kind of the rest is history. You know, I mean, there are clear accelerants, benefits to the higher education I and my sisters and now my nieces are receiving. And that's a kind of a social reform of sorts. And I think it's important to think through where that's working and not working. And as a design question, what might we do similar and different to what we're doing? And we got mired in the DEI conversation, which I do hope we talk about, because I do want to unpack it. But anyway, so thin categories, I would add, major, regional, employer. You know, I think sometimes we miss or forget that for a lot of these institutions, including the large and not so large state systems and other kinds of private colleges, just because of where they end up locating. You know, they end up being one of the largest Sources of middle and working class jobs in geographic regions, like, they're a hub of the local economy. And when you start to talk about we're cutting at 20% or 50% and we're going after administrative costs, it's probably not the director level people that are getting cut. It's like the assistants, you know, the administrative assistants and, you know, folks who work in the operations plant and that kind of thing. And so it doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't take on administrative costs. I agree, you should. But I think not acknowledging that in addition to all the other roles it plays in most communities where these institutions exist, they are a major, if not the largest employer. So that was the thing I would probably add and think through the implications

of great, great set of points. Diane, why don't you jump in?

Yeah, I love that last point and reminder about the regional employer. I didn't think about it until Stacey brought it up. And it's, it's, it's profound in terms of communities that these institutions are in. I just want to underline highl, exclamation point, what Stacy said about the moral instructor piece being fairly limited or thin. I think that maybe came because they drew on the universities as many of them being originally founded as religious institutions, which seems really sort of somewhat disconnected from where we are today. It feels like there were some big gaps there in, like, historical development and, you know. Yes, yes, yes. About human development, the age range, et cetera. I would just. I was thinking that, you know, I was thinking about the language choice of social reform. And, you know, another way you could frame that whole category is just like, are we promoting and supporting the American dream? And, you know, that's gonna appeal to, you know, some people in our polarized society, like social reform, some like the American dream. It's, it's two sides of the same coin, in my view. And so, you know. Yeah. In terms of my thoughts about the list, similar to Stacy. Well, I had never thought about those particular buckets. And so it was, it was provocative in a really thoughtful way. And, you know, I was really, I was doing this side by side comparison of how I would think about K12 institutions and higher ed and like, what's the difference? And do those buckets, you know, line up or not? That's probably a different episode, but it helped me kind of think through them. Plus, I was layering in our experience at Minerva, which is really interesting because Minerva is a modern university, very young, designed to address a lot of what Mark and Ben are talking about. And so many of these buckets are really absent from Minerva's operations and the focus truly is on students. And I will say to steal sort of their punchline, I do think Mark and Ben make a compelling case that universities should, they believe universities should be focusing first and foremost on students, which I think is at least it's totally aligned with like how I think we see the world. Anyway, I, I, you know, so I was using those, those sort of experiences as I was thinking about their list and again couldn't poke a lot of holes in it and didn't really want to leave anything out. I did think adult daycare was interesting because we talk a lot about it in K12, we call it custodial care. But I, I hadn't made the direct connection to higher ed and maybe it's their sort of provocative title or naming of it that really makes us think that way. But you know, it made me realize and think about the dramatically different experiences 18 year olds are having in our country when they go to a residential sort of country club style, four year college experience versus those who are literally going directly into work. Many of them will meet at home with families taking on responsibilities. And so there's just these really polar, disparate experiences which is, is fascinating to me and connects back I think to what Stacy's talking about of like we really need to segment and think about who's not being served more than this broad brush approach. And then I would say, you know, they didn't spend a lot of time on the dating site element of it. I didn't get the sense that they, they personally dated a lot so maybe that was it. But I will just say, and I, sadly I think my experience is not that different from a lot of people but like I was raised to go to college by my mother to find a husband and I'm old, but I'm not that old. And so that's just, I think very real and prevalent. So yeah, interesting category. The one I would think about adding is what about something along the lines of like marketing, brand management and development, you know, winning elite ranks and awards. It seems to me that universities are spending an extraordinary amount of time and resource on that. And you know, so that's the only

thing I was thinking like reputation, reputation building and management. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah, it's super provocative one Diane, because when I think about that I think of it as an outgrowth of some of these functions. But you're right, it's taken on its own life. Indeed. The story of Northeastern University becoming a top 25 university is manipulating the US news world rankings like an outward cynical, you know, completely straightforward way to become a top 25 university. So.

Well, and, and my alma mater, University of Southern California is maybe one of the first that really did like employed enrollment management to this end, et cetera. So yeah, I think, yeah, it's a really good point.

Point. I will say, Stacy, also to your point about how there was sort of a lack of prioritization of the 12, I think to some degree it actually wove into Mark and Ben's point, which is that there's so many different stakeholders here that that's why it's really hard to manage these institutions. I do happen to think that there is one of these that sort of rises above the others on the other on these campuses. But we'll get into that in a moment. I will say overall, I like how they pulled this apart. I've always thought and written about it somewhat differently. Mine has been that colleges and universities are essentially running three incompatible business models. And I suspect I'll get into the implications of that later. But the three I've always listed in the bundle are number one research, which I would view is what I call a solution shop. Business. Business. Basically we throw a bunch of stuff at a problem. We have lots of experts working on it. We don't know if there's going to be an outcome here or not. Some of it pays off, some of it doesn't. Right. But we hope so. Okay. The second is what I call the teaching. And they treat, colleges and universities treat this as a value adding process business. We ship in this class of students, I deliver the content, I ship them out the other side and yeah, I'll leave it there for the moment. And then the third is what I call the social network, which is really a facilitated network business. It's people who participate in the network not for its own sake, but because they're getting some other value out of it. And my sense is that this is the one that Mark and Ben missed, the biggest one because. And I think it's a huge one because yes, they have the dating site and the credentialing function, but those emerge from the college's role in building social capital. And colleges are the original social network. I mean Facebook started out by replacing the print Facebook on the Harvard College campus. And to me a lot of these things, it's not just the social capital in your class or with the, you know, four years that are co living with you at that point. It's really across years, it's really why elite higher ed in my judgment, like the value is their exclusivity because you're part of the tribe. Human beings as social, we like tribes, we like comparisons. I think that's the big one that I would say I felt was missing from the list. Even if it glimmers of it sort of appeared.

Yeah, I think that makes sense, Michael. And yeah, we can unpack some of the aspects of that social network that might come into play as you're thinking about solution, solutioning towards better outcomes on some of these other dimensions. I think it's like really interesting idea and I like your three buckets a lot. They're a little more manageable for me,

I think in threes. Right. Is that better or worse?

Right.

But you know, broadly it sounds like we don't hate their list. We think that they got, you know, with some nuance that they, you know, broadly speaking, it's pretty provocative and makes some sense. And I guess of that, you know, they diagnosed problems in each of those 12. What in your views did they get right? And before we do the wrong, let's start with the right. Stacy, what, you know, what would you give them the check mark on?

Yeah, I mean I've alluded to probably most of these already, so I'll just tick them off. Like the value prop analysis that we talked about, like I'm not sure they're 100% right on, you know, all of the components of what's driving the problem there, but that actually doesn't matter. I think that they're right that for many segments of students, too, way too many, it's just not working. The promise doesn't live, the outcome doesn't live up to the promise. You know, I think they got right and you know, just kind of appreciated both their take and you know, some of your take, Michael, on the structural, like the economic structure of the field that's driving so many of these problems and how difficult they actually how interdependent the different variables are and how difficult they are to disentangle and address independently. And I think they got that right. And of course that drives the part of the value prop problem, but is a problem of its own. And I felt like they just kind of nailed that, that analysis as it relates to relatively well resourced schools. I think they missed the, you know, as we were talking about already some of this other big segment of schools, the credentialing, signaling function. Like I'm glad they spent some time on that. There's some signaling about attending. As I referred to earlier, most of the signaling is on getting in and then also finishing. Like that's where the, you know, unless you're Mark Zuckerberg, right, Unless you're Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, where quitting is sort of your badge. Like for everybody else it's the getting in signal. And then I got through it signal that's so important. And as Mike and Michael, as you like, I think so, you know, pointed out so well a couple seconds ago, it, it's the first job and more like it matters a lot for first job and second job, third job, fifth job. But it matters for a lot of other things that the signal is not just about fitness or readiness for a particular entry level position. It's also about who you belong with. And I think in that sense there's enormous power and huge challenge that we ascribe so much signal or so much value to that signal. And it's real, it's shorthand for lots of stuff. And I have personally benefited from it. I'm aware of the benefits of this signal of where I got my graduate degree. And it's enormous. I actually, while there were some things I disagreed with or a couple things I disagree with and some things that made me wonder and think hard about which is good, I actually agreed with a lot of their DEI analysis, which may be a surprise to you guys and maybe a surprise to some listeners. So let me say why, what I think they got really right and I think Ben really carried the ball here, you know, carried the torch here. The discussion about diversity, equity and inclusion needs to be grounded in some sort of purpose and outcome that we are aiming towards. And in this domain, like our organizations, in the organization and in higher ed institutions, it's got to be anchored in talent. What is the talent we're trying to track, to pursue what opportunity or what opportunity set? And how do we think about our channels into pools of talent that might not be naturally historically or naturally connected to us already? And how do we dig those channels, cultivate them, maintain them and make them matter? How do we create a climate and a culture of learning and community and dissent and, and learning where people want to be? People from different backgrounds that get to the threshold can find their way to thriving in our community. It doesn't happen by accident. And I think, as they well pointed out, that sometimes if you're only going for the box, checking in terms of characteristics and you're not doing the hard work of what happens when everybody gets together, that's a real problem and I think we find ourselves in a moment where that's happening in many places. You got to remove do the hard work of removing any implicit or explicit bias that might you know be that might your admissions processes for students and your hiring processes for faculty might be laden with these biases that you just are unexamined and can be tweaked to make it more possible if you've got the great pipeline to see what you want on the other end of it without having to engineer quotas. Right. I think I just think they're absolutely right about that. So they just sum it up and say when DEI programs most of them are probably started with I think are starting with good intentions. Maybe not all most of them probably are but when the design process makes its way into a self perpetuating bureaucracy that's in charge of it that then has as its main function because it's what bureaucracies are good at compliance and control box checking, policing. That's where it goes wrong. And I think too many places are demonstrating what it looks like when it goes wrong. Not every place. I think Ben gave a great example of how they thought about a DEI strategy they didn't call it that but a talent strategy that prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion even if they didn't use those terms to build the firm they've built and that's a great example. Three of us have examples too that we could name and I won't but it can go very wrong and in many places has and I do not fault them in any way for being I'll just say what courageous enough to actually have that conversation and say here's what they see happening in some places now again I have some disagreements with the way they approached some of the conversation and where they ended up on a couple things we can talk about that later but I thought that analysis of not in general NADI program is inevitably going to get there but man it sure can get there. If you're not really clear about what you're doing and why I'll stop preaching

no that great set of thoughts Diane

in well I will just say I really like Stacy's points and wish to be associated with them. I I will just add to to what I thought were big and important points that they made again and again that I really think are at the heart of the problem the first being and and you alluded to this Stacy but the purpose focus of universities is is currently so many of them not I mean really the rule versus the exception Quite frankly, is to not be focused on educating young adults and preparing them to launch into successful careers. And, you know, we talk constantly about the importance of K12 having institutions, having clear purpose. And our bias is that they must be educating young people to successfully prepare and launch into an early adulthood. And here's the next level. And they're, they're, they're not focused on that. And so, you know, I think that they, they just really hammered this point over and over and over again. And I really think it was at the foundation of what they were talking about and doing. So, you know, that, that feels really key to me and I really appreciate them for it. And, and I, I think what they got to is universities, many competing purposes, and they have far too many constituents in a very elaborate bundle of, you know, what they're doing that's evolved over time. And so to me, that was the big macro takeaway there. And I, in terms of the problem definition, I agree with it at the high level. They, you know, well, let me just say as I'm in complete. As you know, Michael, this season I've been reflecting a lot on the simplicity of running a company versus the school system. And you know, I would say this is the perspective obviously that Ben and Mark bring. That is their experience and their expertise. And it really is very true to me. You know, businesses are more focused, they have fewer priorities, they focus their constituents. And we do not do that in education for good reasons and lots of things. But there's a real contrast there. So those are my key.

That all lands for me. Stacy, I'll just quickly say maybe you're surprised. The DEI and I points you just made all ends with me as well. And I was largely sympathetic on the way that again, there's some places where you want to set it that way. But like, I was largely feeling like, yeah, you got the big headlines and currents right. This is what I've been experiencing on the Harvard campus the last semester and a half have as a faculty member, I'll say as a Jewish faculty member. Right. Like, so I think that was right. And Diane, I also agree with you. Like they, I think correctly, say student ain't the central focus. Right. And that there's many stakeholders and the right one isn't being prioritized. I'll have a hot take of how to frame that. That'll be a little bit different from student centered later. So you all can yell at me then. But, you know, at the moment, I would argue it's largely the media, which I, sorry, the Faculty, which I think is consistent with their view. And then they have some head nods to the media driving that a little bit as well. Just, just. I'll quickly run down them research. They talk deeply about the replication crisis and that it's probably worse than we realize with a lot of fraud going on. That's consistent with what I'm hearing as well. Most of the research that gets produced isn't read. Much of it isn't useful. That's consistent with what I see. I would, you know, I agree with them. The incentives I think are really bad in the academy around this at the moment, around the publisher parish incentives and tenure. And I. The federal government role in all this is stuff that I'd heard a little bit about. But actually what they brought to it was somewhat new to me and made some sense. It was interesting. In any event, credentialing and signaling, you know, again, the value of the admissions for elite higher ed and the piece of paper saying you graduate. Yeah, I agree with what you said there. Stan Casey Sports League this isn't true for every institution, obviously. But I do agree with Ben that for those places that are running big sports operations, it is corrupt and immoral at this point. And I have a major problem with it as well. And I, you know, I, I like college sports but. But I think we got to make some changes. Hedge FUND I appreciated the nuance that they brought to this one. It wasn't one of these. But look at the endowments. They should be able to afford everything. They were properly nuance. The operating budgets of these places are huge. If you were allowed to spend every single dollar, you would wind through that endowment really, really quickly, number one. Number two, most of the dollars are dedicated to certain causes or faculty positions or whatever else, and you can't just sort of spend it on area of greatest need. Immigration AGENCY I never ever would have phrased it the way that they did, but I don't think that they were wrong on.

On it.

And then just last one, the growth of costs because of the bundle and the administrative overhead being a big driver of it, in my judgment they got this fundamentally right as well. Obviously DEI is a portion of that, but. But I think fundamentally when you run such a complex operation with pieces that don't necessarily go together to manage those pieces and be successful, administrative overhead rises. That's not just in colleges and universities.

Right.

That's everywhere. Right. The more product lines you have, administrative overhead rises. And so I think, you know,

that's

driving a lot of this. I thought it resonated I might have been. Well, we can talk about solutions later to that. Okay. But I'll leave it there and say if that's what they got right, let's get to the juicy stuff of maybe the important nuance that perhaps got lost or what they got wrong. We've already alluded to some of this, so we don't, but where would you want to take this?

Yeah, let me name a couple of things. Michael, like you said, we've already sort of referenced. Or at least I have. I think we all have some of the things we're like. You know, Diane, you said a few minutes ago this thing about. About what we would love for the purpose of universities to be right, is getting kids that next phase of launching towards successful adulthood, human flourishing. Right. Young people who are ready to thrive throughout their lives, live a good life, take care of their families, you know, all of that. And we said they got that right. But there was this. There was this weird. Maybe that's too. For Jordan, there was a strange thing, again, breadcrumbs, throughout the first episode, a little bit in the second, where the assumption seemed to be that all too often colleges are forcing kids into career and life paths that they don't want to be on. And I just don't think there's nearly enough. Enough forethought and, and, and structure and focus on helping kids pick anything. Totally agree.

Well, let's be clear. I'm starting a new company because we're not doing. And we're just not doing this anywhere.

There was this. Right. Anywhere, right? There's like this, this, this. This side trip about, you know, Russia or Soviet Union creating kind of getting to gender parity in scientists and engineers. You know, we're both, you know, same number or same proportion of men and women, which, you know, solved a problem that we still struggle with, you know, for people who care about that. And I was like, oh, this is interesting. Let's see where they go with this. And where they ended up going with it was it probably kept a lot of women from doing the things they would have preferred to be doing rather than being a scientist or an engineer. Not was like, I mean, maybe, I don't know, could be. I kind of laughed and felt weird, you know, all of that. But I guess the general point is, even though they did say got right, should be more focused on. Centered around students. What I felt they got wrong, sometimes explicitly and often implicitly, was over crediting the institutions for having some mechanism for helping kids move across, you know, paths that they might be interested in, so much so that they might be forcing them into pick ones that they were gonna make a lot of money and hate.

I totally agree with you. I mean, higher ed is. Is in my view, highly disconnected from careers and employment. And so it was very. It was very bizarre. Similarly interesting to me, and I think one place that they got wrong and one place that I was feel of emotion as they were talking was they seem to really, really, really like IQ tests. And they seem to think that the SAT is essentially an IQ test. And, you know, they, they find the move away from such tests really problematic in terms of the admissions process for colleges and universities, which we established at the top of the episode is actually a very few number of them that are using those things to select. But here's what I would say. I just think there was a ton of NU lost in their conversation. So let me just share a couple of things. For starters, the SAT isn't equivalent to an IQ test, at least in its current form. And just even at a superficial level, because you can study for it and you can literally raise and improve your scores with practice. And so, by definition, it's not an IQ test for, for that reason. And this is a really critical nuance for folks like us because we see very clearly how much the status of your parents gets conflated with the intelligence or giftedness when people fail to recognize that this is a test. It's not a pure identifier of, like, the smart kids, which it felt like Ben and Mark really seemed to want and think it is, and was like, in this kind of nostalgic way, like, identifying these, like, unidentified, like, brilliant people out there. And not to say that we haven't all heard a story of that. Right? So. So they exist. I just don't think it's systematic thing. I. I would also just add that the, the creators of the IQ test, as I understand their positions and, and whatnot, and those who work on them, and honestly, we just finished talking with Scott Barry Kaufman recently about this. They. They express real danger in using it as a screener for employment opportunities and, and things like that. And in fact, we, we. You know, this is exactly what SBK was talking about. He's like, I went in, in to study these tests because I thought they were evil and discovered that they're not evil because there are real correlations and things that he didn't expect. But you have to be so thoughtful of how you're using them and take real care with them. And I felt like that was lost in Kind of how they were sort of wistfully wanting to use them. And I will also just add that Mark and Ben seem to be less than impressed with the actual education happening in universities. And so they talked a lot about the value, value being the selection on the front end. And then employers, four years later using the signaling credential that I forget what was the word that Mark kept using. It was like the. It was like that you completed. It wasn't persistence, but it was something like that.

Conscientiousness, maybe. Yeah.

So that's true. It's true, it's true. But I was missing, like, wait, what's happening for,

you know, I don't think it's right. Right.

And then they said this funny thing where they're like, we really need the colleges to do this. Or they implied this because we as employers can't give IQ test because it's illegal. And so we need you to sort of screen for us. That was, I was like, that was bizarre. So. So there. I just feel like there was a lot wrong and confusing in that entire line of the conversation, which took up more space than I would have thought it would have taken up. And this is where I'm going to loop back to the points you all were making earlier about what call growth mindset. And, and this, this. Do they believe that humans developed or is intelligence fixed? Like what we're. We're actually going back to some of the early philosophers that they cited and at some point we'll get into one to one tutoring and how they were like thinking we should be like Aristotle and Socrates. But, you know, like, I think it's a perfect example of like, I don't know exactly where they stand on growth mindset. It wasn't clear to me because a lot of the things they said sort of represented a fix mindset view of humans. But then they have these real growth mindset parts. And so that's probably very real. You know, that's how, you know, humans are. We're not one or the other. We flow in and out of those two states. Yeah, so let me just leave that there.

Let's pause on the SAT thing for a moment. Stacy, I think you have some thoughts on that. And then. Yeah, Diane, maybe let's circle back the rest of your list.

Yeah, listen, I also always, like, I'm conflicted in this SAT conversation. Not like formally conflicted, but I feel conflicted anytime. Not just in this conversation, like in any conversation about SAT or ACT or standardized tests of any kind. When we talk about them as a threshold marker of readiness. You know, look, I don't think those tests are perfect. In fact, they're like way not perfect, right? They're far from it for all the reasons you said, Diane, and I won't repeat them all. I'm also like a big fan of all the new forms of assessment that are coming into being in use we call modern forms of assessment that are more focused on how you're, what you're learning, like how you're progressing along a set of competencies, you know, maybe from novice to mastery or, you know, however you think about it and kind of embedded in a learning environment rather than stop and take a test. Like, I'm a big fan, as you guys know, of all of those I have invested in, lots of them that didn't pan out and you know, some that are still, you know, still in the works. And so I might be about to lose my, you know, badge of personalized competency based forward thinking. But I just think we have to be realistic about what we're asking when we, what we're hoping for when we ask a constituency like top tier employers like Mark and Ben are, and they represent lots of them, right, in their companies and in their colleagues at other venture capital firms and similar professional services firms. They have long seen those kinds of instruments as an indicator of something. Now, to your point, Diane, kind of agree they're not quite getting the nuance sense of what they do and don't tell you, but at least it was something, something that seemed independent and third party. And if we're saying you're wrong about those, don't even use those. We don't really have the thing to replace it with yet. Let me say it differently. We don't have the ecosystem to replace it with yet. We've got a lot of really interesting things happening, some things that are actually way far along, but none of which are totally market ready for broad, scalable, valid use use that are also already adopted at scale. And so the alternative to don't use this thing that's wildly imperfect but that you like, instead use nothing for a while while we figure this other stuff out. Like, I actually think that's what they're really. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit. I think that's what they're really expressing as a frustration, not I have to have an IQ test or give me the SAT because it does all the things it does and it's an IQ test. I think there's saying I need something like if you're taking Those away. You gotta give me something that validates what the threshold level of skills, abilities, competencies, ability to learn, ability to grow are, which I think is a little ironic since we're wondering about their growth, mindset, belief. But so that's like I'm not for or against standardized testing as like in the broadest sense, I have real challenges with them. And I also just from a change management standpoint standpoint, especially at the sector level or at the societal level, we can't just say those don't work, stop using them, we'll get back to you in five or ten years and tens of billions of dollars later in investment when we have the things that replace it. So I think that my sense is that's part of what we were, part of what we were hearing from them. I don't know. That's my.

Yeah, what do you think about this, Michael? And I'm just gonna say that they've had an impact on us because we're over the hour mark. I don't think we've ever recorded an episode that's over an hour. So.

No, I know, I've been watching that. So for those who are listening, if, when we keep this, if you're still listening, you're still listening, we apologize. But on the SAT point, I don't want to get into the solution piece of it because I think there's an interesting strand here you could follow. But I will say my biggest frustration with the problems episode was where Diane was as well on the IQ point. But I will say what I found interesting about it and why I, I was so excited to keep listening is I think it's a very interesting window into how employers and companies are thinking and is one of those places where interpretation can become reality. Right. If this is how they interpret the world, it could be right or wrong. But if like they walk away from it because it doesn't matter now, I'll say, say I think they would argue back at us and say, well we, we grades are not, you know, high school grades are not helping people distinguish anyone because of great inflation and et cetera, et cetera. I think they're right on that large. I think there needs to be some objective measure to Stacy's point, third party measure. And I don't think the reason companies are dropping degree requirements has anything at all to do with the fact that colleges are walking away from the sat. Those are two totally independ and phenomenon. And as we'll talk about, yes, employers are turning away from degrees on the front end, but they are still actually in fact hiring based on them because HR managers are different from CEOs and they never got hired for hiring IBM and they never got fired for hiring someone with a degree.

So that's right.

Like the PR release on the companies is very different from the reality how people are still. So, so I, I guess that's the other piece about it that I'd say. One other thing I'd love to point out before we start to wrap on this episode, which is they talked a lot about the increase in tuition. Well, outpacing inflation. I don't actually think that's the story because if you look at the last 15 years, if you look at list tuition, they're right. But if you look at net tuition, meaning after discounts in scholarship. Scholarships, it's not correct. Like it's actually relatively flat over the last 15 years. And what I think is really going on is that spending. So like the cost structure of these places that is going up and up and up. It's why like there was a whole decade of launching overpriced online master's degrees that made huge profit to basically hold up the other parts of the bundle. And then everyone of my higher ed friends and say, michael, online is not lower cost. You're wrong on disruption. I'm like, no, because it's in a business model that's failing. Right. But so I think that was a very big thing that they missed is that it's not tuition, it's the costs. And the reason the costs are going under is because of the, are going up. Like this is one, the bundle. But two, it's because they're also trying to improve the bundle. Right. So Harvard Business School ads Spangler, Stanford Business School better respond. Right. And so when, when, when one place adds the student success function or the DEI support or whatever it is.

Yeah.

Like hey, the diversification of students, we got to support them. You better bet other places better respond. So it's the fact that these places have negative economies of scale. The administrative overhead keeps going up because of the bundle. It's expensive to manage manage and that they are trying to improve in their current paradigm of improvement, which we've all said we're not sure that they're improving against the right things. Yeah, but that's sort of what's driving the, the, the, the fundamental cost structure that I, I think is out of whack is what I would say.

Yeah, makes sense. That makes sense a lot. As you know, I, I think we've, we've covered a lot of ground maybe as we, we, we do our listeners a favor and start to wrap here. I, I think one thing that really I spent a lot of time thinking about afterwards is with my CEO entrepreneur, you know, educational systems leader, hat on. One of the things, you know, my, one of my very first early board members like Silicon Valley person said to me was like, look, if you are not as an organization or company or an entity growing, you're dying. Like there's only two states you're growing or you're dying. And so one of the questions I kept thinking about is what does it mean to grow as a university if you aren't increasing the number of students you serve? And like maybe their argument is that university, all the universities should constantly be increasing the number of students they serve. And you know, I think we would all engage around a conversation like that potentially. But, but if that's not real and true, how do you stay in growth mode without growing the number of kids you're serving? And so I wonder, is that what has happened over universities, which are some of the oldest institutions in our society and you know, fairly young society, but nonetheless some of the oldest ones and is that why they are such complex bundles, bundles with so many constituents is because they just, that was how they were growing so they wouldn't die.

That just, I think that's really interesting. It, I think it points, Diane, to again, a bunch of the colleges, elite colleges over the last 15 years have added to their class. Yale added 200 students per class. It cost half a billion dollars to do in Capex. These places have negative economies of scale. And so, so I think you're right, that pours over into administration. It pours into research. I'll make the provocative statement. I'm glad that there's some institutions that are research first, but I think they should advertise themselves as such and not try to be all things to all people on, on the other side of this part of the spectrum.

That's probably a good lead into because you've led us towards solutions. So let's wrap here and then perfect

place to start for anyone with what we've been reading or watching because you know, what we've been listening to. And so we're going to stop there. And Stacy, thank you for joining us on this first.

Absolutely.

Stay tuned. Don't go far. We're going to have you back on our next episode. Thank you all for bearing with us and engaging with us on this episode of Class Disrupted.

Sam.