Is College Worth the Price Tag? - Michael Horn

Welcome to Navigating Wealth, a podcast where we apply a high-net-worth lens to economics, investing, and lifestyle questions. Today's guest is Michael Horn, an award-winning author and Harvard professor. He is an expert in disruptive innovation in education and professional markets. His most recent book is Job Moves: 9 Steps for Making Progress in Your Career. I hope you enjoy. Welcome to Navigating Wealth. Welcome to another episode of the Navigating Wealth Podcast. I'm Tad Fallows, along with Sriram Gallipalli and Matt Schectman. And today we have Michael Horn joining us. Thank you so much for joining us, Michael.

Absolutely. I get to hang out with friends. Like, why wouldn't I say yes to that?

So per usual, we will start with a discussion of one of the top threads in the Long Angle Forum this week. So I thought the one, and appropriate for Michael's background here as an education expert, around screen time and video game habits for kids. I think all 4 of us have kids who are of appropriate age to look at screens. And at least speaking for my own is definitely an issue of how do you manage that screen time? So maybe I'll start with you, Michael, as the resident education expert. What are your thoughts on screens and kids and, you know, best way to handle that?

Yeah. Well, look, every family's got to figure out what's right for them, obviously. And I think it's a staged evolution as the kid gets older. Right. So if we're talking super young kids, which is not, which is not us, but I think minimal is the way to go personally. And I think when you're using screens, making it interactive, parents involved, it's FaceTiming with a grandparent. There's some sort of interactive social element. So it's not sort of the thing you do to the kid to get rid of them unless you're flying on a plane, then all bets are off there, right?

You can even give them juice on a plane.

Anything goes right on a plane. You just got to get through it. As the kid gets older, I think you're Slowly graduating into more, right? More agency over using screens, more freedom around it and so forth. And you're putting clear guidelines for your family around what healthy habits around screens look like. We're a wait-until-8th family. We've bought into the John Haidt hype, I guess, around not giving cell phones or smartphones, I should say, before then. I think it makes sense to me. It's less the phones, frankly, and more the social media and some of the addictive habits that get built out of that. But our kids are certainly using iPads when they come home. They might hop on ChatGPT to ask it a question. They're certainly doing things like that. Just so folks know, we have twins. They're 11 years old. We're not always running a randomized control trial, but sometimes I'll say one of you can use it, the other can't, and we'll see what happens. But,

and so, you know, on that phone thing, have, have you given them any, like a smartwatch or something like that so they can text and call, or is it zero, zero until 8th grade?

We have done zero. We do have a guest We have a cab phone that sort of serves as our landline that theoretically, right, can go out with them. There's been a few times where none of us have been home in the house. One's staying alone and she wants to go over to the neighbors and we're sort of trying to lean into the free play, really give them the ability just to hop over to friends' houses, go to the park without constantly checking in. We feel like we live in a neighborhood where that's more than acceptable in Lexington, Massachusetts. And so We're, we're, I'd say, Tad, we're acting like those tools are not ones that the kids need to, that we have, that they have our trust and that we trust them and that they can navigate a lot of the real world without having to have that crutch. And that they know that there's certain times that they need to be home and they have a watch that they theoretically know how to use. And I would say with varying levels of success around that one, but, you know, we'll text other neighborhood parents and sort of say, hey, are they at your house? Are they at your house? And sort of figure it out. I actually think that's a really important skill for them to learn how to navigate. And have that agency to figure that out and not be constantly helicoptering over that part of their lives. I get it. You know, if you're in an urban environment, maybe that's a little less possible and you might skew with the watch or something like that. But I would say you're controlling the apps. You're not giving them access to social media and things like that until they have prefrontal cortexes that can start to handle dopamine hits that are coming from the triggers. I mean, we, we struggle, right? As individuals to do that stuff, let alone young kids, teenagers, and so forth. I think being clear about that. And then again, the last thing I would just say, clear limits, I think, on if you get that phone, don't have it in the bedroom at night. Get it out of the bedroom, get the iPads, get the Chromebooks, whatever it is from school, get it out of the bedroom at night. Those have a different place to stay. And I think it's hard for us as parents, but trying to model that behavior as well, I think goes a long way in that. We certainly don't do it the rest of the day, but at night, that's something I think we can all sort of model and get those chirps and alerts out of the, out of interrupting sleep.

So we were at Jack's symphony thing. I just have to share this. And so he's my 14-year-old son. My 11 or 10-year-old daughter Eleanor was sitting next to my wife who happened to be peeking at her texts and Eleanor leans over and shuts her phone. Mommy, you watch.

I love it. By the way, it's great when they call us on it. It's great when they call us right on the things we do. And I think owning that as a parent is actually a cool opportunity to have the kinds of conversations Without it being about your kid, more about like, hey, gee, look, it distracted me. That's a cool parenting opportunity as I see it, rather than running away or denying it.

And maybe, so maybe this is a little bit age dependent. And as you move up in the age, things change a little bit. I have a 6-year-old and an 8-year-old, but how do you think about the, the level of concern tied to just the screen itself versus the content? I think for us, the content is just, you know, that's a foundational level. We're not going to allow certain types of things. And I think pretty much everybody probably agrees with that. But to me, and one of the things that my wife and I have played with is like boredom isn't bad. So, you know, learning how to be bored with yourself and learning how to do other things is a skill in itself. And so it's more of the just the existence and the usage of the screen or kind of that crutch, that's more of a concern, at least at this age.

I couldn't agree more. I think boredom is a privilege in some ways, right? It's an opportunity to be creative, to sort of sit in your head and daydream and things of that nature. And rather than constantly pushing past that and skating past it, seeing it as an opportunity. I'm going to blank when this happened. Our kids didn't use the word bored until like 7 or 8 years old. And I felt like that itself was a big achievement because they didn't, you know, downtime wasn't seen as a, oh my gosh, I can't take this. I'm so bored, mom. I'm so bored, dad. What do I do now? Now, just natural socialization. That's not going to last forever. It's certainly, we get a lot more complaining about that now, but I do think that's right. Leaning into it. I think the one thing I would say is, look, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour screen time, you know, as you're going through those early elementary ages. That's not going to kill anyone. I think it's fine to have a release, have entertainment, have them have a passive sort of, you know, we came home from school, watched a show for 30 minutes. I don't think that's a bad thing at all. And I do think sometimes they really want to lean into an educational app or something like that. If that's where they want to go with it and be a little bit more active, you can be measured about it, but that's not a bad thing either. I marvel at some of the things my kids choose to do on the devices. And frankly, when they were your kids' ages, also chose to do sometimes. And It wasn't an everyday thing, but it was cool to watch it when they leaned into something that was surprising and educational.

You know, I'm just curious about your comment on not even have watches or anything with like a text or a phone feature until 8th grade. You know, my kids are in 5th and 8th and actually neither of them has a phone yet. But my son who's in 8th, we got him a watch around 6th or 7th grade. And the reason for that is it felt like I do not like that these text threads are the means of socialization. But it just felt like it was going to make him too much of an outcast. It's like everybody else in orchestra is texting about this thing. Everybody else in class is reminding each other of things due tomorrow, and you're going to be that kid who is totally out of it. I'm sure this is not a unique thing to Texas. I'm sure it's the same in Massachusetts. How do you manage that balance?

Yeah, and that's why I said there's a lot of caveats that are fraught in this conversation because I think context is really important. The social context of your family, of your kid really matters. And we see some of that in the neighboring kids in schools as well. I think we're fortunate the school our kids go to, there's a lot fewer families and kids much earlier doing that sort of behavior or in those text message big groups. When I was staying with Sriram, if I'm remembering, Sri, I hope I'm not calling you out on this, but I remember there was like some drama around that the last time we were staying at your house all there. And so I think, Tad, you're right. Like, you got to find the right solution that doesn't make your kid feel like an outcast and is pro-social behavior. That's, I think, the ultimate purpose here is to keep the outcome in mind. And it's when social media or these things become antisocial and are sending your kid down a rabbit hole, that's what you're sort of trying to guard against, is the way I think about it. And to me, you know, like, we've adopted a posture around this, but I think if you put, you know, Jean Twenge or Jonathan Haidt in a room and said like, hey, it's not all causal one way, it's not all universal, like let's get a little more nuanced, they probably could have that conversation, right? The idea is that we've let kids into the online world with very little supervision and we've sort of corrected the other way on the offline world with lots of supervision. And I think moderation is a virtue in most places. You're trying to rebalance that a little bit is the way I see it. Have conversations around, hey, like my kids came home the other day. They were talking about what one kid had said to another over text message. They're like best friends at school and it really hurt one of the kids' feelings. I was like, hey, do you think she would've said that if they were face-to-face in person? No, I don't think she would've said that. Yeah. Okay. It's a lot easier to write something and hit send and then realize, ooh, that does have repercussions that aren't diminished because you said it on a text thread. Right. And Just leaning into those opportunities to ask a question and be curious yourself rather than judgy, I think is a great way to at least bring these conversations up and help them see the upsides and downsides of dynamics they're going to have to keep navigating.

I mean, to Tad's point on the watch, we're very limited on screens at our house, but we got our 8-year-old a Gizmo watch this year, but for the purpose of free-ranging, right? Like this past weekend, She was kind of going down the, well, I want to watch something or make movies on the iPad or something like that. And I'm like, first you have to go to the store and buy milk. And we're like, put on your watch, bring your sister, ride your bike down there and go to the store and buy milk. And it was like an hour project. And then they made a friend and did all kinds of stuff. And then they came back and it's like, all right, now you can go do whatever it is that you want to do, but kind of using it as a tool. I can talk to them and I know where they are, but to allow them to kind of explore and do that fun stuff.

Building on that, Matt, what I would say is we've actually seen it where we're seeing like the independence part of it during school hours is also something that other friends have an opportunity to do. Where our oldest now, she's 12 in 7th grade, and we'll see, we'll hear her, like she'll have to go down to the office to call us and say, hey, these friends are making plans. Can I do this? And what have you. And like, she's the one person who has to do that. I think that's where she has an Apple Watch, but even that has like less than better service even in the school and stuff like that. So we're still wait till 8th. We're getting closer, I'll be honest.

Just based on the circumstances of the community and not being the pariah, you know, it becomes almost— it almost worked the other way where now you've worked so hard to shield, you're literally causing an outcast situation when that's mentally traumatizing in a You know, especially for girls, in a totally different way, which can be somewhat traumatic to be that way. Now we're still, you know, as we kind of navigate this, working through the no apps, no phones, no Snap—

I'm sorry, no apps or limited apps and Snapchats and what have you, of course. But which is a problem, you know, she'll see that as a problem. But, um, that's something that we're definitely navigating.

So it's just Maryland on the school situation because, Tad, Texas banned phones, right?

Yes, they've banned phones, but it's still, and I feel like we need a parents union here. The problem is that 1% who's like, oh, I got my kid a phone and then it just creates this problem for the other 99%. But no, they're technically banned, but it's like, as soon as school ends, everybody's texting. And so, you know, there's only that fine line. Yeah.

So they're, well, are they banned to like to have them in their backpacks at all? Or are they banned during school?

Yeah, they're supposed to be like in the locker, like you, Now, is that totally enforced? I'm sure not, but it's supposed to not be on your person from, you know, 9 to 5 or whatever.

No, no, but they can— well, I guess I've heard different school districts have— you can't even bring it to school at all is what some— Well, that's what I was going to say, Sri.

Like, there's different kinds of

bans, right? There's the bell-to-bell bans, right? And then there's classroom bans and so forth. What I think we're seeing in legislation increasingly across the country right now is the bell-to-bell ban. And there have been— you're not the only one to make the observation that there's also the bounce back from the bell-to-bell ban of like, okay, now I'm going to go like heavy, heavy, heavy for X number of hours, and we might not be striking the right balance there yet.

Yeah, we— so actually, it was odd, Tad, to your point, we actually had— I think the parents voted, it was put to a vote, and I was surprised that we didn't get the bell-to-bell ban, I guess, is the most to say. We got the, I guess, bell 1 to bell 1 ban. So you get— you can have—

That is shocking that there is any parent who's supportive of phones existing.

Yeah, I don't I don't know.

The arguments against are kind of weird.

Yeah, it was parents and teachers, but I'm not sure. Well, I don't know.

And just to be clear, by the way, I've come out a certain way. I think certain schools can use phones incredibly productively and should have the authority and autonomy to make that choice. I'm not actually a big fan of the state bans because I think they put like illegal behavior around a teacher who finds an educational purpose around, around us, you know, like Duolingo or something like that, which seems crazy to me. And so now I don't, the school where your kid happens to go, Sri, I don't think is one of those that would qualify under, has a really cool model that makes, you know, makes good use of phones. But the point being, like, I can imagine certain communities saying, hey, we've created a model in which kids are able to personalize learning through Duolingo or something like that for the purposes of this. And then they put them away as they, you know, work on a project or, you know, Andy Luce and I try to cheat off Tad Fallows in French class, just hypothetically.

Hypothetically.

I mean, this is actually, I think, a perfect transition, Michael. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the research you've done on this. If we're talking about technology in classroom, at least for me, and I imagine elephant in the room here is COVID and what that really rapid introduction of technology in the classroom looks like. I think I'm probably not unique in saying that was a terrible experience and a huge step backward educationally, you know, for my children. I think most of the parents I know. I'm curious for sort of your take on, you know, how much was that representative of what technology in the classroom should look like? Did that sort of give, you know, the wrong impression, or what was it actually helpful in terms of providing this kickstart? And, you know, now actually we've moved to a new level. Yeah, how do you— for those of us who've really only seen it in that COVID lens, how should we be thinking about, you know, the good version of education in the class or tech in the classroom?

Yeah, I mean, I guess the thing is this, right? If you're using technology to slightly do better what we already have, it's probably not going to work out very well because the model, the traditional classroom model is built around 20 to 30 kids with a teacher in the front of the room, all moving roughly at the same pace, doing roughly the same activities regardless of mastery and, and, and interest level and sort of background knowledge, et cetera, et cetera. Right. And if we're now introducing phones to like, let's do the quiz or the this or the that, right? Like, It's not really changing fundamentally education. And Tad, I would largely agree. Like, I'm not sure that's a great use of edtech. Now, if you've changed it and you're saying, okay, for 30 minutes a day, and notice I didn't say 6 hours a day, but like 30 minutes a day, you're going to be on an educational app that's constrained. We know where it is. You're going to be getting, let's take Matt, your kids, right? They're going to be learning phonics. Perhaps they're learning how to read. You're going to get Amira Learning or Elo or one of these AI-based adaptive learning apps that's really going to be targeted for the skills that you are actually learning and mastering and so forth. So super targeted. It's going to get data back to the teacher and then they're going to be able to do a series of small group activities, like lots of talk time, right? With kids that are based on where they're struggling or where they're excelling and so forth. I think that can make a lot of sense, but What's different there is we've stepped back and said the model itself has to change, and then we can think about the use of technology. What I see most schools doing is saying the model stays the same and like, let's just layer tech over that. And to me, that's both pretty uninspiring and predictably like the backlash that we've seen. COVID was like the worst of all that, right? It was like, let's take the traditional model, put it online in Zoom with like young kids. And somehow expect this to work out well. And by the way, half of them might be in person while the other half are virtual, and we're asking a teacher to manage both. It's like the dumbest thing I could possibly imagine trying to do and pull off.

And so I think we all know what drove the COVID you know, there were health concerns. So for at least some period of time, it had to be virtual. What, what is driving this that you see today? What's the motivation of a school district of just sprinkling a little technology on top of their traditional model?

Yeah, I think what we're seeing from teachers anyway is that they're looking for some way to reengage students, right? Chronic absenteeism continues to be at record highs post-pandemic. Disengagement in schools is incredibly high. If you're taking phones out of school, you've cut away perhaps distraction, but you still have this disengagement, this sort of sense of like, what's the relevance connection to me? And You know, people are voting on their, with their feet. I was talking to another faculty member at Harvard the other day and he said, has anyone flown at the moment in the middle of the week? Like Tuesday morning you fly and like the plane is filled with kids. And I'm like, don't you guys go to school? Who goes to school anymore in this country? And so I think a lot of teachers, Tad, are like looking for tools to try to get some engagement back into the classroom, some way to spark You know, someone to pay attention in effect. And look, technology at the margins can certainly do some of that. I personally don't think it's like the answer, if you will. I think the model itself is where we need to look. And I guess the second thing I would be saying is if I were picking a school or I were running a school right now, I would say particularly as kids get older, much more experiential learning, like real integration with real work, trying to bring projects that connect to the outside community in some meaningful way, particularly as AI changes how we do work itself. Trying to keep up with curriculum, I think, is going to be a bit of a, like a, just a dead end in some cases. And so like actually doing real work aided by those tools could be a more productive way of thinking about it in the future, but also it shows why what we're learning hopefully has some connection to the outside world.

So in fact, based on what you're saying, it sounds like you might be a fan of the Alpha School methodology. And for those that aren't familiar, there was actually a big discussion from some Long Angle members who subscribe to or are very interested in the Alpha School, which is essentially, and I'm maybe getting this a little bit wrong on the edges, but it's essentially, call it 2 hours of hyper-intensive AI-enabled learning and curriculum, mostly through devices. iPad or computer. And then the rest is a mentor-based experiential learning similar to probably forest school or something similar where there will just be a project and they will go outside or they will build a bridge or, I don't know, go to the store and buy milk, whatever it is. And using that blend, and I think they're based out of Austin, but they have some satellite campuses. Do you have any direct experience with with that or any thoughts about that?

I've interviewed Mackenzie Price a couple times and we've had, you know, we have back and forths and so forth. What I haven't seen the school in person, so I'm a little limited to the podcasts of Joe and Mackenzie talking about it and some of the articles that have been out there. What I guess I would say is the idea that you could learn quote unquote the academics in just 2 hours is not a new idea. Homeschoolers have been doing this for many, many years. That turns out that if you can right-size the academic content to where the kid is, and you don't have all this transition time of existing schools. You can be much more deliberate and focused and get through it much quicker with better understanding and so forth, and then create much more open blocks of time for the experiential learning projects, giving meaning to the learning and so forth. Acton Academy, which also started in Austin, Texas, has been doing this for many, many You have places like Summit Public Schools in California have had this idea. They had 2 hours of personalized learning time each day, and then lots of blocks for projects and interdisciplinary and teamwork, if you will. So the basic idea is not that novel. The use of AI theoretically is novel. And I think there's some questions of like how much AI is really being used at which points and so forth. They're clearly investing a lot of money to develop their time back system right now. But they started off with pretty well-known software programs. IXL and Khan Academy, I think, were the 2 big ones that they used. And one of the interesting things that I heard Joe say that I thought was interesting was the levels of mastery that were set in a lot of those commercial products were actually too low, which is why edtech hasn't perhaps gotten the bang for the buck that you might expect when theoretically you're embedding mastery. Theoretically, you shouldn't be able to move on from single-digit addition until you actually demonstrate mastery of single-digit addition. And we weren't necessarily seeing those gains. And he said that the mastery bars were actually set at like 70, 80%, I think, as opposed to something like 90%. So they've had to do a lot of work to build more robust assessment that corrected for that. That sounds plausible to me, knowing the dynamics of the market into which those companies are selling. So I thought that was an interesting observation, but the basic structure, plus or minus in either way and so forth, I think makes sense. We've seen it be successful in certain communities and populations for many, many years is what I would say.

I was going to, you mentioned a little bit about AI, both the Alpha School as well as a little bit in the technology in the classroom. I was kind of reviewing the back to school night slides. I was kind of looking for this. And basically there's a bullet point that basically says avoid AI, any form of academic dishonesty, including cheating, but Here's the punchline though. Any form of academic dishonesty, including cheating, plagiarism, or the use of artificial intelligence, AI, to complete assignments is unacceptable and will result in a consequence which may include a loss of credit. And AI in their definition is obviously academic integrity in this case. However, they do also call out AI specifically as in the tooling section of not using it. What has been, you know, of course our kids are using ChatGPT off and on as far as schools, but at the same time, I've seen her try to use ChatGPT for some of her debate homework or Gemini for some of these things. And I'm like, no, you know, that's not okay. But then how do you kind of navigate that? Because it's here, right? It's only, it's only going to, I can't imagine what it's going to be like. And we'll talk about what's happening to the workforce there. What's your perspective on the use of general Let's say just the general generative AI tools now in the schooling system.

Yeah, I, well, it's hard to sort of just like a blanket thing, right? So one, I guess I would say is using AI purpose-built educational tools. I mentioned Elo or Amira Learning before to learn a particular skill, I think makes, you know, a good deal of sense directly interfacing perhaps with the LLMs themselves to learn those things or ChatGPT has like study mode or whatever else and Gemini has its version. Uh, I think that's like one of the more humorous ideas that a student would just, oh, I'm gonna opt to use, uh, study mode instead of, uh, you know, whatever else.

Answer mode.

Yeah, exactly. Right. So like, you know, I, I, I don't think that makes a heck of a lot of sense. And theoretically those companies are not really like, you're not supposed to be able to create an account until you're at least 13. Right. I say theoretically, cuz there's a good deal of theoretical there.

You can't get an iPhone until you're 13 either.

Yeah, exactly. So, but. But I guess saying like having a wrapper and a point of view around something that's not a chatbot is one thing, I think. Diving into a chatbot to create the shortcut and offload, you know, the cognitive load that you're supposed to have, right, in, in, in an assignment is a very different thing. And I think should be approached differently. That said, like the other thing I think it's suggesting is how schools think about where work is done, how it is done, what the assignments are themselves. We probably need a much bigger rethink of all those things and a much bigger set of conversations around like, what's the goal here? What are we trying to make sure that students know and can do? And at some point, frankly, like the world of work is expecting you to be able to use AI to be more productive, more efficient at your job. Not like, oh, I've never used it in the context of work and to create a better product. And then all of a sudden I have to figure it out. Like, no, I think the market signals are pretty clear when they're not hiring entry-level jobs. Is we need people coming in with actually more expertise and more skills right now, not fewer than say 5 years ago. And so I think schools are going to have to grapple with what is the assignment itself. When is, you know, maybe the take-home essay doesn't make as much sense, but the intentional use of AI in the classroom itself, perhaps to sharpen your arguments or, right? Like you gave the debate example, Sri. I could imagine, you know, actually like, help me understand what are the devil's advocate arguments for this so I can sharpen my own. What am I missing? Right? Like, that's actually, I think, a very intelligent use of AI. And how do we create those opportunities to have those kinds of conversations as opposed to just the cognitive offloading? I think it's a fraught conversation at the moment, but the instinct to just simply ban or punish, I think, is missing something in the world. There's some great thinkers out there who think we should hit the pause button on all AI. I just think it's naive with what's actually going on in the world. And we have to have a deeper conversation on the fly around purpose and what are the assignments actually.

Because this is not a new conversation, right? I mean, when it was, you know, computers, okay, well, you can't use the new CD-ROM and CARTA, you know, whatever it was in terms of pulling

up

the encyclopedia, right? And then it was the internet. You can't use Google, then it was Wikipedia. Now it just seems it's just getting easier and easier to take over that mindshare and eliminate any form of research or strategic thinking, which it just creates a lot of nuance. And I tend to be in your camp, Michael, as it's probably reimagining what the learning set looks like, not necessarily the tools.

Yeah, I think that's right. And And look, I get it. Some folks are going to say, well, just because the technology exists in the real world doesn't mean schools exist to be a facsimile of that, right? Instead, it's to prepare you for that world. And look, learning some knowledge, learning a sense of how the country works, how science, you know, um, uh, has progressed or certain and so forth. Like those are important things to be doing in school. I agree with that. I strongly agree. Maybe we have to be much more narrative-based, right? To create like basic understandings of these things in schools so that Then the assignments are much more, how do I use AI to actually create something that I couldn't before? And, and I just, I, we haven't had that conversation. It seems pretty black or white right now, which doesn't seem to me like the right way to think about it.

And it seems like on these other technologies over time, we've landed, for example, the calculator. Okay. Kids first have to learn how to do it themselves and then they can use the calculator. And it's not really an either or that there's both there.

That's my take.

I think, and I think this kind of ties into a lot of the research you've been doing more recently around AI and the, you know, maybe either college or graduate education or going into the job, job market and especially those entry-level AI jobs or entry-level white-collar jobs where there's probably the biggest risk of AI. This is one that I really think is complicated because I don't know how you tell a school system, hey, your job is now to produce experienced mid-level You know, managers or people with mastery of the subject, you know, that seems like not just reimagining education, but almost impossible to say your job is to produce a bunch of people who are 2 decades into their career and therefore can, you know, take the first draft from AI and apply their pattern recognition to it. You know, that's a negative take, but I don't know what the right answer looks like there because I can see as somebody who has done hiring, it is just, you know, the, the most obvious examples in software development, but in some ways that's probably just the leading edge where it's just much less clear what you need a first-year programmer for now. It's still very clear what you need a 2-decade-in programmer for. And I think that probably applies in law and consulting and a whole bunch of these. Do you have, having looked at this, a solution to that or a sense of what the solution might look like?

I have the solution. I just haven't built it. But no, it's the right question, I think, Tad. And my sense is this is why expecting educators to be able to suddenly know what those skills are, how to productively use those or even to help people navigate different pathways. Like, that's not what they know. It's not what they've been trained for. They're in schools, right? And so my sense, that's why partnering with the outside world and creating much more permeable boundaries between schoolhouse and workforce. And, you know, I say workforce sort of broadly, right? That could be your town government. That could be nonprofits in the areas. That could be stores, like a range of employers. Not just national or tech-focused ones that you might think of, but rooted in community ideally as well. Because this might surprise you guys, 65% of folks that go to college still attend within 50 to 75 miles of where they live. So most of these educational systems, colleges, regions, like they're still local in many ways, right? And so training you for the local economy and how it's learning to use AI and so forth, that's where I default to. And I guess the way I think about it is somewhat simplistic at the moment, but middle school, I think, should be just a lot of exposure to what are the different careers out there, not so that you develop an occupational identity because that job could be gone in 10 years, but more so that you start to understand, hey, underlying that, what are things that really interest me about that? What are things that I really like doing that seem to map on to what someone who's in that role does on a day-to-day basis? What do I hate about that? And that actually might be the more important component is to start to understand, wow, I really don't like solitary work, heads down, you know, 30 of the 40 hours a week. Like that is not for me. I like to be out and about or, you know, whatever it is. But just gaining an understanding of that, I think most kids have a sense of what their parents do. They understand the role of teacher, police, firefighter, perhaps some doctors maybe, and not much else. How do we actually intentionally widen that aperture for kids in middle school, I think is really And then increasingly, you're not just learning about work, I would argue, you're actually starting to learn through work. So having, you know, maybe it's a, you've got 30 kids in a class, teams of, you know, 3, 4, 5, something like that. And you all are going to be working on a water use project for the town, right? That's not immediate and urgent for the town, but it's sort of like a 5-year thing. We know we need to think about it. Beginning of the semester, someone comes in and they're presenting all the challenges and logistical problems, right? With solving it, you start to do research, interviews, work on it and so forth. You have a midpoint check-in with this expert and then a pitch day at the end of the semester where you're all pitching your ideas and actually getting real feedback, not from a teacher, but like the grade is the professionals around you who are giving you honest feedback about how it does or doesn't work as a solution for the town. And then you can imagine that goes more and more deep over time. Mini internships, stronger internships, maybe youth apprenticeships, et cetera, just to get people real work experience. Because that's the other thing that's true at the moment is that at least until COVID, it's rebounded a little bit is my understanding. But at least until COVID, our teens were like the lowest employment rate of any teenage generation in the history of this country. And so they didn't even know what work was or like showing up on time, basic, how do I talk to someone professionally? Things like that were just not being learned in any systematic way. To me, that's part of starting to crack at this. And then like, we'll keep asking questions.

And it's, I mean, I think this idea of workforce integration makes a ton of sense. Have we, are we far enough along that we can see whether the motivation is still there from the workforce to engage? Because you could imagine that the same incentives say, hey, I don't want to hire a brand new grad. Because I'm just going to have to train them and AI can do their work would be the same or even more true for, okay, do I want to deal with a 6-week intern? You know, again, if I can get AI to do it, sort of, is there the pull there? Do we know that?

This is the biggest problem is the reducing friction for the employers themselves, right? To engage. It's why I said the thing about what would it look like if it's just a project that's not urgent, but we know it's important, you know, in a 5-year time span, right? Because it's really awfully hard to imagine a mid-level manager wanting to spend a lot of time with like a middle school or high school student, like on a daily basis and have you show up. And so like, there'll be some of that, right? But it's not going to be the mainstream is my sense. There's some entities, Cambiar, for example, it's a nonprofit. They've created, I think they call it Quest or something like that, which is a way of very quickly coming up with bite-sized projects that are appropriate for high schoolers from employers in the community to allow you to engage in that without a ton of Handholding from those employers. I think that's the sort of thing we've got to figure out though. And frankly, maybe AI can help us with that as well by looking at what are the problems that are not the most immediate and so forth. The other piece that AI can help with, I've been a pretty big VR skeptic in schools for a long time, but actually AI can potentially start to create simulations in virtual reality environments and so forth much more quickly now and much more cost-effectively. I wouldn't recommend it for like the last 50% of the experience, but maybe just to get someone some reps and basic competency. So it feels like less of a huge risk and pain in the butt for that. I think that's something we ought to be looking at in schools as well, just to give people reps and level up expertise much more quickly. In some ways, I think for a long time in our nation's history, the answer to these skill gaps were just more years of schooling. That feels like, for the economic reasons underpinning what has happened with the cost structure of many colleges, to not be a tenable proposition. That instead we have to figure out how do we help people get mastery much quicker.

It's been about a year almost to the day that your last book came out, Job Moves.

Wow, that's wild.

Yeah, I was just looking at that. And just this week, one of our largest nation's employer— nation's largest employers, Amazon, released the news that they're going to let go of, I think, 14,000 people, white-collar jobs, over the next— pretty soon, I think, next couple quarters.

Yeah.

What kind of— I guess 2 things. One is, how would you have imagined this kind of rapidness of evolution of the job market when you wrote the book and kind of the insights you had there? But also, what kind of insights or advice do you have to the emerging workers? Many of the Long Angle community have, you know, just graduating kids or about to graduate kids and things like that. And how do you, how do you, insights you have now for this new world, I guess, for the entry-level job?

Yeah. I mean, in some ways, no, I wouldn't have imagined it. Right. I think it's confounded a little bit by some macroeconomic factors also going on at the moment. I don't think it's just an AI story for what it's worth. That's, that's going on in some of this. That said, in some ways, yes. Right. Like we wrote the majority of the book during the Great Resignation, when there was a ton of turmoil in the job market. And so in some ways, just dislocation and high anxiety around where am I going? What does work look like? Was the climate in which we wrote the book. So in that sense, it feels still quite relevant, I think. In terms of practical advice, which is the question that I think folks will most be wondering about. Well, I think it does go back to how do I get real work experience and real experience so that I can be useful to wherever I end up? Much earlier in my life and thinking, gee, more camps that are, you know, for gifted students or, you know, like academic experiences or things like that. My instinct is that's not the direction I would go increasingly, that I would be looking much more for real work experience, real entrepreneurial experience. How do you build, create? How do you use AI to be a creator, to build something of value and meaning? That those are the sorts of things that I would be asking. Number one. Number two, my sense is part of the challenge that a lot of the folks leaving the, graduating from college or have at the moment is they don't know how to make trade-offs in the job market. So they think the perfect job is going to exist. That's going to give me like all 10 things that I have on my wishlist and I'm just going to be able to check them all. And in many ways, like this is a millennial story for a while, not just a Gen Z story. Right. And There's like no perfect job along every dimension in the world. Like every job has elements of suck in it. And more the question is like, how do I choose which elements of suck I'm going to say, like, I'm signing up for so that I get the 2 or 3 things that are most valuable to me at this point in my career. And I think when you're young, like having respect for you and so forth is not like the thing I'd be optimizing for. I'd be more optimizing for how do I get an awesome mentor alongside of me? Like things like that. I think Tad's dad was really influential actually in my own thinking around like the importance of mentorship early in one's career. So I guess that's the second thing I would say, Sriram. And the third thing I think that's important for folks to bear in mind is the narrative of what you major in, stuff like that, that may be meaningfully changing at the moment, right? I think the stat at the moment is that CS majors coming out of college this year or last year, have like doubled the unemployment rate of art history majors. And so sort of there's been this narrative, right, of tech skills, tech skills, tech skills. Sort of curious your take on this as a, as the resident CS major here. My sense is not that technical skills are unimportant. I think they still will be, but married in the liberal arts or humanities, I actually think becomes more valuable in the future as we like ask questions around like, is this an outcome we want to produce that AI has just, you know, offered to create us? Or, or, or how do we manage trust and, and, and, and inking relationships? Like, yes, AI could talk to AI and ink deals, but like more likely I think is that people will be doing a lot of that people-to-people work if we, if we manage this transition correctly. And so humanities can be really good in those ways. Now, I do think we probably have to teach them somewhat differently from the way we teach them today. But those are some of the things that I would be thinking about. Like, I think the narrative has changed a little bit on, oh gee, you're going to be a philosophy major. Good luck getting a job from that.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, I would be curious your take on this. If we see computer science as sort of the canary in the coal mine or the first white-collar job to go most deeply or most easily replaced, what's your take if you are thinking about somebody who just came out of Carnegie Mellon? So they really know their stuff, but they have that experience, do you have a place for them or what would you hire them to do or what advice would you give them?

Yeah, no, this is a very difficult problem. I think there's 2 answers to that. One is, do I advise kids to go into computer science? And I think I say you should go into computer science if you love math and you're really trying to solve the core part of the problems. Like you're trying to build better models, you're trying to like the actual computer science of just building websites, That's not the reason to go into computer science. Everyone on this call can now do it. And I can say that with a straight face. And I can also say with a straight face, everyone on this call couldn't have done that even 2 years ago with a straight face with something presentable, right? So in terms of the current graduates, when you're graduating, as Michael said, you have to build your own. There's enough tools out there. Unfortunately, you have to put on an entrepreneurial mindset. Show that you have experience, whether you're being paid for it or not. There's enough things out there that the expectation, honestly, as an employer is that even if you weren't hired to do something, you spent your waking hours trying to build something that shows that you have some skills and you're able to apply it to something. I think my follow-up question for Michael, and I think, Tad, you and I saw this at our last employer, there are some people that just really love being ICs. They love being individual contributors and they just don't want to have an entrepreneurial mindset. They just want to be told what to do and to do it. But where's the space for that in this new economy?

Gig work. Um, although you're right, it has a trade-off, right? Because IC, to me, I think, I think of myself largely as an IC, right? In terms of the work that I do, but I'm choosing what I'm doing, right? And so it's actually heavily entrepreneurial. It's a good question, Sriram. I think one of the things that you said in your answer is you have to really like, like the problem itself, right? And you have to have some passion for it. And I think one of the huge crimes of American education at the moment is that most high schoolers graduate without having any sense of like, when am I in flow? What drives my energy? What do I hate doing? Like, right? I just don't think we answer that question. And so I don't know the answer to your question, but I guess part of my hypothesis is if we spend just a little bit of time on thinking through like what actually really engages you and where's your energy and flow, maybe some of that passive, like, I'm just here And, and, and sort of doing what AI is actually going to do quite well, take direction. Maybe we can move the needle somewhat meaningfully there a little bit. I do have 2 other possible hypotheses. One of them is, yes, robots are coming along and they're going to be powered by AI and able to do a lot of tasks. They might even be more empathetic than some people, than most people, it seems, but—

Or more sophisticated.

You still might want, well, I was going to say, you still might want like the nurse who's a human caring for Your elderly parent, right? Like, and so I think the care economy is an interesting place to think about a lot of jobs moving to potentially in the years ahead. I think there's a whole bunch of questions of like, how do you transition into that? The second thing I would say that I didn't say before, but I think is really important in all of my answers is I think a lot of people have the notion that you get a job By like sharpening your resume, finding a bunch of things online, or these days, frankly, AI doing that for you and applying to like 1,000 open positions online. Even before AI broke that process, depending on who you believe, somewhere between 55 to 85% of jobs were filled by network, right? So like, I need someone awesome to help me do research and ghostwrite for a book. Like a bunch of applications come in. I don't really believe any of them. And instead I call Tad up and I'm like, hey, do you know someone like awesome who could do X, Y, and Z? And he's Like, you know, I don't have the perfect person, but these 2 or 3 people are like, are really good at that. And you should talk. That social currency, that social network is something, that's how most jobs are filled. And I think it's going to go even more that way. And so I think part of the answer also, Sriram, is like, how do we just actually connect young people to lots more people to like figure it? A, it's a great way to identify what you're passionate about, but B, it's also a way to connect to opportunities that are surprising or maybe would unlock something that you never otherwise would've imagined you could've gone and done. And I guess I wonder, does that solve the passion problem longer term? If you believe the abundance world, right, of Silicon Valley, then we're all going to have a lot more time for passion. And so maybe it's something we ought to give a little bit of thought to of like, what is that passion and where are the trade-offs we'd be willing to make if we can't exactly fill it?

Well, I think also from like the tiger mom or the cultural parenting, especially that I grew up, like where you have to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer to kind of of make money honestly, and kind of make your home. I think, Tad, to your earlier question also, I don't think— I think now more than ever, we should be encouraging people to pursue passion. And I think that sometimes it's hard. I'll tell you, even in our household, like, if our daughter was like, I really want to become an artist, or I really want to become a baker, we have this struggle all the time. It's like, well, where is that going to lead you? Are you going to have the lifestyle that you want? And honestly, as my thought has evolved a lot, and it could be that this is the— it'll be fine. Like it doesn't, and fine is all relative. So, you know, that's sort of something to be thoughtful about, but it's, I think the passion importance of contentment, it's a whole different discussion, but it's a component that I think people should take more seriously as they're going through the parenting style and guiding.

I'm curious about from your guys, like if you went back to like 1935, height of the Great Depression and so forth, right? Huge percentage of income would've been spent on just basic food and sort of needs, right? And things of that nature. And then just 20 years later, right? The percentage of income spent on those things just dropped in ways that we couldn't have imagined at the time, particularly like just take food for the example. I had this wondering, like, will it shoot back up as a percentage as other things get commoditized and we like value, it's less about the food and more about the experience, or it doesn't have to be food, right? It could be any number of care economy sort of things that we've, that have sunk down in terms of percentage of spend and maybe we'll flip again as we say, Actually, we want to put disposable income in those places. And maybe to your point, Sriram, like where you make money could look very different in the future. I don't know, but I'm curious if you guys have a take on that.

Is it? So I'm just taking what you said as a truism. I'm surprised to hear you say that food and shelter don't currently make up a very large percentage of disposable income for The median household. Now, of course, for the segment and the cohort of the people that we're talking to, that's less and less true. But I would be really interested in seeing the historical demographic makeup because I suspect, especially with the rate of real income increases against inflation in the past handful of years and the Very expensive housing and basic day-to-day living that for the lower spectrum of the K-shaped economy, there actually probably isn't a ton of disposable income. Now, that depends a little bit on what you consider disposable. Like, is your iPhone bill, is that part of the food and shelter bucket? Somebody in 1929 would be like, well, you know, this isn't really a requirement, but But I don't know, there probably is a decent segment of the population that is struggling a little bit on that front.

Yeah, it's a good point. I think it's roughly a third for the lowest quintile right now is spent on food, but I guess more as a trajectory of the country, right? Like that's gone down over time, I guess is the way I was thinking about it, but it's a good point.

Yeah. And I mean, I think that has to be almost inevitable. If you look back 1,000 years, 90% of everything just went into farming, right? And then you've, Okay, now we've got stick shelters, and so now that's half the economy and industry, and we've moved to a primarily services economy. So that does seem almost inevitable that what we define as the needs will change. One other thought I had on kind of looping back to what we were talking about earlier of like high schools and potential hot take on did we accidentally end up with the system already that we will need? If I think back to my high school experience, the challenging part was not like the learning algebra or the studying the history. The challenging part where I felt more of my mental energy went, maybe it's just because I'm awkward, but was into the social dynamics and figuring out how to interact with other people. And as you're talking about, hey, you know, AI or computers or technology will do more of the kind of technical work. And what's left for humans is that human-to-human interaction and those interpersonal skills. Is that actually, you know, are we maybe some ways fortuitous that we already have a system that forces a lot of that, whether it's the sports or the dances or just, you know, the lunchtime interactions where that is the core skill that's already consuming a lot of student mindshare.

I agree strongly with that, Tad. Like, I think in some ways it goes to what Sriram was saying, like in some quarters it's been fashionable to look down on those sorts of things. And actually that may be the point, right? We actually teach a lot of durable skills, teamwork, et cetera, far better in the extracurricular activities than we do in the core classes where if you're collaborating with friends, we call that cheating. Whereas in sports, it's actually being a good teammate.

Well, I see what do we do to continue to foster Foster that? Because I see the advent of social media, more and more technology, you know, it is removing people from each other and those ties. You know, there's a number of public pundits out there who've been talking about that loss of connection, both from a mental health standpoint, but also from, to Tad's point of just like learning how to interact with people and learning how to build social capital. And it feels like we're moving further and further away from that.

I agree. I mean, I think this is the, when you think about the doomsday scenarios, right around AI, like look at AI companionship among young people, right? Like it's very easy to have an AI significant other that, and then tragically forgets about you at some point depending on its context window. And then all of a sudden you got other problems. But like, I think, but I guess all the more important in my mind for us as parents to be pushing schools to actually be leaning into the pro-social behavior and experiences. And look, it doesn't all have to be through school, right? You could, you could choose to go to a low-cost affordable school that doesn't offer those things, but then you're supplementing around that with sports teams, band, music, whatever. You know, but I do think intentionally leaning into those pro-social experiences is more important because so much otherwise will pull us away from those things that are important for our mental health, but also I think important for thriving.

Ted, I know we're almost out of time, but there's a topic I'd love to get Michael's thoughts on. Okay. I think especially our age group, our kids' age group, the thought of college and how do you select a college and how do you think about what is college actually mean comes up a lot among just my friend group as well as community frequently. You know, what is the right college? Or, you know, what is— are you still going for the top 25? Or however you want to define it, especially now. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you've seen this whole system evolve. I know you've kind of explored a number of different schoolings out there and just want to see what your latest takes are on this topic.

Yeah, I mean, obviously it's an incredibly fast-moving place relative to how slow colleges, sort of that higher education landscape has moved for the previous several decades. My own thought on it is, look, if you get into a highly selective school and we can debate the hoops that you theoretically have to jump into to get into those, but like my own take is if you get in, it's worth going still. Like it's, it's, you know, Jeff Selingo, my co-host on the Future You podcast, who just wrote a bestselling book called Dream School that is sort of meant to debunk the notion of just aiming for the best school. He says like you get 2 lottery tickets instead of 1 to be in the outsized earners in the economy. And I'm like, I don't know, that seems like pretty good odds, right? Like if the alternative is a similarly priced school that is not as highly selective. And I think part of that is everyone's making fun of Tad's alma mater right now for the fact that kids don't go to classes and still get good grades. But the reality is like the social network in which you participate in that screening function is, is in many ways part of the point, right, of these places. And so particularly if there's a low-income family that's listening, I think the research is incredibly clear that those schools are game changers for not just that individual, but for the whole family tree, frankly, like it, it, it's a, it is a force multiplier. And we can argue we don't necessarily have to like large parts of those schools or how they perhaps operate. That reality, I think, is still the case. And I think we're moving into a world in which there's also going to be more pathways into good living, potentially, if the economy holds, that are not just through college, right? And so I think that's the other part of the equation is being more open-minded if someone says, hey, I want to go into the CTE pathway because that's Uh, career technical education, because that's what I'm really excited about, right? Like I want to get my hands into contracting or whatever it might be. And that's where I see opportunity. I think this—

maybe just to build on what you're saying here, Michael, I don't want to interrupt, but hasn't that always been the point of elite colleges? It is the credentialing and is the network. Like, 100% in

my

mind, even before Khan Academy, you could have gone to a public library and checked out a textbook and read all about calculus. And now, you know, calculus, like, I don't think it's really that much of a point.

Yeah. I mean, the reality is like less than 5%. Yeah. The reality is like less than 5% of us are autodidact learners, right? And I mean, I just kind of think it's funny a little bit, like all the articles about this. I mean, what maybe has changed is the grade inflation, right? I think professors before would actually dock you, but I don't think most people were looking at your GPA either when they were hiring, unless you were trying to get into law school, right? And so I just, I think that's right.

And it wasn't even after your first job, like, oh, well, you went to an Ivy League school. Later, nobody's looking at resume and cares, or not that many people are, but it is also, it is that network. I think they say something like, you know, half of Harvard grads end up marrying somebody else who went to, you know, undergrad or grad school there. And I'm sure it's true at all the other schools as well. And, you know, if it's not marriage, it's starting a business together or, you know, hey, as you said, that networking, finding a job of, oh yeah, I was roommates with Duncan. He's fantastic. You should talk with him. You know, he can do this job. And I have a feeling—

100%. That's my, that's my read. And I just think it's like humans like ways of being in exclusive clubs and tribes. And that's just, one might hate that feature of humanity, but it is a feature of humanity. And that's what these, you know, colleges have served as a, a role in society for, for many years. And they've changed the sorting mechanism over time, right? But like fundamentally they've still, still served that purpose in society. So I, I'm with you on that. I think the question gets more interesting, right? Like as you start looking down the list and Jeff's argument is there are many other good colleges that produce a positive ROI and it's more about what you do at the college than like which college itself. And I think that's right. Like there's a lot of interesting research that he cites around actually being the big fish in the small pond is a great thing. And actually the reverse, a lot of STEM majors, for example, who go to top schools like Stanford or wherever else, they'll stop being STEM majors because the competition is just that much more cutthroat. Right. And so things like that. So I think you have to be nuanced about it and so forth. And look, it costs a lot. So what I would say is if your child is not fundamentally excited about college as the next step or right, that next step right away, there are a lot of other good options. A gap year, I think, is a tremendously positive option. The one push I would say is the gap year shouldn't just be like backpacking around Europe aimlessly. I would tell someone to like get a real job as part of it, do some volunteer component, like a service component, like try out a few different things, learn something online while you're maybe backpacking, whatever it is, some set of experiences that hopefully light a spark so that you can figure out what you want to do next.

I'm just going to say, Michael, you sound like no fun as a parent. I'm not getting a phone. I can't backpack around Europe.

Well, to be clear, I'll give you a budget for backpacking, but there's a, there's a cap on everything. Right. And so I think bounds on all this is the way I would say it. I appreciate the push. What I would say is this though, where I will be fun as a parent is out of our research in choosing college, a bunch of students would go to college just to do what others expected of them. 74% of them dropped out or transferred, miserable outcomes. And it's because like when going got tough and everyone's college experience, you have a moment where it's hard. If they didn't have a deeper why, They were like, what am I doing this for? And they were out. Right. And so you do not want to push your kids into that bucket is what I would say. Like there should be the deeper why can frankly, you know, it's not the best thing in the world, but there's sort of the check the box, always do the best for its own sake. You know, I don't think that's like a life strategy, but it's a lot of kids. They'll succeed if that's why they go. You know, we might say it's not the best reason to go, but like they will succeed. And if they have a deeper understanding of what really drives them and what they're trying to get out of the experience or a question they're asking, that's even better.

Well, we really appreciate you have been so generous with your time here, Michael. It's a real pleasure to catch up. Can you let everybody who's listening know if they're interested in what you've had to say, how to follow you, how to get in touch, et cetera?

Yeah, yeah, you bet. You can check out my Substack, Michael B. Horn. It's the Future of Education Substack. You can go to my website, michaelbhorn.com, Or frankly, Michael B. Horn, you'll find me on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, all the things, right? And you can check out the work there that I continue to do. And just huge thanks to you guys for creating a really cool community from which my wife and I have enjoyed learning.

All right. Thanks, Michael.

Thanks.

Thank you guys.