On this episode, Abadesi talks to Austen Allred, co-founder and CEO of Lambda School. Lambda School is a pioneer in the income-sharing agreement (ISA) space. They offer live online courses in software development, data science and design that are free until you get a job, at which point you re-pay a capped portion of your income to Lambda School.

In this episode we talk about:

• Austen's adventures abroad prior to starting Lambda School, including what he learned through his travels as a missionary in Ukraine, and the time he booked a one-way ticket to Shanghai on a whim.
• The challenges inherent in the inflexibility of education and how Lambda School is hoping to change the traditional model of how people train for and find careers.
• Austen's leadership style at Lambda, why he took venture capital even though he had earlier said he would never do so, and how they work as a distributed team.

We also talk about some of the tools that Austen and the team at Lambda School use to stay productive.

We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Also, big thanks to AngelList, FreshBooks and Bubble for their support. 😸

Quotes from This Episode

“Not much can influence somebody’s life and their outlook so much as their income. It’s crazy to me that there’s not a way of rapidly shifting people to where they should be in the economy.” — Austen

“I crave that steep learning curve and the adventure of being extremely uncomfortable. You underestimate just how difficult day-to-day life can be when you’re trying to learn a second language.” — Austen

“The problem that you want to solve is a problem that’s been around for a long time, it’s something that’s fundamental to humans — it’s not a side problem.” — Austen

Companies and Products Mentioned in This Episode

AirPods — Wireless headphones from Apple.

Amazon Echo — Smart speaker you control with your voice.

Notion — The all-in-one workspace.

Pocket — Save and read news, articles and videos that fuel your mind.

Slack — Messaging for teams.

Superhuman — The fastest email experience ever made.