Why Education Has to Change Transcript, AI Summary & Key Points

00:00 This should be the greatest time in the history of humanity to be young. This is like Thomas Edison's time or Henry Ford's time or so forth. But the challenge that we have is everything that we've built to train you was built for a world that is soon to no longer exist. >> Mark and I just commissioned this research report on Gen Z and one of the findings was that it's the generation that has the highest variance and fragmentation across the board.

00:26 It's critical for young people who don't have that billion-dollar idea to not settle for the million-dollar idea and instead go and explore more. We're building a new school for the AI era and that means redesigning everything. >> Let's go pursue it all and let's get an output on that. >> Picture HA 5 years from now. What do you hope that we've achieved?

00:49 How would you determine if we're being successful? My hope is >> well Ben Gagan we have a big announcement today. >> Yes. >> We are announcing Harowitz and Jason Academy. >> Yes we are and we're very excited about that. Super pumped. >> So let's get into the story of how how this came to be and and let's talk about what it is. Ben, ever since I joined, you know, a year and a half ago, we've been, you know, working on bringing this to life.

01:17 We found the perfect coe and co, you know, founder in Gagen. But you've been thinking about this uh at at&Z for years before. So talk about what was the impetus for why we wanted to to make make this happen. >> Yeah, we kind of came out at it from a couple different directions. So the the kind of first thing was you know for well one of the things we noticed is like for young people um kind of college works really really well if you uh want to be a scholar or uh kind of um you know a professor or that kind of thing.

01:54 But it's a little bit of a weird proposition if you just want to get a job or you have an idea to start a company. It's a very large financial investment and a very big time investment. And most of the stuff uh that happens in college isn't around that. It's around other kinds of things. And there's, you know, being a well-rounded person, this and that and the other.

02:15 But if you ask an 18-year-old why do they go to college? It's to get a job usually. and that kind of doesn't always translate. So that was kind of one thing where like you know I wonder if you know we got a lot of jobs maybe we can help with that. And then on our side from a hiring standpoint, I think that um you know college really evolved a lot uh in the last I would say four or five years in terms of uh kind of the kind of students they're looking for and then what uh skills they have.

02:47 And you know in our world the skill sets needed are evolving so fast uh that it it was just very hard for a kind of big system like that to keep up. So you know we still think college is great for you know probably most kids. Uh but there is a certain kind of kid that wants to build something that already knows they want to go in you know specifically currently into technology and we have access to all the jobs.

03:18 we know exactly what you need to learn. We know exactly the skills that you have to have. And so we thought, gee, you know, like that would be a great thing for us to add to the mix and provide. >> Yeah. And you know, we've been individually been thinking about this for, you know, over a decade. You and your many businesses, you know, having co-ounded Udemy, uh, you know, Maven most recently.

03:40 Um that was you know we did a search for who who was the right CEO and it just through the process became obvious that Gagen has one been thinking about this for forever but then two uh is one of the most just impressive entrepreneurs in in the entire space o over the past you know decade plus. Is there anything else you want to say about the the the >> Yeah, like he was it was kind of one of those things where you go like we have this idea and then we meet a guy he's like you know I've had that idea for much longer

04:08 than you've had that idea and not only that I've like spent a lot of time trying to work and make it happen. um but without necessarily the gigantic resource that you guys have which is you're invested in 1,600 companies um and you have a fairly large uh place of employment yourself and so forth. So you know if you put those things together um then you have the potential for like something really really special.

04:37 >> Yeah. And I I think also you know we as a firm have also backed many you know things in the space. There's a lot of people who tried to do something in the space and it hasn't really cut through. There's some interesting experiments. There's some interesting outcomes, but nothing has really, you know, taken um sort of a crack at it. And I'm I'm curious why you guys think that that is.

04:55 I'll I'll take a stab by saying I think they they focus a little bit too narrow. You know, college is of course a bundle. It's a bundle of dozens of things including like sports leagues and hedge fun. You don't have to do the whole bundle, but you have to do uh not just sort of um training people for the job world, but also um or not just education, but also uh status and credential and brand.

05:16 It has to be an indication that oh, you know, you went here, thus I want to hire you or I want to work with you. Um and it also has to be fun. Um it has to be something that people actually want to do. And I think too too many players just focus either just on the learning thing or or just on some other hybrid and don't create the the the bundle that is the the value prop that is truly truly competitive.

05:37 >> Yeah. So I think that you know we're kind of starting out um a little more specific and then we'll you know and really ace that. Um but you know the idea the core idea of it is like it's for people who want to build something and do something and make an impact um kind of in the world outside of you know like I said being a scholar and to do that uh you know be it in technology or in music or in any field you kind of want to learn how to do it uh as opposed to just study about it.

06:12 And so if you think of something like you know uh like music uh appreciation or art appreciation or so for that that's great but like we would do that kind of thing. We would do the kind of thing where it's like oh you want to major in music like you know let's write some songs let's let's do some things you know let's let's understand that process and and do that and it's same thing with technology which is oh you want to be a technologist like let's learn how to build a system.

06:43 Yeah. >> Uh and you know I think that's just ends up being very different. The other thing that you know the other reason that now is actually the correct time to do it is if you look at the university system you know it started out as this religious institution with the Jesuits and so forth. Um and then the industrial revolution came and then all of a sudden everybody needed kind of a higher level of the ability to learn things, the ability to you know being literate etc etc and so the university system just exploded

07:23 in the US and and the universities got much bigger and there became many more of them and so forth and that was really necessary to train the population to kind of enter the corporate world. there was like it's hard for people to understand now but like oh in 1700 there was no corporate world like that there was like a farm world that you know and then all of a sudden we got these companies and all this kind of thing and um to exist in that environment you've got to be able to you know read and write and do math and

07:51 this and that and the third and so like things really changed from an educational standpoint in this country which became a huge advantage and you know to a large extent the America that we have was built on the backs of our great universities, but we're hitting the AI revolution now, which is going to be, you know, in our estimation, as transformational uh in terms of jobs, the way jobs are done, the kinds of jobs that are available and so forth as the industrial revolution was to the agricultural uh kind of society

08:22 that that came before it. And the idea that the training for the industrial revolution is going to map into the AI revolution probably not perfectly. So there kind of needs to be a pioneer that shows the way like how do you train somebody into the new world. Uh and you know there's many things that are different. So and we've got all this technology as well.

08:46 So, you know, rather than being in lectures for 5 hours a day or eight hours a day depending on your curriculum, you know, maybe it's better to have uh kind of more contained instruction and you know, more time with the tools, more time learning on an individual pace with AI and those kinds of things. And then also more structured social things. So, not like the social things, not necessarily let's get rip roaring drunk uh and go out.

09:10 Although maybe some of that will occur too, but you know, kind of more structured social things because we'll have the time because we won't have so much time, you know, sitting in the classroom listening to somebody talk. Uh and so, you know, all these new ideas can come into play now. Uh and the timing is, you know, I say, you know, for for a young person now, that's the world they're going to live in.

09:34 >> Yeah, I I completely agree. We're building a new school for the AI era and that means redesigning everything. And I think that actually the other efforts I agree with you some of them don't go big enough in order to truly deliver a you know college comparable experience. Obviously this is not college. It's not degree granting but a college comparable experience that's good for a high school student.

09:58 You have to have interpersonal social dynamics. You need to have it residential in San Francisco. you need to make sure that it's connected to the employers who employ the best people. Um, and so there's a bundle that's required that you have to deliver. And there's probably only two or three people who have ever even tried to deliver that bundle in the last, you know, let's say 50 years.

10:18 Um, and the other thing though that those companies or or or efforts I think missed is, you know, it's a classic startup thing like what do you do when you start a startup? You need a very very unique specific customer who has a burning desire for your product. And like Ben, when we first met, I hadn't met that many of these, but over the last six months, as you know, I've spent all my time with these young builders.

10:44 And there is a generation of young builders who are just fired up about creating things. And that is one of the core ingredients of this academy is that they exist. and we're building it for them. And I think that makes it different from other efforts because we have the we have a very clear demand. Um and also that that demand is elite. So it's not like it's demand from you know the far right or the far left or something where it's not perceived positively like these are the people who are going to employ you know

11:21 thousands or hundreds of thousands of people in the future. They're going to raise a billion dollars for their company eventually. like those are the people who need our product right now and that's what I think is really exciting. >> Yeah. and and students will have the opportunity to uh like when I when I was in college it was so divorced from from the real world uh and I was interested in technology and I was reading about it but here you're going to have access to work at companies internet companies like data

11:45 bricks Nvidia uh stripe dozens of others and you'll be immersed in the A16Z sort of cinematic universe uh that is both economic you know practically from a career oriented like very embedded in in the actual work but then also just um you know exposure to people doing real things, interesting things, getting the the osmosis of the Silicon Valley sort of spirit.

12:07 Ben, let's talk about if you were 18 today, how would you be thinking about your own uh sort of growth or education, learning like how what's it like to be 18 today in terms of like what do you think people should be excited about, you nervous about? >> Yeah. So I I would be thrilled to be 18. I think um it is like one of the best times in history to be 18 and and it's unfortunate because I think because of the systems for getting people into work currently people are really nervous about their future.

12:42 Um but if you look at it this is um you know this is like Thomas Edison's time or uh you know Henry Ford's time or so forth. It's kind of you're going into a world that only you will understand. Um that like people like me will have much more difficult time understanding the world than you will and what's possible and what you can do and so forth. So you're going to go in at a very young age being more capable than people with 30 40 years of experience.

13:11 And that's that's just amazing because normally, you know, you've got to work your way up the the corporate ladder, you know, spend, you know, 20 years kind of developing your status and credibility, whereas now you can come out right off the rip using the new tools to basically solve almost any problem out there. And I'm, you know, the funny thing is like, well, what are people going to do?

13:35 It's like, well, are we out of problems? It seems like we have all I read about is problems. There's problems everywhere. So now you can go out, you can attack them directly. Um either you know either yourself as the leader or as part of a team. Um but you know that to me is the thing that's really really exciting. And I think it's, you know, it's it's funny.

13:56 I I you know, I heard a lot about the industrial revolution trans uh transition because so my grandfather's uh father kind of immigrated the uh the family out of Russia um because uh they were going to kill all the Jews. So they had to leave um you know was the the pilgrim period. And he he basically was a slave here um in in that he was in a sweat shop.

14:21 He slept under his sewing machine um because he they work he worked so many hours. He like slept at the office under his sewing machine. He'd come back you know on the weekends and so forth. Uh and he made like very little money and he he was just it was a very very hard life for him. But you know my grandfather was able to get an education at CCNY and he kind of became a teacher and had a kind of much better life.

14:47 Although it was also not nearly as good as my father's who was the next generation coming out of it. And I think you know for this when we look back I think the young people today will be um look at us and you know their parents as though you guys were sleeping under sewing machines you know and and and pretty bitter uh compared to like what's going to be possible and so forth.

15:09 So I think it's it's a very very exciting time but you know you want to be on the kind of right side of history and you want to be future forward. You don't want to I I think the past is going to fade very fast you know much faster than we're used to. >> Talk about how even though it's so easy to build um you still want to have experience, relationships, connections, spend some time at some of these iconic companies, right?

15:36 because when you're just a a kid you might think oh I want to start a dating app idea or pizza idea but if you work at data bricks for a bit say example talk a little bit about that >> yeah so I I think that um you know the if if you're young and you see something that you go oh my god I think I'm the only one who really understands this and it's compelling me to build a company then that's you know that's phenomenal that's Mark Zuckerberg that's you That's a kind of a unbelievable opportunity but also a rare one.

16:12 And then I think you know most people who are young or kind of the majority would love to kind of understand that thing. Um, and by the way, all Zuck's roommates um, from Harvard who didn't go to Facebook with him really regretted that because he kind of invited them all to be employees or, you know, many of them and and some of them didn't do it and they're like, "Dag nab it.

16:37 That would have been so exciting." Uh and so I think that you know there's just a great opportunity to kind of join up with people who have done that kind of thing either you know it's something that's further along depending on you know if you really want to kind of learn and develop your skills and so forth or uh you know maybe you know one of your classmates is doing something really exciting like you know in the case of uh Facebook at the time.

17:03 So, you know, I think there are many, you know, there's plenty of opportunities depending on um how how powerful your new ideas are at that time. And, you know, sometimes they're not that powerful. I didn't have a great idea when I was 18. So, it's it's not uh it's not that common. Um it took me a while to learn. You know, I'm not as quick as others on that, I guess.

17:24 Uh but if you get in, you know, the great thing for me is I got in at a company Silicon Graphics which had all kinds of innovation and I saw what that was and how you can really change things and so forth and that kind of built a foundation for the rest of my career. >> Yeah. We always talk about builder skills but also people skills. You've written a couple books on it.

17:46 You you you um talk about all the time internally. >> Is that something you knew uh when you were 18 or in college or how do you how do you learn people skills? how should we um you know teach it to our students etc. >> Well look I think the main thing and is to be around people and and it it's you know people of often talk about you know particularly the millennial generation has this kind of loneliness epidemic uh because they're so locked into their screens and so forth.

18:13 I think one of the things that AI has the potential is just like get us off of the screen, right? Like we're not that far away from I'm going to talk to my AI and have him do the work and deal with the dang computer, you know, like and so that's going to free me up to really deal with people where there's going to be just tremendous value. um being able to kind of know my peers, motivate them, kind of uh get the best out of each other, do something larger than ourselves and try and kind of move the future forward and

18:47 make the world a better place. And so kind of getting experience in that environment where you're kind of working with others and and learning, hey, you know, yeah, I mean, I and you know, college, by the way, has has been great for this over the years where you're like, oh, you come from Nebraska. I I never knew anybody from Nebraska. Like what is it like that?

19:08 What's it just corn fields and Like what's going on? And and you know, you kind of get to know people. And you know, probably one of the skills that I see missing the most, uh, which I try and kind of impart in people on the firm is like, let's just start with who the person you're talking to is, like rather than just talking to somebody. Hey, Eric, how you doing?

19:30 D, like, where'd you grow up? Where are you from? Like, oh, that's interesting. you've got, you know, this uh parent from this place, this other parent from the other place, you know, that that's really good. What was that like? You know, how did they get along? So forth. And then you start to kind of understand people and and that opportunity in a business context isn't as obvious, you know, if you haven't, but you always do that when you get with a group of kids your age.

20:02 Like that's the first thing you ask them. You want to know um you know, do you get along with your parents? you hate your parents, you know, that that kind of thing. >> Yeah. I think one of the I mean, absolutely one of the most important things we want is to develop people's skills. >> And uh one of the core tenants of developing a skill like that is osmosis.

20:22 >> You need to immerse the student in the envi social environment in which these which the humans are. And specifically, I think it's a challenge if you go off to college, you only interact with people your same year. You know, you finally maybe have a friend who's like one or two years above you or below you. One of the things I think the academy will do is we obviously want there to be deep social networks amongst your peers.

20:50 We also are going to try and cohabitate you like especially in the office with other companies and individuals and projects and co-ops and internships that are with the quote unquote adult world so that you can force yourself to you're sort of you can't have no choice. Like if you're trying to accomplish let's say you're trying to build a new type of robot dog and the only way to do it is to get a specific type of chip and you don't know how to write a cold email.

21:18 you're going to have to learn, right? And you're going to have all these people around you who are experts at this. So, they're going to be like, "Oh, you should do that and you should do that, etc." And so, I think that the combination of the osmosis of Silicon Valley, a peer network that's supportive, and a the project-based curriculum combined will dramatically accelerate people's skill development over something like, "Let me sit in a lecture talking about negotiations.

21:46 Like that's not how you develop people's skills. You develop people's skills because you're doing something you really care about and you need to get everyone on board. >> Yeah. 100%. Related. Mark and I just commissioned this research report on Gen Z. And and one of the findings was that it's the generation that has the highest variance and fragmentation across the board.

22:08 And so any sort of subculture um or they're the most extreme at it. And so, for example, there's so many like back when we were in college, it was rare to have an 18-year-old who was already building startups, immersed in the startup world, um, you know, obsessed with sort of, you know, uh, this kind of thing. And now there there a bunch of them and we're going to harness them.

22:29 But to your point, Ben, it's important about the people you surround yourself with. And so now it's higher variance than ever to to find your people, people who are builder, people who are resilient, people who are entrepreneurial. Um, to being able to aggregate them the same place is is just huge. Yeah, we're really excited. I I've been so impressed by the talent that we've had a chance to meet.

22:46 I mean, I didn't know a single person who was doing anything entrepreneurial when I was a child and I started my first venture at 13. So the idea that we're going to collect, you know, 50 uh in at least in the founding class fellowship, 50 students who are all like actually builders and they're going to be different kinds of builders like like I want to be clear that this be quite a broad definition of the word building, but all in one place and for them to meet each other and spend a bunch of time riffing off each

23:15 other. I'm very excited about it. >> Yeah. The Let's talk about the importance of this being in California in the extended Bay Area. You know, Ben, you grew up in in in in Berkeley. Um, >> Republic. Absolutely. >> Yes. Exactly. >> Which at the time was like 10,000 miles from Silicon Valley, even though it was only >> like a half hour drive. >> Yeah.

23:38 And I I think it's so interest because you grew up in in California, so you know that it's not just sort of a a technical, you know, bastion, but also, you know, a cultural bastion, intellectual bastion. It's so interesting because and we're focused, you know, uh largely on the on the builder um element first, but people say, you know, college is for building a career, but also becoming an, you know, pursuing knowledge and be becoming a better person.

23:58 And talk about why California is just in San Francisco is just such an important place for uh for this to be what is the opportunity here? >> Well, I think the big thing is it's where most companies, great companies in America get started and then America is one of kind of two places in the world where like a giant number of companies get started. And so everybody who has done that and knows how to do that and all the people have worked at places like that um just a huge majority are here in California.

24:34 So, you know, if you want to learn how to do that or if you want to um go work with people who do that, then it's just like the most obvious place to put it. Uh and and look, you know, I I went to college in New York and most of the people who came out of academia went into financial services like that was kind of the main employer that was the main recruiter there and so forth.

24:56 And I think uh for a program like this, you know, we're connected to so many companies, but probably, you know, well over 80% of them are like right in this area. And so it just makes it very very convenient to you come here, you learn the area and guess what? You can start your career right in that place. >> Yeah. Yeah. San Francisco is your campus, right?

25:21 The campus is not just the walls within the school, but it's the entire city. And and I think that's very important. And the other thing I'll add is that uh if if San Francisco is the campus, the cultural values of San Francisco um that many people don't talk about. You know, San Francisco is one of the places that embraces failure. If things don't work out, we'll still fund your next company.

25:44 You know, it's Silicon Valley is one of the places that's positive sum. Everyone believes that if I help someone, I don't need to get anything in return. I'm going to pay it forward and I know it's going to come back to me because that's the culture we live in. It's a super high trust culture. So, I think that it's going to create a really, really calm, safe, and positive environment for students that is also super ambitious.

26:08 It's a rare combination. It's very hard to get right. And I think Silicon Valley and San Francisco in particular really has figured that out. And I I think another way of also phrasing it is like if you want a stake in the future in this or help help determine it, help argue it, help build it, a lot of it happens in San Francisco. Whether it's the future of art AI, whether it's the future of money, whether it's the the future of uh biotech, uh so many of these technologies, but also the conversations surrounding those

26:37 technologies um are litigated here or started here and then expanded out that way >> and litigated here. >> Yes. both metaphorically and literally. >> Ben, talk about the decision to make this a separate company. We went back and forth on this for for a while of why Harwoods and Jason Academy, we wanted it to both be separate but also connected and that's why we kept the brand the same and also it has to be a strong brand that signals to students.

27:01 But talk about that decision a little bit and how you see it interfacing with with the firm and you know at large. >> Yeah. So I think the thing that the firm brings that's extremely unique is we are comprehensively connected to basically every opportunity in tech. Um there's and and you know by the way you know we're working to make those partnerships kind of explicit around the graduates of the academy.

27:31 if you go through this program, if you do well, there are opportun like you know many opportunities for you and so that that was the real strength that we brought I thought um but you know this is its own idea like we're an investment firm this is not an investment idea this I mean it's an investment in the future of the country but it's uh you know it's it's an academy uh which we're not and so it really needed to be separate and have its own In addition, I don't think that this idea is limited to technology.

28:08 Like as I said, I think it's very interesting for music. It may be interesting for medicine. It could be interesting for a variety of things because every profession is undergoing a massive change. And so we wanted it to be able to grow and expand um you know, as we got it working and so forth. So it didn't make sense to be kind of a kind of piece of the firm uh or that would have limited its ambition uh quite a bit and you know we're we're not about limiting ambition around here.

28:45 >> Totally. And and talk about why it had to be a for-profit or put differently. Another thing we said in previous conversations is the customer has got to be the student and right now sometimes in in certain institutions there's kind of they try to serve too many customers and and it kind of be ends up being this disjointed product. >> Yeah. So look I mean the the whole thing is if you're young it kind of goes back to our earlier conversation.

29:07 If you're young this should be the greatest time in the history of humanity to be young. Yeah. Uh but the challenge that we have is everything that we've built to train you was built for a world that is soon to no longer exist. And so you you know we have to somebody's got to super serve that client. And um and look, I think my hope is that as we kind of show this model, as we build this model, as we create it, we're not the only ones that will have it.

29:45 Like this isn't an idea where we're going, okay, we're going to create a monopoly on this thing. It's like, no, please copy us. Please Harvard, copy us. Please everybody copy us because, you know, somebody's got to do the innovative work to get the breakthrough. Um but then that's going to change the world for, you know, every young person. uh in this country and you know maybe maybe beyond.

30:09 So that's the idea that we don't you know we don't care about um serving the alumni or serving the donors or serving the you know the parent like this is about the young people >> uh and you know what do they need and what's going to create the best life for them and so that simplifies the equation quite a bit. >> Yeah. Yeah. the the profit motive forces us to deliver to the customer and our job at the end of the day is to make sure that young people who attend the institution go off and do great things because that

30:45 creates the brand that creates the flywheel that allows us to continue to stay in business and I think that's very unique in education um that we have such incentive alignment uh and I think it's it's a core tenant actually of the academy >> yeah similarly One of the core tenants of the academy is is uh curiosity and and you know there's this quote uh education is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire >> and um you know we're moving from this like kind of like push model to you know these grades and

31:14 all this stuff you have to cram to this pull which is like what are you naturally curious about and what can you go build or pursue in that space and it may not be obvious that all the time of what it will lead to like we were talking about how Steve Jobs had this interest in calligraphy >> and that didn't seem like that would you know obvious what it would lead to but in fact it It of course led led to quite a lot.

31:33 And similarly, Ben, you've always been interested in rap music. >> Yes. >> And you you were pursuing your interest at a very young age. I >> still am. Yeah. >> Yeah. Exactly. And um it it maybe wasn't obvious at the time how that might lead to uh something, but it's it's made you much more authentic and interesting as as a business person and made your life, you know, >> and a better storyteller, which is a key part of what I do.

31:52 Um and so, >> yeah. know I I and that's definitely kind of important in the context of the academy and what we're trying to do in in terms of yeah like let's go pursue it all. Um but then let's uh you know and but let let's get an output on that. Yeah. So not you know it's much more oriented around oh did you build something interesting um than oh could you like memorize these questions because look we do have tools that can answer those questions very well now it's funny funny I was talking to Dan Bonet um who is a

32:37 great professor of uh computer science at Stanford cryptography and his take on AI I uh was you kind of have two choices, right? You can ban it and by the way that won't work. Uh or you can make the problem so hard that you can't solve them without AI. And I think that's um you know his orientation is amazing there. And what he's seeing is oh I've got students solving things that no student in history could have ever solved like that I can't even like I could never solve myself.

33:09 uh and but that's what's possible, right? And so you want to kind of have that orientation where it's like, well, what can you solve with the tools and what can you do um you know, what can you do that's like breakthrough because now everybody's got an opportunity to create a breakthrough and that's um that's super exciting because you know then you're then you're a main character, not an NPC, right?

33:34 like that that that's kind of what the academy is about is like hey do you want to be a main character? If you want to be a main character like we help you do that. Um if you want to be a cog in a machine then this is not going to be the best place for you but uh you know there are many places that can serve that. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And I think it's important that the builder mentality apply to uh interests that are not obviously about AI or building.

34:00 So take calligraphy for example. You know, it's one thing to say, "Hey, why don't you go study calligraphy and respond like and and and sort of answer questions on a test about how to, you know, I know nothing about calligraphy, but like how how how to draw, you know, beautiful letters." And it's another thing to say like, "Hey, why don't you learn enough calligraphy to write a Islamic poem, you know, beautifully displayed in the academy?"

34:28 And so for every pursuit that we, you know, Ben, you earlier talked about music. For every pursuit of knowledge that our students have, we are going to reframe that into how do you do something with it? Create a challenge, a project, anything that's fun and interesting that allows you to go pursue it. And I think that is that ethos will allow them to learn skills that are not relevant to jobs obviously like even you know horiculture or you know learning how to kite surf whatever it is but it allows them to do it in a

35:05 way that ensures that they actually learn the skill. It's a very very hard to learn most skills if all you're doing is cramming for a test. On the people skills, there's a few different dimensions, right? Like some people make the analogy, you know, founder is like, uh, you know, being a movie director, like you've got to, you know, sort of, you know, create script, bring all, you know, get get all the actors involved and then and then make it happen.

35:25 Other people, you know, compared to like a nightclub promoter, like you have to get people excited about thing, you have to bring them in, you have to sell, you have to sort of negotiate, etc. At the same time, there are people who are charismatic, but also uh crash out. Um, you know, um, and man, you talk a lot about the inner game of managing your own psychology of, you know, uh, you know, you you've worked with a lot of, uh, you know, you still work with a lot of like very idiosyncratic, uh, people.

35:49 And so, how do you as a kid learn, uh, this um, what might you say there? >> Well, I think look, I think that's um, again, difficult to teach in a classroom, right? Uh, and here's the thing that I always tell CEOs, um, is, you know, and look, a lot of them read my book, so I don't want to, you know, but that book doesn't teach you how to be a CEO in the sense that, you know, you can read every book ever written on how to play football.

36:22 But like if you get into an NFL game and you're playing quarterback, like nothing in a book is going to teach you to deal with like somebody some 300 lb monster rushing at you while you're trying to like figure out who to throw the ball to. Like you actually have to do that in order to learn it. And I think that um you know, you kind of have to do it to learn it.

36:44 And so a lot of what we're going to orient the academy about is like okay, can you put a team together? Can you do it? Um, and that's, you know, there'll be less on the line. It'll be more like practice than the game. Uh, but you know, that's that's the way you learn that you you kind of learn those decision- making. You know, what does it cost you if you hesitate on the decision?

37:07 Like what is it what does it mean to not resolve a conflict? Like what are the consequences? Um, and you can't you can read about that. >> Yeah. Um, and I can tell you about that, but until you know that feeling, you know, that that that horrible feeling, um, you're not really going to learn it to the level that you need to do it to like run a company or that kind of thing.

37:29 >> To that end, because of the tools are so good, our resources are so good, it's easier than ever to do something um, once you know what you want to do. And so, the constraint often comes on what's worth working on, how do you spend your time? If if you were uh, 18 today, >> because there's, you know, there's so many different trade-offs. How would you think about?

37:48 >> Well, I think you know a lot of it comes down to um you know what you're interested in, what your kind of skill set matches and you know what what's some problem that you know about uh that you can solve. And there are you know there there's there's so many diseases that are so destructive. There's um you know all kinds of uh challenges with the environment.

38:15 There's real challenges in the integrity of our election system and so forth like is there a technological answer to that? Um you know and and so on and so forth or is there just a systems answer? Uh and you know depending on what problem you're like dang we need to fix that. And then by the way, what always happens with entrepreneurs is it's kind of like scientific discovery.

38:41 You go to fix, you're like, we're going to go get to like a cure for uh you know, pancreatic cancer, but along the way you find, oh no, like we can solve this other thing uh that's also important because we discovered something there or or whatever. you know, most kind of scientific discoveries and entrepreneurial ideas end up being accidental in some way and that you're going to solve a hard problem and you find some other hard problem that's in the way of you solving that hard problem that ends up, you know, being

39:13 the thing that that becomes the the idea. And that that's why I believe it's critical for young people who don't have that billion-dollar idea to not settle for the million-dollar idea and instead go and explore more. >> Yeah. >> You know, a lot of young people are not yet exposed to anything beyond what a teenage life in includes. And one of the real core values of the academy is we're going to expose you to a a much wider range of what happens in the real world.

39:45 >> Yeah. And look to try and fail at a really hard problem the value is in the learning. So you people say oh Silicon Valley uh embraces failure. Well not all kinds of failure right the failure where you learn a tremendous amount and then you know you you've earned a secret. >> Yeah. >> By going out there trying to solve a hard problem and not being able now you know why that problem's so hard to solve.

40:13 Okay. So then what are the subpros and you know what are the related problems and can you solve one of those and that knowledge that you earn by failing is what we value here and that's the same kind of thing that we would value at the academy is like what did you learn by doing? >> Yeah. Picture HA 5 years from now. What do you hope that we've achieved?

40:37 How would you determine if we're being successful? Talk about what you envision. Well, I think that you know in five years there there's many things that would made it success. One is that you know we have graduates um who have great careers that they love um and have built like or has started really interesting companies. You know maybe they probably wouldn't be successful in that time frame or you know whatever you consider a success.

41:07 Uh and that you know we've learned um as the academy to uh like what really works and can we kind of extend that and expand that so we can get more different kinds of students in. you know, maybe not just okay, technology is interesting to you, but you're really interested in these other things and get people who can solve all the problems of the world or, you know, become uh incredible creatives and, you know, the creative world is changing, too.

41:38 Now, you know, when I talk to my creative friends, they're like, it's amazing because I have an idea about like a feeling that I want to convey and I can absolutely do it in every medium now. I don't I'm not just restricted to my thing. I can make a full-length feature film. I can make a movie. I can I can make a song. I can make a song. I can score a movie.

41:59 Uh and so now like everything is possible. And so I think, you know, it's a just a wonderful time to be able to manifest um your ideas and get your ideas out in in every kind of medium. And we want to facilitate that across the board, not just, you know, kind of in our traditional uh lanes. Well, it's going to be incredible to to build that future out with both of you and all the students who join us. >> All right. >> So excited. Yeah, very excited. >> Thank you.