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

Austen Allred is the co-founder & CEO of Lambda School: a virtual coding school that is completely free to attend, until its graduates earn at least $50,000/year. Lambda School is betting on its student’s success as its success, and has seen its graduates go on to work as developers in Fortune 100 companies and prominent startups including Google, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs and more. But even prior to founding Lambda School & being accepted into Y Combinator, Austen has had a wealth of interesting experiences. From working for two years as a Mormon missionary in Eastern Ukraine - where every foreigner was viewed as a spy - to dropping out of college, vagabonding around China, blogging while being homeless in Silicon Valley (which eventually led to him securing his first funding & job in the Valley!) & going through 5 rounds of interviews before being accepted onto Y Combinator. We explore all that, including his viral & controversially titled article in 2012, “Successful Entrepreneurs Are Usually Liars” in this STIMY episode. Highlights: 3:17 Growing up in a Mormon family 6:12 Learning HTML at age of 11 10:06 Going on a mission trip in Donetsk, Eastern Ukraine 15:18 Founding Stubtopia 25:27 Dropping out of college 29:44 Vagabonding around China 31:22 Writing the viral 2012 article, “Successful Entrepreneurs Are Usually Liars” 33:49 Blogging while homeless in Silicon Valley (which led to his first job in Silicon Valley & investment for his own startup!) 38:24 Noticing the discrepancy between Utah & Silicon Valley in terms of opportunities & pay 39:31 How the concept of Lambda School came about 51:21 The right time to raise VC money 54:58 Getting into Y Combinator 59:13 Biggest takeaway from working with Geoff Rolston (now President of Y Combinator) & Daniel Gross 1:03:54 Issues surrounding the Income Sharing Agreements (ISA) 1:06:47 How COVID-19 has impacted Lambda School 📍Show notes: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/61 💌 Sign up for the weekly STIMY newsletter: https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/ebf231f605 🪙 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sothisismywhy