Venture Stories

Erik is joined by his co-host for this episode Ray Batra (@reesesandcoke), founder of Shift_Up, a platform for in-person learning that Ray calls “gyms for learning” and Austen Allred (@AustenAllred), co-founder and CEO of Lambda School, a pioneer in the income-sharing space. Their computing science program is free until a student gets a job, at which point they pay back their schooling with a percentage of their income (up to a capped amount).By the way, we apologize for the audio quality of this interview. We had to catch up with Austen over the phone while he was on the move between meetings.Austen talks about some of the other verticals that Lambda School is thinking about beyond computer science, and why they are also looking at taking care of other things in a student’s life like housing and bridge income. He points out that in addition to requiring a significant amount of capital, education just as importantly requires time and space and a clear head.They talk about Austen’s quote that Lambda School is