Austen Allred on Lambda School, $400 Billion Clubhouse, Peloton replacing religion, the death of Silicon valley, first principles thinking and more

Austen Allred is the founder of Lambda School and one of the smartest entrepreneurs trying to fix education. We talked about Austen's fascination with reading history in the context of business, his deep interest in shareholder letters and internal memos of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, Disney, and other great companies, and his thoughts on first principles thinking. He also shared how a Mormon mission he went to at age 19 in Eastern Ukraine has shaped Lambda, how he built his network in silicon valley, and putting 100% of his net worth in Tesla. He put out his bear and bull case for Clubhouse and why he thinks it's a $400 billion company. I thoroughly enjoyed discussing topics like Peloton replacing religion in America, the death of silicon valley, democratizing angel investing, and raising a $30 million fund without even intending to do so. It was a fun conversation.

Here are the show notes :)

02:42 - Why I love reading biographies of The Wright Brothers and John D Rockefeller

04:56 - Amazon's shareholder letters are the best business writing ever

05:41 - Thinking in first principles can be taught

07:10 - Spending 2 years in Eastern Ukraine at the age of 19 and how that has shaped Lambda School

09:16 - I'm used to a lot less dopamine than most people 

11:36 -  People are way more open to cold emails than most people assume

12:46 - How I built my network in silicon valley from scratch

15:01 - How the world will look like if Lambda school succeeds 

17:05 - Why I put 100% of my net worth in Tesla

18:38 - Clubhouse will be a $400 Billion company

21:06 - Twitter Spaces lacks the magical experience of Clubhouse and why it will fail

23:08 - Lambda school is priced low even though it feels high to a lot of people

25:25 - How I'd grow a podcast really, really fast

26:13 - If I wasn't doing Lambda School, I'd probably work for Roam Research

27:10 - Peloton is replacing religion in America

28:24 - CEO-COO relationship and the common thing among all great silicon valley companies

30:22 - Giving away free services for hyper-growth 

31:36 - Why startups are now taking less than $5000 angel investments

34:30 - Silicon valley is dying

37:17 - Raising a $30 million fund without intending to

I share all the articles/podcasts/books I consume during researching my guests as well as other stuff I find interesting in the newsletter (https://stealmymarketing.substack.com)

You can also follow me on Twitter for similar stuff. My DMs are open (https://twitter.com/AbhishekLpd)

Austen on Twitter (https://twitter.com/austen)

Lambda School (https://lambdaschool.com/)