Lambda School lays off 19 employees
lambdaschool.com
lambdaschool.com
They added 125 in 2019, and there were 40 at some unknown time during 2018. That would mean at least 165. There's a photo which was taken sometime in 2019 while the 125 were being added, which may not include everyone. They may have also hired more in the first couple months of 2020. It seems they had somewhere between 165 and 250 employees. This would mean the 19 employees are between 7.5% and 11.5% of their workforce.
I have friends who worked in investment banking in 2008, and several of them have talked about how the industry (or at least their perception of it) became more "diamond-shaped." By this they meant that past the initial hiring freezes, entry-level hiring eventually picked up as normal, but that senior level promotions took a while to pick back up. There was a glut of experienced VPs (more of a mid-level role in IB than in engineering) who were making lateral moves between banks—not competing for entry level roles—but none of them were moving up to higher positions.
I'm going to need you to cite something to back that up. It is opposite of everything I've seen so far.
Just search on "schools shutting down for the rest of the year" and you'll find a bunch of sources. Of course it varies by state/district here in the U.S., but many are opting to shut down completely rather than attempting online instruction.
If hiring slows down, which it has, then these schools don't have anywhere to place students.
If Lambda tries to sell their ISAs, which they admit they sometimes do, the buyer is going to request a much steeper discount now than before if they are willing to buy the loans at all.
It's capped and time limited - so you know the max you'll pay and how long you may be paying up front. Not sure why you're mentioning unemployment benefits? Why would that be their job to do that for you?
What's the problem?
Not really sure what you want here.
They don't offer proof? When you buy a book do you demand 'proof' from the author that you'll learn something from it? What proof do universities offer? It's a service offered. If you want it, buy it. If you don't, don't.
> And in crisis times they signal their courses give no edge over the job market by.. laying off their own people.
These are employees, not students of their course, aren't they? And you having to lay people off due to reduced revenue doesn't say anything about the quality of their education anyway.
I think you're just throwing random snide comments around that don't really make any sense.
Claiming slavish tax is the same, like Lambda does, is simply a fraud.
Lambda School is also limited price as well. And you can 'throw your education out of the window' metaphorically, after you've paid the fee, any time you like. You also can't throw a book out of the window until you've paid the whole price of it.
> Claiming slavish tax is the same, like Lambda does, is simply a fraud.
It's just a fee for a service. It's not a tax. And there's no deception so it isn't fraud.
The problem is that Lambda are vampires. Their model is completely superfluous. They do not add any value over self-assigned MIT lectures on Youtube. From what I have gathered, Lambda is the kind of setting where folks like me are supposed to show up and supplement the "teacher" and their lack of knowledge; normally, when I do that, I expect to be paid six figures per year.
Where on earth do you think I said that?
> The problem is that Lambda are vampires.
You're just resorting to abuse now.
In formal jargon, which might not sound much better, Lambda is a rent-seeker [0]; they want to complicate an existing system (people teach themselves for free using freely-available materials and time) in order to extract money from the system. Quoting from [0]:
> The classic example of rent-seeking, according to Robert Shiller, is that of a feudal lord who installs a chain across a river that flows through his land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about the chain or the collector. The lord has made no improvements to the river and is not adding value in any way, directly or indirectly, except for himself. All he is doing is finding a way to make money from something that used to be free.
From one of many deep looks at Lambda [1]:
> Lambda’s educational model hinges on student-contractors called Team Leads (TLs) — students who, two months into their education, defer another two months in order to become teaching assistants tasked with taking attendance, checking in with other students, and answering questions. These student-contractors are paid roughly $13 an hour and have only just learned the material they are then tasked with explaining to the next batch of students. One student told me he was given no training on how to be a TL and spent many hours on devising curriculum and exercises to help other students. Another student, Erica Thompson, told me that TLs “are hired on a Friday and start on Monday.” TLs are roughly analogous to graduate-student instructors at universities, but with far less experience with the material.
I am not exaggerating: I am not interested in paying money, or promising away future money, or getting less than a $15/hr wage, for the privilege of regurgitating material to my fellow students. It sounds like a massive waste of everybody's time and money. Why do you defend these practices so ardently? Were you victimized by Lambda or something?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
[1] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/lambda-schools-job-p...
I said this education product isn't free. That's just a fact. I didn't say it was not possible to get other education for free. I got my CS education for free, for example.
> is that of a feudal lord who installs a chain across a river that flows through his land
I think you're confused about what rent seeking is. The feudal lord in this example installs a chain across a river. He stops people using the river who could have done free otherwise. That's the essential bit that makes it rent seeking.
But Lambda School don't damage anyone's access to education. They add their own product on top and take nothing away. They don't stop anyone from using using any other resource. It's a net benefit to society. Even if you think it's a useless course, it's a net zero to society in that case, which isn't something to get annoyed about as long as they're minding their own business.
> I am not interested in paying money, or promising away future money, or getting less than a $15/hr wage, for the privilege of regurgitating material to my fellow students.
Well... then don't! Nobody's making you, or even suggesting you do.
> Why do you defend these practices so ardently?
Always good to step in to defend someone who's being subjected to an unjust attack!
Lambda damages the folks that they sucker into being students. Since they have a non-zero number of students, there are some folks who have been damaged. [0] is a writeup of some of their stories.
Lambda is not a net benefit to society. Even if such utilitarian thinking were valid, then no, by the broken window fallacy [1], Lambda is still slurping time out of the hands of folks who could have spent it on other things.
Finally, while I'm loathe to call you a liar, you claim that you got your CS education for free. Does that include your PhD [2] and associated academic career? Congratulations if so, but it is not the typical experience of PhD candidates to get their education for free.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/11/21131848/lambda-school-co...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
Not sure why you're repeating what I just plainly said like it's some kind of gotcha you've dug up... yeah I think they're unjust that's why I mentioned it.
> Feel free to bring evidence to this discussion
I don't really understand which point you want evidence of? Do you want evidence that they're an educational provider? Or did you want evidence of what rent seeking means if you're still confused about that? Or evidence that Lambda School isn't forcing anyone to do anything and isn't taking away access to free education?
You're making up a lot of arguments that I didn't say - like that you can't get an education for free, or that they want you to work for free. Sorry I can't give any evidence for those because I don't think them!
> Does that include your PhD [2] and associated academic career?
Yes. That's typical.
> it is not the typical experience of PhD candidates to get their education for free.
Really not sure what you're talking about here - almost nobody pays for their PhD education in a STEM field. In fact you typically get paid to do it. That's not just special scholarships it's just the way it works. I don't know how you think a STEM PhD works?
I know people burned by bootcamps in the sense that they should have been told up front that they didn't have a strong enough foundation for the bootcamp to be worthwhile. This was before the days of salary reimbursements, so they just paid outright (installment plans). I also know people who had their instructors go missing for weeks of the program replaced by unqualified recent grads. Finally every bootcamp lies about their placement rates it seems.
All that being said I work with a few bootcamp grads and they are very talented and productive developers.
If you’re thinking of Lambda as a student then even if you don’t have to pay tuition you still have all your living costs to think about. Probably does not make sense do Lambda if you would otherwise be leaving a job and dig into savings and then enter a questionable job market.
1. In the hot market, you can spend multiple years getting a degree, or you can spend a few months at a bootcamp. At the conclusion of either process, you get a job. By hypothesis, the bootcamp provides as much value in terms of knowledge as the degree does. (Just go with it.)
The bootcamp is much better, because you waste less time not having a job. It's cheaper in cash outflow, but it's even more cheaper in opportunity cost.
2. In the depressed market, you can spend multiple years getting a degree, or you can spend a few months at a bootcamp. After a couple of years, the market is no longer depressed, and you get a job.
By happy coincidence, if you got the degree, you go on the market at this time, and you look employable. If you did the bootcamp, it's still just as good, but you've been unemployed for a couple of years, and you look unemployable. The bootcamp had a higher opportunity cost than the degree. (Still lower cash outflow.)
In this case, the only reason you'd want the degree is so that, when you interview for a job that chooses to hire you for unrelated reasons having to do with the overall health of the economy, you don't have to admit to having been unemployed. If the cash price of bootcamp is 20% of the cash price of the degree, then this respectability concern is at least 80% of the value of the degree. More, if you assume it's generally nicer to be unemployed than to be studying for a degree.
If I were looking at bootcamps, I would put ISA-based ones at the top of my list. But I'd expect them to get more selective since they'll need to adjust their payback calculus given the economic uncertainty.
It's unfortunate when CEOs neglect to mention the difficulties of those they fired — instead focusing on the the difficulties they faced in doing the firing
> I want to publicly say thank you to everyone who has worked at Lambda for what you’ve contributed. I know you’ve given parts of who you are to Lambda, and to our students. You are part of our journey. You are the reason we are here. Thank you.
He mentioned the difficulties of those who were fired by acknowledging that their emotions are real, and that they matter. And that this was an unfortunate decision he had to make. He also thanked them for all they have contributed .
What else should he have said ?
There's a difference between "you feel sad you're fired" and "you'll miss your mortgage next month, because no one is hiring, and your kids may be kicked out of their school district as a result."
This decision will cause many of those we lay off to endure hardship. I apologize and accept responsibility for that. While I've struggled making this decision, that doesn't compare to the struggle of suddenly being out of work.
To recognize these difficulties, we've offered a month of severance pay for every year people have worked here, and extended the expiry of their vested options to three years.
Maybe it's just ego or maybe it's the desire for meaningful human connection, but the idea of losing my job and it meaning nothing to the person in charge just adds insult to injury.
I like that he briefly addressed how hard the choice was, because it reinforces the message that each of these people matter.
Doing a round of layoffs - especially done respectfully - can soften the blow a little while requiring only senior leadership's buy in and some input from managers. Convincing everyone to take a 15% pay cut takes a ton of coordination across the entire company and probably drives the rumor mill fast and furious. And imagine being one of the people who says "no"!?
Further, with layoffs, you can choose who to cut. If people get demoralized as you're negotiating pay cuts, the top people can pack up and leave.
I don't like any of it but it makes sense.
(sorry pickers for that rude language, you know that you are more important now than said top performers)
I worked at a place that went through hard times and the employees that stuck around were 'untouchable' in the owners eyes, for better or for worse.
It's definitely contextual to some extent. We're in an industry that's going to take a revenue hit, but the sustainability of the company isn't in question. Doesn't help that the company could afford nearly a billion dollars in stock buybacks in the last year, either.
I think one of the big takeaways for me is that it's burned any good will the company had with a lot of its employees. I expect pretty heavy turnover once hiring starts to thaw again and I'll likely be part of it.
Priority number 1 is surviving.
Whenever I've been at a company when jobs are made redundant the same thing happens - everyone worries that their job will go if there's another round of cuts and morale plummets. That usually pushes more people to find new jobs, and it's ofter the people who are good because they can get new jobs more easily.
There is no winning strategy for cutting costs.
But there are better and worse ones. Cut once and cut deep is close to as good as it’s going to get.
I hope they at least gave you notice so you could adjust and prepare instead of day-of/before "Hey, by the way!" Granted, a lot less people in tech are living paycheck to paycheck but it happens. Getting pinched there would be awful.
Regardless of how these things - layoffs, pay cuts, whatever - go down, doing it with respect is key. After all, these are the people we've worked with, helped each other, and probably had a drink or two with. We're not family but we are human and it's a small world.
One reason might be that economic recessions are an excuse for a manager to, from their perspective, permanently "increase efficiency", i.e. make remaining employees do more work, while for cooperative and strong union organizations, the focus is to preserve their social bonds and help each other.
So, although you may not like ISAs, comparing it to slavery trivializes actual slavery.
Also, it seems like you’re being cynical without realizing it.
Lambda School is just another source of talent/human capital to a company. And companies suddenly aren't hiring and probably won't be for a while. And if they aren't hiring, Lambda School can't place students. And if they can't place students, then there are no ISAs, which is how Lambda makes its money. It's a straightforward funnel that's about to have a ton of supply and less demand, with Lambda bearing the financial burden to train/education the people. On top of that, if you have a bunch of people taking all this time to be trained under the pretense of getting a pretty good paying job and now that's not going to happen, well you're not going to be too thrilled with Lambda School (rightly or wrongly). So you've got, potentially, a double whammy: less revenue and your best marketing channel (word of mouth) going south. Not great.
I know little about the details of Lambda School’s business, but they seem like they’re in a good position to do well in an economic downturn and recovery, if they stay focused and prudent, which seems to be exactly what they’re trying to do now.
Sure, favourable macro trends help, but the ones that succeed do so because they best figure out how to adapt to changing conditions.
Lambda School has complete freedom to change everything they do to survive and thrive in the new environment.
Let's see what they do.