This $150,000 School Promises Kids Will Make $1 Million… Or Your Tuition Back | Nat Eliason

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel
Episode: This $150,000 School Promises Kids Will Make $1 Million… Or Your Tuition Back | Nat Eliason
Date: July 14, 2026
Host: Rachel Uchitel
Guest: Nat Eliason (entrepreneur, best-selling author, lead for Founders School and Alpha School)

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Main Theme / Purpose

This episode explores the radical new approach of the Founders School, an experimental private high school in Manhattan promising students will make $1 million in gross profit by graduation—or tuition ($150,000/year) will be refunded. Host Rachel Uchitel interviews Nat Eliason, a leader behind the initiative, to unpack the school's philosophy, operational model, and its ambitious guarantee. The episode delves into what this approach means for the future of education, who the school is for, and how it's redefining student outcomes beyond traditional pathways.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction to the Founders School

• A Bold Promise:

  • The school's guarantee: graduates will make $1 million in gross profit or get full tuition refund ([00:08])
  • Tuition is $150,000/year—more than most colleges, making the refund promise the headline-grabbing factor ([00:08], [06:33])
  • Nat Eliason: “Oh my gosh, that is the craziest, most incredible thing that I've ever heard and it just might work.” ([00:35], [06:09])

• Who Is Nat Eliason?

  • Serial entrepreneur, author, builder in marketing, crypto, and early AI
  • Came on board after working with Alpha School's broader educational model ([03:16])

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How the School Works

No Traditional Teachers: AI-driven Academics

• "There are no teachers. That is primarily being done by the software." – Nat ([00:49], [14:23])
• Daily academics compressed into a morning block, personalized via AI. Each student works at their pace toward 90% mastery in grade-level subjects.
• Academic content still aligns with standardized benchmarks (including SAT/AP preparation), allowing students to remain competitive for top colleges if desired ([14:08], [23:32]).

Afternoon: Real-Life Entrepreneurship

• Afternoon (70% of the student’s day) dedicated to building real businesses: validating, launching, and growing actual business ideas ([01:01], [17:12])
• Students collaborate with guides (more like coaches than teachers), mentors, and outside experts.
• “The number one thing that we look for in the admissions process is that the kid is pushing it, not the parent.” – Nat ([01:36], [12:29])

Admissions & Student Selection

• Small Founding Class: Max 20 students for the first cohort, with careful vetting to ensure entrepreneurial drive is student-led ([11:16], [12:11])
• Students don’t need a “startup idea” at admission—passion and willingness to develop deep expertise are valued ([19:38]).

Wider Alpha School Network

• Alpha School model (K-12, rapidly expanding, uses AI tutors for core learning) forms the foundation.
• Related programs include sports academies—enabling individualized learning combined with intense sports or other afternoon pursuits ([26:46])
• Scholarships exist; not exclusively for the wealthy ([09:05])

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Tuition, Access & Equity

• Who gets in? While high cost is a barrier, need-based scholarships and outreach exist ([09:54]).
• Founders is not limited to children of entrepreneurs: diversity in applicants, including high-earning families from other fields ([09:05]).
• The main admissions filter is motivation—it must be the student's drive, not the parents ([12:29]).

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What Counts as ‘A Million Dollar’ Outcome?

• Must earn $1M in gross profit across high school years—not just revenue or cash on hand ([32:48])
• Rationale: Encourages students to reinvest in business rather than hoard cash; aligns focus with sustainable entrepreneurship ([32:56])
• "We do need to have earned the million in gross profit from whatever it is they're doing by graduation." – Nat ([33:45])

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Accountability and Mutual Commitment

• Refund offered on an annual basis if students are found to be off-track ([00:17], [31:20])
• “If at the end of freshman year we thought that somebody wasn't on track, we would refund them for freshman year.” ([00:17], [31:37])
• Students can return to traditional schools if needed; they won’t be behind in curriculum ([32:21])
• “No other school has any kind of accountability, which is crazy.” ([30:12])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Is it genius or is it, you know, completely crazy? Is the first thing that I asked myself.” – Rachel ([06:18])
• "The most common reason we have rejected applicants so far is ... the kid isn't really bought in. And they're not driving it forward." – Nat ([12:11])
• “AI is going to unlock ... more time off of our computers and like more productive time off.” – Nat ([41:16])
• “We want to create as many versions of [the model] as possible because we think that it only works if the student is motivated.” ([28:29])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:08] – The $1M school guarantee explained
• [03:16] – Nat Eliason's background and how he got involved
• [06:33] – Tuition cost and the school's bold refund policy
• [09:05] – Efforts at equity, scholarships, and student diversity
• [12:29] – Admissions: Why student motivation is crucial
• [14:23] – “No teachers”—AI-tailored academics and the role of guides
• [17:12] – Afternoon entrepreneurship, real-world business building
• [23:32] – Academic rigor, test scores, and college readiness
• [26:46] – Variations of Alpha School for sports, different learners
• [31:37] – Annual review and refund process for accountability
• [32:48] – Defining the $1M goal (gross profit, not just revenue/cash)
• [34:50] – Advice for parents prepping entrepreneurial kids
• [41:16] – Nat's future-looking thoughts on AI and the changing future of work

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Advice for Parents & Broader Applications

• Expose children to AI tools—encourage playing, experimentation, and creation using platforms like Replit ([34:50])
• Monitor and differentiate screen time:
  • Creative/generative (building, coding): good
  • Passive (scrolling, consumption): negative effects ([38:20])
• Alpha School network offers K-12 across numerous states, and they welcome parent/guardian interest in expanding to new locations ([35:01]).

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Future of Education: Vision & Impact

• Systemic disruption: Founders and Alpha seek to revolutionize education by tying outcomes directly to entrepreneurial and life success, not just grades and test scores ([25:58]).
• Scaling the model: Multiple paths (founders track, sports, etc.) to leverage AI learning for personalized student motivation ([28:29]).
• Changing paradigms: The program challenges the assumption that elite colleges are the only path to 'success,' arguing that students can and should learn to create value and wealth as self-directed builders ([23:32])

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Final Thoughts / Ways to Learn More

• For information:
  • Founders School
  • Alpha School
• “If you're ever in New York City and want to stop by, hit me up.” – Nat ([44:03])

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Summary Table: Notable Quotes

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|---------|-------| | 00:35 | Nat | “Oh my gosh, that is the craziest, most incredible thing that I've ever heard and it just might work.” | | 12:29 | Nat | “The number one thing that we look for in the admissions process is that the kid is pushing it, not the parent.” | | 14:23 | Nat | “There are no teachers.” | | 30:12 | Nat | “No other school has any kind of accountability, which is crazy.” | | 32:48 | Nat | “We do need to have earned the million in gross profit from whatever it is they're doing by graduation.” | | 41:16 | Nat | “AI is going to unlock ... more time off of our computers and like more productive time off.” |

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This episode offers an inside look at a truly experimental educational model that places the onus as much on student drive as on institutional accountability, aiming to prove the potential for teenagers to become self-made entrepreneurs—reshaping not only what school can be, but also what “success” might look like in a world transformed by technology and ambition.

Transcript

[A]

A brand new high school is opening in Manhattan this September. And it's making one of the boldest promises ever heard.

[B]

Help teenagers make a million dollars by graduation.

[A]

They say their students will graduate having earned $1 million in gross profit or they'll refund every penny of your tuition.

[B]

If at the end of freshman year we thought that somebody wasn't on track, we would refund them for freshman year. It's not that we're going to not refund them.

[A]

The catch? Tuition costs $150,000 a year to attend. So I sat down with entrepreneur, best selling author and the man leading the launch of school, Nat Eliason, to find out if this could actually work.

[B]

I had the same reaction that it sounds like you did of, oh my gosh, that is the craziest, most incredible thing that I've ever heard and it just might work.

[A]

The more Nat explained it, the more I realized this isn't just another private school. They're completely rethinking what education looks like.

[B]

Exactly. There are no teachers.

[A]

There's no teachers. Oh, wow.

[B]

That is primarily being done by the software.

[A]

So if there aren't teachers, what exactly are these students doing all day? So what's a day in the life going to look like?

[B]

I'd say like 70% of that afternoon time throughout the week is them getting to work on their business. It's trying to validate a few of the ideas that they have come up with. It's trying to narrow in on what is that first marketing channel that is going to get them to that 5k, 10k, 20k a month.

[A]

These aren't classroom exercises. These are high school students building real businesses before they even graduate. I'm building an AI based health coach that uses your genetics to create personalized fitness and nutrition. You're looking for specific kids. You're looking for kids who really are interested and have that entrepreneurial spirit.

[B]

The number one thing that we look for in the admissions process is that the kid is pushing it, not the parent.

[A]

Then I asked the question every parent is probably wondering, a million dollars in profit from their own business. Can you break down what that means?

[B]

A million in revenue was out, but they do need to have earned the million in gross profit.

[A]

If you were about to start going into the founder school, where do you think the biggest opportunities lay in the next four years that you would focus in?

[B]

That's a great question.

[A]

Here's my conversation with Nat Eliason. Nat, thank you so much for joining me today on Misunderstood. I'm so excited to have you here. Ever since I saw the headlines about this school and the promises you're making about kids that will be guaranteed to make a million dollars by the time they graduate or their money back in their tuition. I have a million questions for you, so welcome to the show.

[B]

Thanks for having me on. Excited to answer them.

[A]

Okay, so can you introduce yourself for people that have not heard of you before, I want to know because you look super young. First of all, how you came up with like where, where you came from and what your past has been that's gotten to this point for you.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So, gosh, where do I start? So I've been working, I've been working for myself for the last 10 years. Been an entrepreneur since basically right after I graduated college, ran a marketing agency, exited and sold that. Had my own influencer info business, worked as a software engineer during the crazy crypto era of 2120. Published a couple books, have done a whole bunch of different entrepreneurial things and about two and a half, three years ago now, got really, really deep into building with AI. Was pretty early on what we now call vibe coding, using AI to build software to help build businesses. And had just been talking about it really publicly what I was doing and interested in and was kind of figuring out where that was going to lead to with the next business that I wanted to work on. And as that was kind of coming together, my now colleague Cameron reached out to me in Austin because he was working with a school called Alpha School, which has been around since 2014. We'll have about 40 or 50 schools this fall. It's a K through 12 school that uses AI tutors to compress the academic day to two hours in the morning so that the students can spend the bulk of the day on life skills workshops. Anything from kindergartners climbing a 30 foot rock wall to build grit and bravery and resiliency to. Our fifth graders, run a food truck for a period of the year in Austin where they serve breakfast food and they have to manage all of their cost of goods and their inventory and they have to run the register and they have to run a whole food truck. Right. And so these are the kinds of things Alpha students are doing. We had a number of high schoolers, Alpha had a number of high schoolers who were really entrepreneurial, who had started trying to build business, started figuring out how to make money before they even graduated high school, before they could drive a car. And they, they went to the principal of Alpha and they said, you should do a version of high school that is Purely catered to students like us who are really entrepreneurial, who want to learn how to build businesses because we have enough time to do it. We have three, four, five hours a day to work on entrepreneurship, but we want even more support for going after it. And so that's where the idea came from. A year ago, they started kind of marinating on this idea for founder school. They hired my colleague Cameron to start thinking through how it'd be structured. And then he was looking for somebody really entrepreneurial and really AI driven to come build out the curriculum and the program alongside him. And so that's where I came in. He reached out and I certainly never thought about working on a high school. Certainly, you know, I was not a great. I was not. I didn't love school, I didn't love being a student or whatnot. But when I heard the idea for the high school, I had the same reaction that it sounds like you did of, oh my gosh, that is the craziest, most incredible thing that I've ever heard. And it just might work.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Here we are, right?

[A]

Is it genius or is it, you know, completely crazy? Is the first thing that I asked myself. So you brought up that you weren't that great of a student or you didn't love school? You have kids, right?

[B]

I do, yeah. I have three, four year old, three year old and a one year old.

[A]

Okay, so they're too young, I guess, to get involved in this yet. But so it is interesting. I have a 14 year old. My daughter will be going into ninth grade, which is your target audience. So the interesting thing about it to me was this really hit home for me because in I guess it was throughout Covid, I started to pay more attention to what her school was, even though that was second, third, fourth grade, whatever it was. And I started to remember my school years and how they still teach the exact same stuff that we never use as adults. Right. And talking about Mesopotamia and whatever, all this stuff that we're like, wait a minute. What I also thought was interesting, as someone who was affected by 9 11, they still hadn't really talked about 911 in history courses. I think they started more recently in the last year or two to really get into it. But like the whole thing of how curriculum is built has been the same for so many years and teachers are not rewarded it with pay and there's no real incentive. And it seems like education has not changed for the longest time is what I'm trying to get across. So this has been the first time that I Read something that was like, wait a minute, this is a group of people that are changing the way kids are learning, thinking. And it was also interesting because we've all learned that you have to be in school until you're 18, and then you have to go to college for the most part to be able to get the credentials. And even the people that have gone through that know, well, life experience is really where you get that. That real credential from. So I think the whole thing makes sense. But I think where you guys get really aggressive is by saying, listen, here's what the cost is. It's more expensive than most colleges are, but if you don't reach a certain amount by the time you are able to gradu. We will refund it. So that guarantee is what really, you know, makes it stand out and is the clickbait. So first of all, I want to ask you about the tuition in general. Do you think that this is just opening yourself up to being able to have kids who may have already been founders that come from families that can already afford this, as opposed to kids that should be given a chance that they wouldn't have been, you know, because of the amount that it costs?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Well, just. Well, the first thing I want to say is there's. The guarantee is just for founders, not for Alpha. Like sometimes those get conflated. Right. And like Founders is kind of a. The most focused entrepreneurial version. Right. Of the Alpha School ecosystem.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But that said to your question, one, it's not just entrepreneurial families that we're seeing apply. Like, there's a mix. It's some who are coming from very entrepreneurial backgrounds, some where the parents are from more traditional, like, you know, finance, law, something like that. But still high earners, obviously, but they see everything that's going on with AI and they have a very entrepreneurial child and they're sort of excited about that opportunity for them. And we have a number of students from not super wealthy backgrounds who are applying. And this is why we set up a scholarship, scholarship fund for. For this year. Right. We were able to get a million, over a million dollars in scholarships lined up for students who were already making progress, trying to figure out entrepreneurship on their own.

[A]

I see.

[B]

And really being held back by the school system because we'd already seen this in Austin at the regular Alpha High, where there were a number of students who were on scholarships and who were already doing a great job learning these valuable life skills and even making money, held back by their normal school system because they didn't have enough time to do this other thing that they were interested in. And so it was actually making them get bad grades and feel like they were failing because they couldn't stay on top of both. And then they transferred to Alpha and they have all that time back to work on their business and their other skills while getting their academics done. So it's a big priority for us because, you know, it's. I. We fully believe that entrepreneurship and teaching entrepreneurship is one of the best ways to unlock human potential. And that shouldn't be exclusive to wealthy families. Right. It's one of the greatest ways for a family to, you know, lift their entire family up. Right. Is for one person to get these kinds of opportunities. And so, you know, we established it for this year and we're looking at ways to grow that for the future years so that we can extend those opportunities while making sure that the business can support itself as well.

[A]

Right, Okay, I got it. So have you guys fulfilled your entire freshman class already for this year?

[B]

No, we're still enrolling students. Yeah.

[A]

How many years we've been doing enrolling? Admissions?

[B]

Maximum of 20.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And you're still good, but I'd be happy. It's. For us, it's most important that the first class we feel extremely, positively, strongly about and where we can be very hands on with every single one of them before we build out the rest of the academic team to support the students.

[A]

Right, got it.

[B]

I'm working with the students every day. Cameron is, our guides are. And so we would max it out at 20, but even like 10 or 12 might be the right number to start with.

[A]

Yeah, I see what you're saying. Okay, so that makes a lot more sense because I was thinking anyone who can afford $150,000 and just wants their child to possibly succeed, given a better chance than regular school, might just try and send their kid over. But you're looking for specific kids. You're looking for kids who really are interested and have that entrepreneurial spirit. It's not just some kid who's just like, okay, my dad's sending me, I guess I have to do this.

[B]

Well, yes, and actually the number. The most common reason we have rejected applicants so far is because of what you just said. It's a very wealthy parent who sees this as like, oh, this is the shoe in way to make sure that my kid does well. But the kid isn't really bought in.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And they're not driving it forward. And so we say like, look, we just don't think this is a good fit. The number one thing that we look for in the admissions process is that the kid is pushing it, not the parent. If the parent is the one pushing it, they're not going to be a good fit.

[A]

Got it. Makes total sense. Okay, so what's a day in the life going to look like?

[B]

Yeah, so day in the life, the first part of the day is basically the same across all the alpha programs, which is you have that dedicated academic block. So the students will come in 8, 30 to 9. We'll do a kickoff at 9 to share any updates, do announcements, things like that.

[A]

And it's a person, right?

[B]

Right. It's only in person.

[A]

Okay. And this, this one is going to be in Manhattan, correct?

[B]

Okay, yeah, we're. We're in Fi Di. Got a beautiful view over the East River. It's a really amazing campus to be at. And students will come in and they'll do their academic block for those first three hours, working in 25 minutes on, five minutes off, kind of pomodoro cycles. And each student's academics is custom tailored to them based on their academic goals. So are they aiming for honors level SAT and honors level aps, you know, like a really hard AP Chem, AP Bio, something like that? Are they doing kind of a normal high school track? And then where are they in terms of reading, writing, math, science, history, all of that? Because every day the lessons that they are being given in the software is based on where they are in the curriculum, what they know, what they don't know, what they have and haven't mastered yet. So each student is getting different lessons on their device every time they sit down to use it, so that they are always getting like the next Right. Challenge for where they are academically.

[A]

Got it. Okay, so it's not a teacher. Math, history, science, English, and all of them are sitting through the same thing. It's all dedicated to them. They put on their earphones. I'm assuming they're sitting at their computer and they have their lessons that are tailored to them.

[B]

Exactly. There are no teachers.

[A]

There's no teachers. Oh, wow. Okay. But there must. I think I read that there's guides, right?

[B]

There's guides. So the guides are there to provide any kind of like, like more emotional support, more psychological support, encouragement, coaching. They're much closer to a sports coach than a teacher. And you know, they're there making sure that students are staying on pace and moving through the curriculum, but they are not teaching AP Chem. That is primarily being done by the software.

[A]

Got it. So most of these kids that are coming in right now are 13, 14 years old, I'm guessing. Maybe.

[B]

Yeah, it's all incoming freshmen and sophomores, so. 13, 14, 15.

[A]

Okay, got it. Now how are you making sure? Like, I know Alpha's been around for almost 10 years now, you said, right? Yeah, I read, and correct me if I'm wrong, that sometimes the academics weren't matching up, like the reading and writing wasn't following the same trend that an average private school, because they weren't focusing necessarily on those things. As long as, you know, regular kids are getting that time in English and writing and reading or whatever those sort of simpler subjects are, are, or science or biology. Like, are those things that, are they important in the things that you guys are teaching in those morning sessions?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So I guess I'd be curious to hear more details on what you read because the fundamental requirement for every year is to get the student to at least 90% mastery in their grade level for that subject, assuming they don't have a lot of catching up to do. And so, so if you have a student. So by the end of third grade, a student needs to be at 90% mastery in third grade math, third grade reading, third grade writing, all of those subjects, unless they have a lot of catching up to do. Now that said, if a student takes longer to get to that point in math than in reading, but they get to the reading quickly, they might not have as much time focused on reading in the back half of the year, say. So they can do more time focused on math. And certainly the number of hours on each subject is lower because we don't have the teacher in front of the classroom doing lectures. But you know, that's kind of the whole point is that we can do the education a lot more efficiently with the one to one tutor than sitting passively in a lecture.

[A]

Totally. And I will say Alpha disputed the reporting, but it was from an October 2025 Wired report that basically said, oh, the Wired article. And there were gaps in handwriting and reading. But, but you explain that. So, all right, so you have this AI teaching in the mornings. Then what happens?

[B]

So then they have lunch, have some break time.

[A]

Is lunch included in this? $150,000 a year.

[B]

Yes. Excellent lunches, fantastic local farm to table. Put a lot of thought into every aspect of this program. And so in the afternoon, then that's when they're getting to do a mix of working on their business and everything that goes into that and doing workshops tailored to a lot of these entrepreneurial Skills. So a bulk, I'd say like 70% of that afternoon time throughout the week is going to them getting to work on their business with any of their peers. They're collaborating on with their guides, with the mentors who are coming in. But it's largely based on where they are in their business journey and what problems they're trying to solve. Whether that's developing more expertise in the areas that they are interested in so they can find a good business opportunity, or it's trying to validate a few of the ideas that they have come up with, or it's trying to narrow in on what is that first marketing channel that is going to get them to that 5k, 10k, 20k a month, or you know, eventually it's going to be hiring or it's going to be, you know, they're going to be focused on whatever the next challenge is in their business for a bulk of that time. And then another portion of the time is going to be workshops being led by us on helping them deepen skills that are going to be valuable no matter what their businesses. So these could be like public speaking, this could be pitching, this could be building with AI, this could be negotiation, it could be kind of like anything along those lines throughout the year that all the students are participating in together. And then the last part of it is a weekly seminar of some type which is either related to something we're reading and we want to discuss and have a roundtable about, or a guest who's coming in, some, you know, like very high profile entrepreneur who's going to speak to the students, do Q and a roundtable with them so that their guests, some of that exposure to people much further along in their journey.

[A]

So what's interesting about what you're saying is that I know adults three times older than these kids are gonna be that still are looking for their business opportunity or their purpose or something that they can establish for themselves. Right. So are these kids coming in and is part of selecting them that they have a real idea and they're hyper focused on a business plan already? Or is their first year as a freshman or sophomore coming up with ideas and helping them? Because that's the hardest part of life for the most part.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. We don't expect anyone to come in with an idea that they're already making progress on. A big part of our job is to help them figure that out. And that's a bulk of what the first year is focused on is first and foremost what is the topic or Topics that you are interested enough in to develop some deep expertise in. Because the reason most people don't have good business ideas is that they haven't developed any meaningful expertise or strong point of view on a subject matter. And so the number one issue we see with students who want to be entrepreneurs is they just come up with ideas for other teenagers. Right. And other teenagers don't have money. They're not a great market to focus on. But then you have students who. We have a couple students who are obsessed with robotics, all right? Really, really deep on robotics. And these are fifth graders. Okay. So these aren't even incoming high schoolers. These fifth graders who are obsessed with robotics, they got into using AI to train their robots to do certain tasks. And then from getting that deep on doing robotics, they had this idea to build a marketplace for pre training data for robots. All right, these are fifth graders, but it's a good demonstration of the concept that if we just told them like, hey, come up with a business idea, they're never going to think of a marketplace for robotics pre training data. But you let them get crazy down the rabbit hole of robotics and you get some robots in and you let them go nuts with this and you start prodding them a little bit and then suddenly the ideas start to pop out of there. So we're much more focused off the bat of what are you passionate about or at least very interested in that you could go deeper on, start exploring those rabbit holes, see which ones stick. And then once you have a few good ideas of topics, then the ideas and the opportunities will start to emerge. And the nice thing that we have compared to most adults figuring out entrepreneurship is that one these, these kids aren't figuring it out in the dark. Right. Most adults figuring it out don't have somebody sitting next to them five hours a day providing coaching and support and encouragement. Most adults end up wasting a ton of time looking for a good idea or building something that they haven't validated or haven't gotten any sales for. Whereas we can say like, hey, before you put another week of work into that, you need to go get somebody to prepay for it. Because I'm not convinced you actually have a good idea here. Right. And that push alone can save most people a year or two of their lives.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And most adults trying to figure this out do not have somebody doing that. And then every other bottleneck they run into along the way, we will either have an expert in the room or an expert on call who we can reach out to and say like, hey, this student is trying to figure out meta ads. They're having a really hard time with it. Can you sit down with them for two hours tomorrow and audit, you know, everything that they're doing and help get them started? Because that's part of what the tuition is going for, is having this fleet of experts for every problem somebody might run into to make sure that you are never getting blocked by not having that expertise and experience yourself.

[A]

Right. In regular schools, the teachers are considered the expertise. And it's interesting, you guys are really backing with money the guides or the experts that are coming in. These are people that are incentivized, they have the expertise, but they're also paid pretty grandly to be part of this and spend a lot of time making sure these kids are getting the most success out of being there that they can, it seems.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah.

[A]

So the one thing I saw about the Alpha school is that the promise is that they learn two times faster. They're in the top 1 to 2% of national test scores. I'm curious about test scores with the founder school, because it doesn't. I mean, it specifically is not pitched as a college fee. So did I just miss something in there? And I'm not reading that down the line. These are kids that are going to go to Harvard, or are you thinking college is not going to matter because these kids are going to be founding businesses by the time they graduate?

[B]

I'd say it's pretty 50, 50 from the students and the families we talk to, there's a good number of them who already know at freshman year age that college is not going to be a fit for them. And it's not something that we're pushing, it's not something we're explicitly encouraging. But we also like that we can be a place where if a student and their parent are all saying, like, college isn't a priority for us, we want to let him or her focus on this because they're clearly passionate and smart and driven and want to build and a classroom is not for them. Then we're going to say, great, like, yeah, we're going to support you, we're going to help you succeed as much as humanly possible. And then when you graduate, you can keep working on this and keep going. We also have a lot of students who are saying that, no, I still want to go to, to Harvard, mit, Stanford, wherever it is. And we have the academics to support them doing that. Our software for sats, for aps, for all of it is exceptional. It's really Strong. And so we can still get them the kind of transcript that would make them competitive for those universities while giving them all the time to work on their business. They're obviously going to have to do a little bit more academic time than the students who aren't as focused on hitting, getting those scores. But for the students who want to go after it, I mean, we're all for it because, you know, we, the way I see it is I would want our students one to graduate and not need to go to college because they'll know how to create, they'll know how to make money, they'll know how to create jobs, they'll know how to create businesses. They don't need to go for financial security. But it is still, it can still be worth going for the network and the community and the types of people you meet, meet an opportunity to mature a little bit. And so they might go to Stanford for two years, meet all the other awesome people and then drop out and work on their next business, right? Or they, they go and they study something really, really technical where there is a benefit to being in that university environment. Like they're certainly not going to be business majors. That's not, I think, going to be valuable. But if they want to study math or physics or computer science, right. You get a lot out of, of being in a university environment for those hard sciences which they could then bring to their next business, right? They do a big robotics company, they do a nuclear reactor company or something, right? And college helped, you know, let them go a lot deeper on, on a hard topic. But they won't have to go to college to get a job that will be completely taken care of.

[A]

In hearing you speak like this, I wonder if you feel like you guys have cracked the code or, or are getting to the point of cracking the code on changing the way education is going to be in the future. And if we're just looking at founder school for you guys right now, or if this is going to be a way that you branch out and you guys offer tutoring classes for people that do go to the standard normal school because you're offering a way for kids to do better, be better, learn easier and quicker. And it's a shame to think that like someone like my daughter who is not a fit for your school because she plays volleyball and wants to do all the things and be in regular high school school, but she could benefit from learning the way you guys teach and learning quicker and better and smarter. And it's a shame to think that you guys would only keep that just to your. Your school. You know what I mean?

[B]

Well, okay, so this is actually the great thing about Alpha is that we do have a bunch of different schools for students who are interested in different things. So Alpha High gives a lot more freedom of what you do in the afternoon. It has shorter hours. We have a student at Alpha High in Austin who's going for the Olympics in rowing. Rowing, right. And so he's spending a chunk of his afternoon doing rowing practice and getting in more hours on the ERG than his other high school peers can because they're stuck in classrooms. Yeah, Right. But we also have our sports academies, which use the same learning technology in the morning, so you're getting the exact same education, but then the entire rest of the afternoon is playing sports, whatever your sport is. And so we actually have a bunch of volleyball schools in Texas where the students are literally doing their academics in those first two or three hours. Hours, and then they're playing volleyball the entire rest of the day with their coach and their team. Wow. And we are. Our flagship sports academy is just outside Houston, and their baseball team actually just beat IMGs this season. And so I was going to ask

[A]

you what it is in comparison to img. That's where my daughter goes to camp in the summer for volleyball, and she was offered a spot there for their team for the year. Yeah. But, you know, for us, we just, just honestly, we haven't seen them perform that well in just the, the, the round robins they do against schools, and volleyball isn't something they're so big on. But anyway, so IMG is something that you guys are. Are familiar with then, I guess.

[B]

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, you know, like founders, we think of as competing against, like, HBS and Wharton.

[A]

Got it.

[B]

Right. And when we think about our sports academies, it's competing against img.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

And, and I think what we've seen so far is that we're able to deliver better academic outcomes, and now our teams are getting competitive with them. So that's like. Like you said, we don't want to gatekeep this education model. We want to create as many versions of it as possible because we think that it only works if the student is motivated to do something else in the afternoon after the academics. And so we have to find what each student is motivated by and create the school that is the best fit for them.

[A]

Right. So now I. I'm wondering about the accountability. So you guys came up with this idea to say if the kids didn't get this, we will give them this. Like, what made you guys come up with this idea?

[B]

Yeah, so that was part of the original idea from our principle that had been established kind of before I got here. And I think, you know, to him and to us and our thinking on it is that, well, okay, I've been surprised by this. I thought that more people would be skeptical about the idea that we could create a program that would help teenagers make a million dollars by graduation. Like, I was bought in when I heard it because I was very deep in AI and I knew a lot of entrepreneurial teenagers just from X and from the Alpha ecosystem. And so to me I was kind of like, actually, yeah, I think that's, that's pretty doable. We assumed more people would be skeptical of it. It. But actually people are pretty open to the idea. You know, it's like, well, if you, if you're selecting for the right kids and you have them in the right program and the right support and everything, it feels very reasonable. But there is a reasonable amount of skepticism. And so the guarantee is there because that shows just how confident we are in the model and what we're going to be able to do with this.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And really no other school has any kind of accountability, which is crazy. Right? Like, you know, if you send your kid to a 75k a year private school and they're behind in math, the school will tell you that's your fault and you have to pay for tutoring and you have to get them caught up. But it's like, what are you paying the 75k a year for? That's the school's job to get them to grade level. Right. Whereas Alpha's perspective is, no, that's our job. We failed. We should get them caught up. And then for Founders especially, it was, we are so confident and we are going to hold ourselves to such a high standard that if we fail to get your kid to this outcome by graduation, then we have failed. And you shouldn't have been paying so much for the school the whole time.

[A]

Right, Right. So it almost sounds like you'd celebrate that first refund check if you ever have to write it. Because it shows that the model is honest.

[B]

Yeah, a little bit. And we'll be honest about it. And it's kind of an annual thing too, Right. It's mutual accountability because we're also telling the student that if we don't think that you are, are fully committed to hitting this, then you're not going to be able to stay in the program for all Four years.

[A]

That was what I was going to ask you. Is there a way that you can kind of decide year for year if they are going to be a returning student and if you have to let them go because they're not taking it seriously or whatever the reason, can they go back to a regular school or will they be behind or ahead? How would that work?

[B]

Yes. So it's an annual review. Review. Right. It's like making sure that you are fully committed, that we feel like you're on track. And if at the end of freshman year we thought that somebody wasn't on track, we would refund them for freshman year. It's not that we're going to not refund them. Right. It's like, it's an. It's an annual thing. If you get to the end of sophomore year, we'd be refunding both years, junior year, refunding all three years. Right. So we're making sure that they are fully committed and that we are fully committed. There's that mutual accountability to pursue this outcome. And then to the other question, no, they would definitely. They would have no problem going to a normal school. They could go to Alpha High. We have full transcripts. We're doing all of the normal classes. We're just teaching it in a very different way through the software.

[A]

Right. And now so more of the technical behind a million dollars in profit from their own business or tuition is refunded. Can you break down what that means? When I said I was having you on, the biggest question people would say is, is that gross? Is that that what's in their bank account? Is it what's going into the business? Can you talk about what the goal is for these kids to be making and when it, what does it mean that they've hit it?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So we, we talked about this a lot because there's. It was actually a challenging thing to decide on.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Not. Not necessarily from an accountability perspective as much as from a what do we want the students to achieve perspective. And so first of all, a million in revenue was out. Right. Like, that wouldn't work because, you know, you could just spend tons of money on ads and your business doesn't work. Right. But you, like, hit the goal. So we didn't want that. But then we ultimately decided that we didn't want cash in the bank or net profit either, because then we would be disincentivized from encouraging the students to reinvest in their business. You might have a student who's doing really well senior year and wants to do a production line for the next product in their business or you know, they want to expand their distribution or like hire a new co packer or something. And we would be telling them no, don't do that, don't grow your business because we need you to hit this number. Right. And so that didn't feel aligned either. And that's how we ended up at gross profit based on the accounting over the four years of their business. So they don't need to keep it all in the bank, they don't need to cash all of it out out. But they do need to have earned the million in gross profit from whatever it is they're doing by graduation. That's the goal that we are aiming for with them. But it's like if they, and if they want to cash it out, great. I mean that's awesome. That's super cool. But also if they want to start hiring people, if they want to spend more on ads, if they want to rent an office for when they graduate. Right. Do any of that. We don't, we didn't want to be telling them no.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Just so that we could like lock in a certain number. So that's how we ended up the gross profit. Profit.

[A]

Got it. If you have parents listening right now who are interested, who have younger kids who are interested in starting to prepare their kids to be able to apply and you know, in eighth grade, to go into ninth grade, what are some things that you would suggest for their kids to start working on? Is it learning AI systems better? Is it spending more time with extracurricular activities? What would you think is, are good ways to prepare?

[B]

Yeah, I would say, I mean one, they should check out Alpha school because we are, you know, we're K through 12 and the alpha program is the nat natural feeder for founders because they're so aligned and we have them everywhere.

[A]

And these are all over the country. Right. I think I saw you guys just are opening in Miami or Boca or somewhere.

[B]

Yeah, we're gonna have two in Miami. We're gonna have Boca open. I think Jupiter is opening in the next few months as well and Fort Lauderdale. So we're like all over South Florida.

[A]

And are these small schools?

[B]

No, Miami is going to be big. It's, it's. Well there's two in Miami and the one on Miami Beach I think is going to be like 250 kids. Wow. So that's pretty big. And Boca is going to be quite large as well. That could be as many as 100, 200 by next year.

[A]

And they're starting. When they take in kids, it's still K12 and they're filling every grade or they're just doing high schools.

[B]

Do you know these all start as K through 8s?

[A]

K through 8.

[B]

High school comes later. But Miami does have a high school.

[A]

Got it. Okay.

[B]

So Miami is one of the high schools. Boca won't have a high school right away. It starts K8. So most of our schools start as K through 6, K through 8. 8. And then once there's enough demand for high school, we do a high school. High school is a little bit harder because most kids don't want to go to a 10 kid high school. But most parents and kids are okay with a 10 kid kindergarten.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

Right. So it's easier to start there. But we'll, we will explore opening an Alpha school in any city where you can get 25 to 50 parents committed to getting one open. So even if there isn't one, one by anybody listening, we have a community site, community Alpha school. They can go on and they can request one in their city and then start that conversation. So Alpha School is obviously the most obvious feeder for founders. But aside from that, I think that exposing them to what they can do with AI and giving them some encouragement to play around with these tools is one of the easiest unlocks if they're not already doing something kind of entrepreneurial. Because I think that what's so magical about giving these AI tools to kids is that they're so creative and they're so curious and they just naturally start making things and building things and they don't have the baggage that a lot of adults have of growing up in an era of having to tell a computer to do everything and being worried about like the computer breaking and something going wrong. And so they will just fearlessly ask to do some crazy project for them and it'll often do it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so you end up being amazed by what kids can do with AI simply because they're not afraid to ask. And that's really magical for the kids too, because then they realize like, oh my gosh, I can just make up a video game and I can send it to my friends, or I can make a website for this thing, or I could make this app for this idea I have. And then that gets their wheels churning about everything else that might be possible and they're kind of off to the races for from there. And so even if you don't know how to do it right, you can get them a replit account or I'd say replit's probably like the easiest place for them to start and let them start monkeying around. $20 a month and you might be surprised how far they get with it.

[A]

That's amazing and that's great advice because a lot of parents are still struggling just to get their kids off the phone or off TikTok or that especially in Florida is a huge issue. So it's great to get your. Also I'm curious what you have your kids in now. I know they're young but like are they going to be going to Alpha? Are they, do you put them, do you not allow them to watch tv? Like what do you have your kids? What's their plan?

[B]

Yeah, so my four year old is going to start at kindergarten at Alpha in the fall which will be a lot of fun. We get to come into school together every day and then my 3 year old will still be at Montessori and my youngest one will start at a Montessori program after that. Montessori and Alpha are generally pretty aligned mind and so I have my younger kids there. In terms of screen time, you know, my take on screen time is one that screen time for slightly older kids and adults is fine when it's creative and when it's generative and it's active. And if you're using a computer or even a phone or an iPad to like do something or make something that I think is fine. I have a really hard. And like the studies back this up too. You don't see the same, same negative health effects from kids using devices to be creative. A lot of the negative effects come from the passive consumption, the scrolling. Right. Like that is definitely a harm. And so, you know, I wouldn't want my kids to do that. They're not really drawn to that anyway at their age. But you know, for, for parents in general, that's where we see the big disconnect is that the kids who are excited to use technology to make things, it doesn't seem to have the negative effects. Passive consumption, bad. As for tv, so where I've come to is that I think TV on the wall is fine. I have a really hard. Except for like the hyper stimulating shows, right? You know, the cocoa melons and whatever. But generally like I think TV on the wall is fine because kids kind of get distracted and they start playing with each other and they start running around and doing other things. There seems to be a fundamentally different interaction when they are holding the iPad in front of their face. True, right. And maybe it's just because it takes up the full field of view and, you know, so it's even more simulating and there's no squirming around and doing something else. So we don't do any iPads at home, but we'll watch TV at the end of the day. I mean, I kind of want to watch some TV at the end of the day. I'm not going to hold them to a higher standard than me, but on the weekends, you know, we're, we're out running around and it's not hard to avoid it because there's a million things that we can do in New York City. And then the, I mean, and the one nice thing about, about not doing the iPads at home is that when we go on an airplane or really long car ride, that's when we do break them out. Right. And it's like Christmas.

[A]

It's super exciting.

[B]

They're so excited. Oh my gosh. I get to watch whatever I want. It's just mine. And then we have much, much calmer flights that way.

[A]

Right, right, exactly. Last question for you, having been so immersed in this, if you were about to start going into the founder school or just your thoughts in general, where do you think the biggest opportunities lay in the next four years for businesses, for new ideas that you would kind of either push kids in or if you were doing this program that you would focus in?

[B]

That's a great question.

[A]

I love this. Stump you?

[B]

What's that?

[A]

I said I love that I stumped you.

[B]

Yeah, I want to give it the appropriate thought. I mean, my, my, my, like boring, diplomatic answer is that anything that, you know, the best business is the one you stick with. Right. And so anything that you were interested enough to actually work on for two, three, four years is going to be the best opportunity because like the, the on paper, best one that you're not excited about, you're going to fail at no matter what. Right. That said, I think that what we're seeing with AI and the proliferation of AI is that there is this kind of possibility of software becoming commoditized. And so I'd be hesitant to try to compete on a big monolithic software type business, but I think that what a big thing that AI is going to unlock is actually more time, time off of our computers and like more productive time off of our computers because we don't need to do as much in front of the screen or on the keyboard because it can happen passively in the background. So what does that enable in a professional setting where you can or what is the, what are the tools and things that can support a workday that is literally all face to face work because you don't need, need to do anything at your computer anymore. Right, Right. And so that could be hardware, that could be software, that could even be like physical objects or like spaces. Right. And I think events and community things and anything in the physical world is going to become a bigger opportunity as AI eats up a lot of the software layer. And so I think there is something kind of neat about exploring how we're going to interact with, with space and physical products and each other and our work when we're not sitting in front of a screen for eight hours a day, the way we have been for the last 20 years. Call it like this might be a blip in the history of work. This like being in front of a screen all day. And so, you know, what are the devices that enable more of that or the tools and resources? And that's something I'm really excited about right now because it feels like we're getting close. It feels like in the next couple of years you're not going to really have to look at your email inbox very much. You're not going to have to look at analytics that much. Like a lot of it's going to be able to be handled through something you have a conversation with and it's going to feel a lot more human. And I'm pretty excited for that world.

[A]

I love that answer. That got me excited. Well, I wish you the best of luck. I can't wait to check in with you in four years time to see how that first block of OR three years. You said you had some kids coming in for sophomore, right? So to see how it goes, we'll stay in touch. And for people that are interested in more information about the Founder School or the Alpha Schools, how can they get that?

[B]

Yeah, Founders School is Founders School, Alpha School is Alpha School. And you can get all the information there. Definitely check it out. And yeah, please, if you're ever in New York City and want to stop by, hit me up, let me know. And there's a awesome Miami campus right by you. For anybody you know who's interested in checking out Alpha down there too.

[A]

Amazing. I really appreciate you. I wish you the best of luck.

[B]

Thanks, Rachel.

[A]

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