What’s the difference between patiency and an agency?

In this conversation, Matt explains why agency matters more than test scores, how AI can scale personalized learning, why education reform keeps failing, and what the world would look like if every child learned to be an agent instead of a patient.

Follow Dr. Bateman on X: https://x.com/mbateman

Follow me on X: https://x.com/benaverbook

Check out Montessorium: https://montessorium.school/program

(0:00) Would Maria Montessori Love AI or Hate It?

(3:14) How AI Scales the Montessori Method

(5:43) The Right Way vs Wrong Way to Use AI Tutors

(7:23) Why Matt Bateman Believes Montessori Is the Best Education Philosophy Ever Created

(9:45) Inside a Montessori Morning Routine: Students Running Their Own Day

(14:20) What Is Agency and Why Does It Matter More Than Test Scores?

(18:30) Traditional Schools Teach Kids to Be Patients, Not Agents

(22:00) Can You Build Agency After 13 Years of Being Told What to Do?

(24:45) Three Strategies for Developing Agency as a Young Adult

(28:50) Why So Many Thiel Fellows Went to Montessori Schools

(30:20) What the World Would Look Like If Everyone Had a Montessori Education

(33:40) Can Montessori Scale to a Billion Kids?

(36:10) Why Education Is Like Medicine Before Galen

(37:50) Why Most Education Startups Die (And Why Khan Academy Weakened After Gates Foundation Money)

(39:20) The Only Two Paths to Fixing Education: Build Schools and Make Arguments

(41:18) School Choice and Free Market Dynamics

(42:59) The Real Cost of Public vs Private Education

(44:21) The Zombie Bureaucracy Blocking Education Reform

(46:20) Teachers Unions Are the Biggest Problem in American Education

Austen is the founder of Gauntlet AI which is a 10 week in-person training that, if completed, guarantees a $200k+ AI engineering job at the end. Just to make it sound more crazy, it’s completely free.

If selected, you do 2 weeks virtually and then if still in the cohort, they will fly you to Austin, TX, house you, and feed you, all at no cost to the student.

Please enjoy.

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Since the first Alpha School opened almost 10 years ago, MacKenzie has been working towards making kids love school more than vacation.

In this conversation we talk about:

• Why schools are still banning AI in late 2025 while Alpha’s kindergartners use it to build apps and practice public speaking

• The Harvard study showing AI tutors beat Harvard professors at teaching physics

• How kids can learn 2X, 5X, or even 10X faster with personalized AI tutoring

• The student who realized she was a “robot” with no passions after years of traditional schooling

• Why capitalism and profit are desperately needed to fix education (and why nonprofit models breed mediocrity)

• The “don’t boil the frog early” philosophy: why kids don’t need 12 years of training in how to be bored

• Training kids to be creators instead of consumers (building TikTok audiences vs doomscrolling)

K-12 education is an obviously broken system and Alpha is at the cutting edge of fixing it.

MacKenzie hosts a podcast called “Future of Education” which you can find here.

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What’s remarkable about this document is not just that it worked (the Academy opened in 1751 and became UPenn 40 years later), but that it solved problems we’re still failing to solve today. We complain that education is too theoretical, disconnected from real work, focused on credential signaling rather than actual competence. Franklin complained about the exact same things. And then he built something better.

Franklin built something that lasted. Ironically, the University of Pennsylvania now represents the very elite model he was pushing against.

Franklin’s vision, articulated in his 1747 pamphlet, was about enabling mass upward mobility through practical education. He believed schools should serve “the middling people” (shopkeepers, tradesmen, farmers), giving them tools to prosper through diligence, hard work, and virtue; rather than grooming an elite through classical learning.

(My full post summary of Walter Isaacsons biography of Franklin)

Useful and Ornamental

The opening premise of Franklin’s educational philosophy appears in his Proposals with characteristic bluntness:

“As to their STUDIES, it would be well if they could be taught every Thing that is useful, and every Thing that is ornamental: But Art is long, and their Time is short. It is therefore propos’d that they learn those Things that are likely to be most useful and most ornamental. Regard being had to the several Professions for which they are intended.”

This is so obvious it’s almost embarrassing. Time is limited. Some things are more useful than others. Teach the useful things. And yet somehow our educational system has lost sight of this basic constraint. We act as if students have infinite time, so we can afford to spend years on material that will never be used, justified by vague appeals to “well-rounded education” or “cultural literacy.”

Plenty of people could have said “teach what’s useful.” Franklin went further: he defined usefulness around service. The goal of education, he wrote, should be to cultivate “an Inclination join’d with an Ability to serve Mankind, one’s Country, Friends and Family; which Ability is (with the Blessing of God) to be acquir’d or greatly increas’d by true Learning; and should indeed be the great Aim and End of all Learning.”

True merit, in Franklin’s view, meant the ability to serve. Not the ability to signal intelligence, or accumulate credentials, or win arguments about obscure points of theology. The ability to actually do things that improve other people’s lives. Education was supposed to give you that ability.

This seems almost radical today, when so much of elite education is about developing the capacity for sophisticated verbal reasoning disconnected from any tangible output. A kid who can write a brilliant essay deconstructing gender norms in Victorian literature but can’t fix a broken toilet or build a basic website has been educated, by Franklin’s standards, into uselessness.

Learning by Doing

The specifics of Franklin’s proposed curriculum are fascinating because they solve, with startling elegance, problems we’re only now beginning to articulate.

Take his approach to teaching writing. Rather than starting with abstract rules of grammar and rhetoric, he proposed having students write letters to each other, make abstracts of what they read, retell stories in their own words. All of this would then be reviewed and corrected by their tutor, who would “give his Reasons, explain the Force and Import of Words, &c.”

This is the educational equivalent of test-driven development, and what we’d now call project-based learning. You write the code first, then debug it, and the debugging process teaches you the underlying principles. Compare this to the standard approach: here are the rules of grammar, now write something that follows them. One method teaches you to communicate; the other teaches you to avoid mistakes on standardized tests.

Franklin was explicit about this pedagogical philosophy. He quotes extensively from John Locke and other educational reformers to make the point: “Rules are best understood, when Examples that confirm them, and point out their Fitness or Necessity, naturally lead one, as it were by the Hand, to take Notice of them. One who is persuaded and moved by a Speech, and heartily admires its Force and Beauty, will with Pleasure enter into a critical Examination of its Excellencies... But to teach Rules abstractly, or without Examples, and before the agreeable Effects the Observance of them tends to produce have been felt, is exceedingly preposterous.”

This principle extends throughout the curriculum. While studying natural history, students would practice “a little Gardening, Planting, Grafting, Inoculating” and make “Excursions...to the neighbouring Plantations of the best Farmers, their Methods observ’d and reason’d upon for the Information of Youth.” They would learn mechanics by studying prints of machines, then copying them, then understanding the principles that made them work. They would learn morality not through abstract philosophical texts but by reading history and “making continual Observations on the Causes of the Rise or Fall of any Man’s Character, Fortune, Power.”

The entire curriculum was built around a single clever insight: use history as the vehicle for teaching everything else. “But if HISTORY be made a constant Part of their Reading,” Franklin wrote, “may not almost all Kinds of useful Knowledge be that Way introduc’d to Advantage, and with Pleasure to the Student?” Through historical reading, students would naturally encounter geography, chronology, ancient customs, moral philosophy, political theory, oratory, all in context and motivated by narrative rather than forced memorization.

Character Formation

Modern education has largely given up on explicitly teaching virtue. We teach skills (barely) and knowledge. We might gesture vaguely at “critical thinking” or “leadership.” But we don’t systematically try to make students into better people.

Franklin had no such hesitation. Character formation was central to his vision.

“With the whole should be constantly inculcated and cultivated, that Benignity of Mind, which shows itself in searching for and seizing every Opportunity to serve and to oblige; and is the Foundation of what is called GOOD BREEDING; highly useful to the Possessor, and most agreeable to all.”

Benignity of mind. The habit of looking for opportunities to help other people. This wasn’t a side effect of education; it was the main point.

He specified that students should live plainly and frugally, that they should be “frequently exercis’d in Running, Leaping, Wrestling, and Swimming,” that they should learn through reading history “the Advantages of Temperance, Order, Frugality, Industry, Perseverance.”

The goal was not just to make students competent but to make them good. And Franklin believed this wasn’t some mystical quality you either had or didn’t; it could be cultivated through practice and habituation, the same way you cultivate any other skill.

This is deeply unfashionable today. We’ve become squeamish about moral education, worried that it’s either religious indoctrination or empty moralizing. At the same time, universities still promote values; but often in selective or contradictory ways. Some emphasize ideals like free inquiry, pluralism, and intellectual courage. Others foster a culture of fragility, where discomfort is treated as harm and moral life is framed as a battle between good people and bad people. Franklin’s approach was different. It was practical virtue ethics: here are the qualities that will make you successful and useful. Let’s practice them until they become habits.

What We’ve Lost

The tragedy is that we know all this. We complain constantly about the deficiencies in modern education. Too much theory, not enough practice. Too much credentialism, not enough competence. Too much focus on high-status signaling, not enough on actually useful skills.

And yet we keep doing the same thing.

Part of the problem is that we’ve recreated the filtering system Franklin explicitly rejected. Jefferson’s vision of cultivating a small educated elite ultimately won. Modern education is about identifying the “best,” polishing them with four years of expensive liberal arts education, then sorting them into prestigious graduate programs and professional careers. The point is not to make them useful; most of what they learn will never be used. The point is to mark them as members of the elite.

Franklin’s vision would look different. Education would be shorter, cheaper, more practical. You would learn by doing rather than by listening to lectures. You would be taught things you’ll actually use. The curriculum would integrate knowledge rather than fragmenting it into specialized departments. And the goal would be to make you productive and virtuous, not to mark you as elite.

Some people are trying to build this. Coding bootcamps teach practical programming skills in months rather than years. Trade schools still exist, teaching people to be electricians and plumbers and HVAC technicians. Various educational startups are experimenting with project-based learning and alternative credentials.

For now these are small experiments. But if they continue to grow and prove themselves, they may end up outcompeting the existing system, delivering practical, affordable education while universities remain stuck in their old model.

In the 1850s, Thomas Mellon, who would go on to found Mellon Bank and amass one of America’s great fortunes, called reading Franklin’s autobiography “the turning point of my life.” If Franklin could climb from poverty to wisdom, wealth, and fame through industry and thrift, so could he. Mellon followed that path, built an empire, and left a legacy that still echoes in Carnegie Mellon University.

This pattern repeats. Charlie Munger called Franklin his personal hero. Elon Musk credits Franklin’s autobiography and Isaacson’s biography as more important than business books. When asked how he learned to build companies, Musk said: “I read biographies.” Franklin’s most of all.

Why does Benjamin Franklin, dead for over 200 years, still inspire the world’s most ambitious people?

After finishing Isaacson’s 500-page biography, I think the answer is simple: Franklin left us an instruction manual. Most historical figures force biographers to extract lessons from their actions. Franklin wrote down the system he used to build himself. And what makes it remarkable is that he wasn’t just self-made financially. He was literally self-constructed in almost every respect.

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The 13 Virtue System

At age 20, Franklin created a moral improvement system that he followed for decades. He identified 13 virtues he wanted to embody:

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness, drink not to elevation

2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself

3. Order: Let all things have their places, let each part of your business have its time

4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought, perform without fail what you resolve

5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself, waste nothing

6. Industry: Lose no time, be always employed in something useful

7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit

8. Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty

9. Moderation: Avoid extremes

10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes or habitation

11. Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles or at accidents common or unavoidable

12. Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring

13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates

He made a physical notebook, divided into seven columns for days of the week and 13 rows for the virtues. Every evening he marked faults he committed, focusing on one virtue each week while tracking all of them. After 13 weeks, he cycled through again.

By sticking with his system for decades, Franklin showed that character is not fixed but plastic. It can be molded through daily practice and deliberate effort.

Following Your Drift

Franklin’s scientific career began with simple curiosity. He studied whatever caught his attention: heat, ocean currents, weather patterns. Long before he turned to electricity, he was experimenting and observing on his own.

That curiosity eventually focused on electricity. What began as sideshow demonstrations, Franklin transformed into serious science. His invention of the lightning rod alone saved thousands of lives. In Germany, more than ten churches a year burned down from lightning strikes before it.

When critics asked what use his electrical experiments had, Franklin replied with a smile, “What is the use of a newborn baby?” His point was simple. Potential doesn’t need to be obvious right away.

This principle ran through Franklin’s life. He was at once a scientist, writer, diplomat, and politician. To David Hume he was a philosopher. To most he was a scientist or statesman. To himself, he was always a printer, even after retiring at 42.

Charlie Munger once said, “If you can’t somehow find yourself very interested in something, I don’t think you’ll succeed very much, even if you’re fairly smart.” Franklin embodied that. He followed interesting problems, surrounded himself with fascinating people, and built skills that compounded. That drift carried him further than any fixed plan ever could.

Industry and Frugality

Everyone knows Franklin’s aphorisms: “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

These lines sound like the philosophy of someone obsessed with wealth creation and accumulation. In reality, Franklin retired at 42 with enough income to live freely, then devoted himself to what mattered most to him: reading, studying, experimenting, and serving the public good.

“I would rather have it said he lived usefully than he died rich,” he wrote. He even refused patents on his inventions, including the lightning rod. “As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.”

Franklin put it plainly: “It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.” Industry and frugality were never the goal. They were the foundation. What mattered was the freedom they created, the freedom to pursue meaning and service.

Practical Over Theoretical

Franklin treated every domain as an experiment. In science, he “found electricity a curiosity and left it a science.” In politics, he said, “We are making experiments in politics.” His method was the same everywhere: try things, see what works, and revise.

At the Constitutional Convention, Franklin was the oldest delegate at 81. In his final speech he embodied the American spirit of disagreement without paralysis: “I do not entirely approve of this Constitution at present. But… having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration to change opinions even on important subjects which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.”

It was humility, but also principle. The belief that a nation could endure through compromise and correction.

The Middling People

Franklin always saw himself as one of the tradesmen, shopkeepers, farmers, and artisans who formed America’s emerging middle class. Even after becoming internationally famous, he signed letters “B. Franklin, printer.”

His vision for America was enabling their success. He wanted everyone to have the tools to prosper through diligence, hard work, virtue, and ambition.

This came through clearly when he wrote Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania in 1749, laying out his plan for what became the University of Pennsylvania. He argued for practical education over classical learning. Students should study subjects they could actually use. Education should be shorter, cheaper, and more hands-on. Learn by doing rather than just listening to lectures.

One of the sad facts is that the modern university has often drifted away from that vision. UPenn today has become part of the same elite credentialing system Franklin opposed, built more on signaling and barriers to entry than on mass opportunity.

What Franklin wanted was straightforward. A society where a poor kid could rise through talent and effort. We should celebrate entrepreneurs over aristocrats. Practical education over classical. The ability to serve over the ability to signal.

The Blueprint

Few figures in history show so clearly how a life can be constructed. Franklin proved that character can be shaped, knowledge expanded, wealth earned and then set aside, and opportunity widened for others. He didn’t just live greatly. He left the blueprint.

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” - Mark Twain

I’m extremely passionate about improving education to increase economic opportunity. It’s all I think about.

Last week someone asked me how I’d fix education. I started my spiel about K-12 reform, college affordability, better teachers. Then they stopped me.

“Why are you focused on schools? Most learners aren’t in schools. They’re at work.”

There are 100 million Americans getting workplace training every year. There are nearly 70 million students total in all of American education. The majority of learning in America happens at companies, not classrooms.

If you want to fix education, why would you start with the minority?

more numbers

America has 246 companies for every school. We have 33.2 million businesses and about 135,000 educational institutions.

Every one of those companies trains people. Every one teaches skills. Every one is technically an “education institution.” But we don’t think of them that way because they don’t have ivy on the walls.

Companies spend $98 billion annually training employees. These employees get paid while learning. They use their skills immediately. The training updates quarterly based on actual market needs.

Meanwhile the current student debt is around $1.8 trillion. They pay to learn. Half never use their degree. The curriculum updates every few years... maybe.

One system creates debt. The other creates value. Guess which one we’re trying to fix?

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apprentice

3% of LinkedIn profiles in the United States include the word “apprentice,” while this figure is 11% in the UK and 12% in Germany.

This term has always been a big deal, until recently. Ben Franklin was an apprentice to his brother at age 12, learning the printing trade. George Washington was an apprentice surveyor. Paul Revere apprenticed as a silversmith. The entire foundation of American industry was built on apprenticeships.

We abandoned this model for mass education. Germany and Switzerland kept it. Their youth unemployment is 6%. Ours hovers around 11%. Their workers enter the workforce skilled and debt-free. Ours enter with degrees they don’t use and debt they can’t pay.

The word “apprentice” disappeared from American vocabulary. We replaced it with “intern” - unpaid, temporary, leading nowhere. Meanwhile German apprentices earn money, learn trades, and get hired at 90% rates.

incentives. it’s all incentives.

The incentive structure explains everything. As one of my personal hero’s Charlie Munger says, “Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.”

Universities get paid whether you graduate or not. Whether you get a job or not. Whether you learn anything useful or not. They already have your money. It’s like asking the barber if you need a haircut; the answer is always yes, regardless of reality.

Companies only profit if you become productive. If you can’t do the job after training, they lose money. So they make absolutely sure you can do the job.

This is Munger’s/Taleb’s “skin in the game” principle. When FedEx was losing money on night shifts, they switched from hourly pay to paying per shift completion. Suddenly packages arrived on time. Same workers, different incentives, opposite outcome.

The results:

• Companies with comprehensive training programs generate 218% higher income per employee

• They have 24% higher profit margins

• Their employees are 94% more likely to stay

• Every dollar spent on training returns $4.70 in revenue

Meanwhile, 52% of college graduates work jobs that don’t require their degree. Even ten years later, 40% are still underemployed.

As Munger warned: “The iron rule of nature is: you get what you reward for. If you want ants to come, you put sugar on the floor.” Universities put sugar out for enrollment, not employment. Companies put sugar out for productivity. Guess which one gets results?

corporate training sucks

This all sounds great, however most workplace training is awful.

60% of employees say they’ve never received any formal workplace training. They taught themselves.

The average company spends just $1,280 per employee per year on training. That’s 84 times less than a year of college. Most of that goes to compliance videos nobody watches.

Only 25% of employees think training improves their performance. The rest call it outdated, irrelevant, or nonexistent.

This should be the scandal. We have 100 million people learning at work, and we’re doing it badly. Companies know training has 218% ROI but still treat it as a cost center. They know skilled workers stay longer but still won’t invest.

The opportunity is massive. If companies are already outperforming schools with terrible training, imagine what happens when they do it well.

the remaining problem

Companies don’t like unnecessary costs. All the great founders have always warned about cutting costs ruthlessly (shout out Founders Podcast).

The remaining problem here is that an 18-year-old out of high school who doesn’t have any specific skills is a massive cost to a private organization.

They are net-neutral productive if not negatively productive. Why would any company choose to train this person, let alone pay them?

Three models already work:

Tax credits. New York reimburses companies 50% of training costs up to $10,000 per employee. South Carolina offers $1,000 per apprentice. That tiny credit grew their program from 800 to 30,000 apprentices.

Industry coalitions. Tech companies jointly fund bootcamps. Manufacturing companies share apprenticeship programs. When someone leaves for a competitor, they stay in the industry. Everyone wins from a deeper talent pool.

Training bonds. You get free training but commit to staying two years. Or you pay it back. Airlines do this with pilots. Hospitals with nurses. It works.

The federal government found that 93% of apprentices who complete their programs get jobs immediately. Average starting salary: $60,000. Average debt: $0.

Compare that to college grads: 52% underemployed, $32,000 in debt, years of lost wages (and career compounding) while studying.

the capitalist education

Milton Friedman called public education an “island of socialism in a free market sea.” He was right. It’s the only major industry where competition doesn’t improve quality, prices don’t reflect value, and consumers can’t choose alternatives.

We could change this tomorrow. Three things need to happen:

1. AI makes corporate training actually good. Benjamin Bloom proved one-on-one tutoring improves performance by two standard deviations. AI can now deliver that at scale. Every worker gets personalized training at their own pace. McDonald’s workers learning Excel between rushes. Bank tellers practicing Python between customers. The technology exists. Companies just need to use it.

2. Government incentivizes entry-level hiring. Not with more programs. With less regulation. Let 16-year-olds work real jobs. Give tax credits for apprenticeships. Remove degree requirements from government jobs. South Carolina’s $1,000 credit created 30,000 apprenticeships. Imagine what real incentives could do.

3. Culture shifts to normalize work over college. This is already starting. Google, IBM, and Bank of America dropped degree requirements. Parents are questioning $200,000 art history degrees. Kids are choosing $60,000 apprenticeships over hundreds of thousands in debt.

The free market works everywhere else. It would work for education too.

Companies already train 100 million Americans. They just do it badly. With AI, tax incentives, and cultural change, they could do it incredibly well.

Every company becomes a school. Every job becomes education. The free market replaces the socialist island.

That’s how you fix education. Not ONLY by reforming schools. By recognizing that most learners aren’t in schools.

They never were.

What I saw clicked immediately: give people a project, a few guidelines, a real deadline, and the room to figure it out. That's not "education" in the traditional sense. It's setting the conditions so people educate themselves...fast.

What Gauntlet Is

Gauntlet is a free, immersive AI training program in Austin, founded by Austen Allred. Recent cohorts do 3 weeks remote and 7 weeks in person with housing and food covered. The pace is explicit: ~80-100 hours/week of building. Make it through and you get a $200K AI engineering offer. Details evolve cohort to cohort, but the through line is the same: pressure + support + outcome.

The People Who Show Up

We met a bunch of "challengers" (what they call participant…

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I was half right. It is kind of an advertisement for Khan Academy. But it's also something more interesting: a deeply personal story on why education is fundamentally broken and how AI might - just might - be the thing that finally fixes it. After recording a podcast about it and spending way too much time thinking about its implications, I've come to believe Salman Khan is either prophetically right about the future of learning, or we're all about to witness the most spectacular educational catastrophe in human history.

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The Two Sigma Problem

Let's start with the most important graph you've never seen:

In 1984, educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom quantified something teachers have known forever: one-on-one tutoring is magic. Students who work with a personal tutor gain what Bloom called a "two sigma" improvement - that's two standard deviations, which translates to jumping from the 50th percentile to the 96th percentile. Put another way, an average student with a tutor performs better than 96% of students in a traditional classroom.

This finding should have revolutionized education. Instead, it became known as "Bloom's Two Sigma Problem" because nobody could figure out how to scale it. You can't give Alexander the Great their own Aristotle.

So what did we do instead? Khan describes it perfectly:

In the 18th century, we began to have a utopian idea of offering mass public education to everyone. We didn't have the resources to give every student a personal tutor. So instead, we batched them together in groups of 30 or so, and we applied standardized processes to them, usually in the form of lectures and periodic assessments.

The results speak for themselves. According to a 2020 Gallup analysis, 54% of Americans between ages 16 and 74 read below a sixth-grade level. In the United States, most high school graduates who go to college don't even place into college-level math. Three-quarters lack basic proficiency in writing.

In Detroit, before COVID, 6% of eighth-graders were performing at grade level. After COVID? 3%.

Let that sink in. We've built an educational system where 97% of students in one of America's major cities are failing to meet basic standards. If this were a medical treatment with a 3% success rate, we'd ban it. If it were a bridge with a 3% chance of not collapsing, we'd demolish it. But because it's "just" education, we shrug and blame the teachers, or the parents, or the kids themselves.

Enter the Machines

This is where Khan's story gets interesting. In early 2023, before ChatGPT-4 was even publicly released, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman from OpenAI visited Khan Academy. They let Khan test their new model. His immediate reaction: "This changes everything."

Why? Because for the first time in human history, we might have technology capable of providing every student with their own personal tutor. Not a perfect tutor, not Aristotle, but something that could work with students "at their own time and pace" - the key ingredient in Bloom's formula.

The education establishment's response was swift and predictable: ban it.

Los Angeles Unified became the first major school district to prohibit ChatGPT. Seattle followed. Then New York City, Fairfax County, Montgomery County. The reasons were always the same: it enables cheating, it doesn't build critical thinking skills, it will destroy writing ability.

One professor quoted in Inside Higher Ed declared ChatGPT "a plague, one that threatens our minds more than our bodies."

Meanwhile, in China, the government mandated AI education starting in first grade.

At our reflexive technophobia, our inability to see past the immediate disruption to the transformative potential. We're like 19th-century lamplighters campaigning against electricity because it'll put them out of work.

The Cheating Problem That Isn't

The cheating argument particularly irritates me because it's both the most common objection and the most obviously wrong. As Khan points out, academic dishonesty isn't new:

In 2019—more than three years before ChatGPT was publicly released—The New York Times profiled college graduates in places like Nigeria and Kenya making a living writing essays for college students in America and other wealthy countries.

A quick web search for "write my research paper for me cheaply" reveals a thriving industry. In Silicon Valley, parents pay $400 an hour for college admissions coaches who essentially write their kids' essays. One study found 47% of students think using websites to find homework answers is "somewhat or very acceptable."

The cheating horse hasn't just left the barn - it's galloping across the next county. Banning ChatGPT is like banning calculators because students might use them on arithmetic tests. It completely misses the point.

Here's my hot take: we should allow students to submit AI-generated work. Grade it on quality. If someone uses ChatGPT to write garbage, give them an F. If they craft brilliant prompts that produce exceptional work, give them an A.

Because here's the thing: prompting is writing. It's thinking. It's the same cognitive process of structuring ideas and arguments, just with a different interface.

What AI Tutoring Actually Looks Like

But Khan isn't primarily interested in AI as a writing tool. He's interested in AI as a tutor. And the examples he provides are genuinely mind-blowing.

Take Saanvi, a ninth-grader in India reading The Great Gatsby. She's stuck on why Gatsby keeps staring at the green light. Instead of Googling for CliffsNotes, she opens Khanmigo (Khan Academy's AI tutor) and asks to speak with... Jay Gatsby himself.

JAY GATSBY: Ah, the green light. It is a symbol of my dreams and desires. You see, it is situated at the end of Daisy Buchanan's dock, across the bay from my mansion. I gaze at it longingly, as it represents my yearning for the past and my hope to reunite with Daisy, the love of my life.

She literally has a conversation with the character. At one point, she apologizes for taking up his time, and "Gatsby" gently reminds her he's just an AI simulation.

This isn't just a gimmick. It's a fundamental shift in how we can engage with knowledge. Instead of passive consumption - reading about historical figures or literary characters - students can have active dialogues with simulations of them. Imagine debating philosophy with Socrates, discussing physics with Einstein, or co-writing Federalist Papers with Hamilton.

Khan tells another story about using Khanmigo to explore the Second Amendment. He types: "Why do we have the Second Amendment? It seems crazy!"

Instead of lecturing or taking a political stance, the AI responds: "Why do you think the Founders included the Second Amendment to begin with?"

It's Socratic. It pushes the student to think deeper without imposing its own views. Try getting that kind of neutrality from a human teacher on gun control.

The Inequality Time Bomb

Here's where Khan's argument gets urgent. Educational inequality isn't just unfair - it's an existential threat. He calls it a "global education inequality time bomb," and the numbers back him up:

• Louisiana spends $10,000 per student per year; New York spends $40,000

• In India, government schools spend between $500-$1,200 per student

• 25% of teachers in India are absent from school on any given day

• Worldwide, girls are twice as likely to never set foot in a classroom

This inequality compounds over generations. Affluent families hire tutors, use test prep services, pay for college consultants. Their kids get the two-sigma boost. Everyone else falls further behind.

AI could be the great equalizer. For the first time, a kid in rural Louisiana or urban Detroit or a village in India could have access to the same quality of personalized instruction as a billionaire's child in Silicon Valley.

But only if we let them use it.

The Jobs Apocalypse (Or Not)

Khan devotes significant space to the "what about jobs?" question, and his answer is both optimistic and terrifying. Early studies from Wharton show 30-80% productivity improvements on white-collar analytical tasks using AI. Entry-level positions in tech, consulting, finance, and law are evaporating.

His solution? We need to "invert the labor pyramid." Instead of lots of people doing routine tasks supervised by a few doing creative work, everyone needs to become what Daniel Priestley calls "high agency generalists" - people with broad skills who can orchestrate AI to solve problems.

Khan writes:

We are entering a world where we are going back to a pre-Industrial Revolution, craftsmanlike experience. A small group of people who understand engineering, sales, marketing, finance, and design are going to be able to manage armies of generative AI and put all of these pieces together.

This is either incredibly exciting or utterly terrifying, depending on whether you think we can retrain billions of people fast enough. Khan, ever the optimist, thinks we can - but only if we completely reimagine education starting right now.

Star Trek vs. Blade Runner

The book's most thought-provoking section explores two possible futures. In one, we get Star Trek: a post-scarcity society where everyone is educated, creative, and free to explore their potential. In the other, we get a dystopia of mass unemployment, purposelessness, and susceptibility to demagogues.

Khan doesn't mince words:

If we don't, societies will increasingly fall prey to populism. People with time but no sense of purpose or meaning don't tend to be good for themselves or others.

The difference between these futures? Whether we embrace AI in education now or continue fighting it.

The Under-Discussed Revolution

After finishing the book and recording my podcast, I actually think Khan understates how revolutionary AI will be for education. He focuses mainly on AI as a better delivery mechanism for traditional learning. But what if the whole concept of "learning" is about to change?

Consider: if AI can write, code, and analyze better than most humans, why learn these skills at all? It's like teaching kids calligraphy after the invention of the printing press.

Khan touches on this briefly, quoting Bill Gates on the "confounding paradox" - we now have tools that make learning easier, but they also make people wonder if they need those skills at all.

I think the answer is that we'll need to completely reconceptualize what education is for. Not to make us economically valuable (AI will do that better), but to make us more human. To help us ask better questions, think more creatively, connect ideas across domains.

In other words, education needs to make us the kind of people who can work with AI rather than be replaced by it.

My Verdict

Is Brave New Words just an advertisement for Khan Academy? Kind of.

But he's also right about the fundamental problem: our education system is catastrophically broken, we know exactly how to fix it (personalized tutoring), and AI might finally make that fix scalable.

The question isn't whether AI will transform education. It's whether we'll let it transform education in time to matter. Every day we spend banning ChatGPT instead of integrating it is another day China pulls ahead, another cohort of students falls behind, another step toward the dystopia instead of the Star Trek future.

Khan ends with this:

This is not a drill. Generative AI is here to stay. The AI tsunami has drawn back from the shore and is now barreling towards us. Faced with the choice between running from it or riding it, I believe in jumping in with both feet.

After reading this book, recording a podcast about it, and spending way too much time thinking about its implications, I'm convinced he's right. The tsunami is coming whether we like it or not.

The only question is: will we teach our kids to surf?

Note: This review is based on the May 2024 edition of "Brave New Words." Given how fast AI is evolvinome of Khan's predictions may already be outdated. Then again, they might be too conservative. We're living in exponential times.

We explore their first-principles approach to curriculum (integrating "Homer and Python"), their controversial merit-based admissions, and why they believe traditional universities are failing. Dr. Ruth's commitment to open inquiry and empirical rigor offers a compelling vision for the future of universities.

Highly recommend checking out the University of Austin: https://www.uaustin.org

Find on all platforms here: https://benaverbook.com

Follow me on X: https://x.com/benaverbook

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) - Intro / Dr. Ruth's Journey

(00:03:10) - Why Start UATX? (00:07:25) - What Universities Get Right

(00:12:30) - College vs. Working Right Away

(00:19:08) - UATX STEM Vision / Homer & Python

(00:24:07) - Building the STEM Program

(00:33:51) - Ideology vs. Empiricism in Science

(00:43:44) - Merit-Based Admissions

(00:50:31) - Student Qualities (Curiosity & Humility)

(00:56:05) - UATX Value & Network

Danielle Strachman joins the podcast to break down the flaws in traditional education pathways and explore how alternative approaches can unleash potential, particularly for young founders.

Danielle is Co-founder & General Partner at 1517 Fund, a venture capital firm backing young founders often working outside traditional institutions. She previously helped build and run the Thiel Fellowship alongside Peter Thiel and has deep roots in alternative education philosophies inspired by Maria Montessori, homeschooling, and student-led learning.

I felt Danielle was speaking directly to my own experiences wrestling with the traditional path. This conversation was a powerful reminder about making conscious choices, rejecting limiting labels, and the importance of finding work aligned with your core motivations – that "fire in the belly" she talks about.

Find out more:

1517 Fund: https://www.1517fund.com/

Danielle Strachman on X: https://x.com/DStrachman

Follow me on X: https://x.com/benaverbook

The Thiel Fellowship: https://thielfellowship.org/

Mentioned: The Absorbent Mind by Maria Montessori

Timestamps:

(00:00:50) - Interview Start / Introduction

(00:15:34) - Alternative Education Roots & Path to Thiel Fellowship

(00:07:05) - Homeschooling Philosophy at 1517 & "Cutting the Leash"

(00:11:53) - Advice for Feeling Stuck, Conscious Choices & Rejecting Labels

(00:17:40) - The Case Against Traditional Higher Education: Cost vs. Value

(00:26:17) - AI Supercharging Learning & Empowering Young Talent

(00:29:55) - Founder Motivation: The Need for "Fire in the Belly"

(00:33:50) - The Train Story: Aligning Passion with Projects

(00:42:05) - Discovering Your "North Star" & Defining Your Mission

(00:47:23) - 1517 Fund: Backing Renegade Science & Big Ambitions

(00:49:35) - The Long-Term Commitment Required for Founding

Jason breaks down the $61 trillion intellectual property market, explains how creators can better monetize their work, and shares a vision for making IP licensing as seamless as an API call.

We explore the balance between incentivizing creation and enabling access, why AI training data should include compensation for creators, and how the future might revolutionize digital ownership.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Defining intellectual property and its $61 trillion market

00:04:33 - Is IP necessary? Historical origins and balancing incentives

00:09:18 - Where's the line between ideas and protectable IP?

00:11:11 - The Studio Ghibli AI controversy and style protection

00:12:05 - How licensing fees might impact virality and distribution

00:17:13 - Big names using Story Protocol (BTS, Blackpink, Sabrina Carpenter)

00:17:38 - How Aria works: bringing music IP on-chain with revenue and control rights

00:21:31 - Future of digital creators: more lucrative than Hollywood?

00:24:17 - How Mr. Beast could leverage Story Protocol for monetization

00:27:20 - AI training data and Jason's background at DeepMind

00:29:10 - Story Protocol's biggest challenges: the cold start problem

00:31:46 - Will licensing become a primary monetization vehicle for creators?

00:35:45 - Story Protocol in 10 years: the invisible infrastructure of creation

Check out Story Protocol here: https://www.story.foundation/

Follow Jason on X: https://twitter.com/jasonzhao

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Subscribe to my channel if you haven't yet.

Augustus shares his thoughts on higher education, what makes a successful founder, and his ambitious vision to "green the Great American Desert."

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - College admissions issues and higher education

00:04:01 - Leaving college for better opportunities

00:05:10 - Upskilling and human capital concentration

00:05:48 - Fellowship experiences: Thiel Fellowship and Z Fellows

00:07:55 - Who should be a founder? Qualities needed

00:11:58 - Augustus's journey to water scarcity solutions

00:16:32 - Clarifying cloud seeding vs. other weather modification technologies

00:21:05 - History of cloud seeding technology

00:27:04 - American revival and re-industrialization

00:32:13 - Systemic issues pushing talent into finance over innovation

00:36:25 - Rainmaker's vision: from water utility to terraforming company

Follow Augustus on X: https://x.com/ADoricko

Follow me on X: https://x.com/benaverbook

In this episode he discusses how The New York Times has repeatedly misrepresented major historical events and why this matters.

He examines the institutional patterns behind the newspaper's reporting errors and explores broader issues in modern media.

Episode Highlights:

00:00:20 - The discovery of The New York Times repeating Nazi propaganda in 1939
00:07:32 - Responding to criticism of judging historical reporting in retrospect
00:12:22 - The Sulzberger family's relative obscurity compared to other media owners
00:15:43 - Personal consequences faced for criticizing The New York Times
00:19:01 - Self-publishing models versus traditional media incentives
00:24:58 - Wikipedia's "invisible power structure" and information control
00:31:48 - The debate about pseudonymous figures versus real identities online
00:35:34 - Jeff Bezos's statement about The Washington Post's direction

Get Ashley’s book here - The Gray Lady Winked

Follow Ashley on X - Ashley Rindsberg

Watch on YouTube here - YouTube link

Henry Modisett, the design mind behind Perplexity, explores how beautiful, intuitive software emerges from simplicity, restraint, and genuine understanding of user needs.

Why does great design demand saying 'no' more often than 'yes'? How can branding authentically represent what users already feel? Henry reveals how Perplexity leverages thoughtful AI integration and creative aesthetics, like Midjourney-inspired visuals, to craft products users truly love.

Discover why the future of AI-driven products hinges on design clarity and meaningful interactions.

Timestamps:

(0:00) - The Beauty of Software Design

(2:20) - Branding and User Experience

(5:34) - Philosophy of AI in Product Design

(8:19) - Navigating User Experience and Model Selection

(11:05) - The Evolution of Design Practices

(16:05) - Vibe Coding and Its Impact on Design

(20:01) - The Demand for Quality Design

(24:38) - Positioning in the AI Landscape