Ep. 11 Is College Worthless? (W/ Leeland Zhang, Cofounder)

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of the AI math guys podcast. Very, very happy to have an amazing guest, Lee Lin-Jang. He is the co-founder of Grassroots Academy, which is an educational personalized platform and he's going to talk more about that. And also he did spend two years in college, one year roughly in Northwestern and one in the one in UCLA. And so we're very excited to have him and we're going to talk about AI, talk about education and it is going to be awesome. So Lee Lin, why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself, tell us about what you do, what Grassroots Academy is about, go ahead and maybe add anything that you'd like to share with the listeners. Yeah, thank you, Jay. I mean, it was a great introduction at first. Yeah, so I did spend, I went to UCLA first and transferred to Northwestern dropping out later for Grassroots Academy and we are pretty much building a personalized learning platform. The point of it is we saw there are, AI is great at being a tool for learning so you can generate notes, you can generate problems and flashcards and use that. But really that's not the most effective way of learning. It's always better to have someone by your side actually explaining things in ways that you can understand, helping you find your blind spots, prepare for a test. No, there's so many other things that a great human teacher or a tutor does or what we call like a learning partner. And so we really set out to emulate exactly what a great human on your side does. Of course, minus the human relationship aspect but really focusing on how to give you the most effective learning experience. That's awesome. So you attended Northwestern or after UCLA, you went to Northwestern and then spent a year there and then chose to drop out to pursue Grassroots Academy. Exactly. Tell me a little bit more about what made you want to make that decision. And I think that anybody who drops out of college or is cool to pursue their dream, I'm sure you get asked this often. I think there's a lot of courage there and because college could mean safety, could mean comfort, right? And you're taking that leap of faith. I mean, I'm sure that would have been scary especially at your, I'm assuming you're Chinese. Yes. Yeah. Chinese Asian families. Oh my gosh. The conversation that I could imagine that you had to go through with your parents. I mean, I don't know. Maybe they were supportive. I don't know. To walk us through a little bit of the mindset of Leland as he was making this decision to jump into entrepreneurship. Sure. Well, actually, I mean, in regards to Asian parents, they were half half. One of my, so my mom wasn't supportive. And I think the conversation more went like, I'm going to do this. And that was it. And so there wasn't, we didn't really come to a conclusion. But I'll say that the thought process behind it really was, I transferred to Northwestern really with in my mindset already thinking I probably want to do something entrepreneurial. I wanted to start up. And so I began like a smaller one when I was in school. But really, when I set out to do grass roots, it became more of a thing where I would just spend all of my thoughts, all my time on startup rather than on school at all. And so I was going to classes just working on startup. And it was sort of like, I just wanted to not fail class at some point. And it was really like a waste of time to me. So it only felt natural that I would like to drop out. And I think now it's becoming more of a trend where like more and more college students are foregoing college education, especially with the current job market. I think employers tend to look for experience and other things beyond just a college degree now. And so I thought it was going to be a smart decision regardless. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. And here about, I knew another founder and he also dropped out of college to work for a startup. And he was a software engineer. And he did share about how he is going to school. But all he's thinking about is working on a startup. And I think that what's so cool about that is not many young people know what they want to do. And especially even college, like for me when I went to college, oh my gosh, I made a philosophy which makes no money in any way. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. And then my senior year came along. I had to make a decision. And thankfully I made the right decision to go into education here. And for you to just to know and have clarity on what you want to do, I think it's really cool. And that's one of the things that I think is so valuable when it comes to education. People, kids coming to know what their purpose is. And because once you have purpose, you don't struggle with laziness as much anymore. Because it's just so driven. You see the vision of what could be and you're starting to get after it. And so I'm just curious before we jump into a little bit more about grassroots here, because I think it's important for educators to know how does one to come to know your purpose and take us along your journey of what made startups so appealing to you and wanted to pursue it. Yeah, pursue that. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with your point about education. I think it's so important to actually have the basis of education. Whether it's not being disciplined and actually working on something that you're passionate about and giving you time to understand what you want to do. I think it also helps, of course, that's when you're doing your own project or when you're doing your own company, it's a full ownership. And so you actually feel like this is something like truly that is completely yours. So I think that helps a lot for sure in terms of engagement and actually being passionate about it, rather than doing projects that are for some other company, et cetera. So I would definitely encourage a lot of people to actually try doing their own personal projects or like with other people as well. That would help me a couple of lot. I forgot a little bit actually what your original question was. I'm sorry. No, don't worry about it. I think you answered it. I think just that ownership, right, and being able to say, "Hey, this is mine." And I have full control over it. And I know all the different pieces that move along because the educational system often is very like you have math here, you have history here, and these disconnected subjects, when reality, the best way that you learn is interconnection and making connections between different subjects and coming to insight. So I think that's really awesome. And just one last question, I know this. I said that one last question before. But one last question before we go into AI and education. Tell me more about this trend that you're seeing because I know that the job market right now is, I don't know these specific statistics, but when it comes to college grad, I mean, the job market is like really hard. And so you are seeing this trend of kids or going college to pursue other avenues of maybe potentially getting a job or finding stability. In your experience, what does that pattern look like in colleges or college students right now? Yeah. This is definitely something that we're also looking into a lot because it's very important for us to understand since we also target college students as users. What is actually the most important for them? And I don't know the exact numbers as deep either, but I do know that it's been a very, it's been a down-retrend for like the past 10 years. And so it's like, which is new grad employment. So I think the rate at which it was decreasing was sort of slow at first, but obviously post COVID or maybe really post AI, the trend has been very steep. And so I think AI definitely plays a large part. For example, I know like, let's just say I be investment banking as an example. There's like companies like JPMorgan who have already decreased their junior bankers to senior manager ratios. It was originally like six to one. They're decreasing it to four to one, largely attributing to AI because now what, before junior bankers would do is they're primarily just to make decks, you know, like do model in now AI can do all that. And so I think AI does attribute a large portion of course like the software industry, for example, AI is great at coding. And so you can do a lot more with a lot less people. I think it's overall, there's going to be a shock from what, what it takes the industry to catch up. So how employers understand what new grads should be doing rather than what they've been traditionally doing. And then I think that will then trickle down into affecting what higher ed does because with that like a without the employment pressure. Higher ed doesn't really have much, because education has a whole move slow. I'm sure you probably have more insight to this than I do. But education moves slowly, and I think they need outside pressure and for colleges employment is obviously one of the most important metrics that they track. And so until the job market fully just, I think then that will help. The new guy employment, but before then, I think colleges aren't like, they just don't represent a very good metric or tracker of will this person be good at this job anymore? And I think that needs to change for sure. - Oh, so what I'm hearing from you is that there is a discrepancy between colleges and what they're preparing for versus the job market, given that the job market now has fundamentally changed now with AI. For example, you mentioned banking from six employees to four. That's a significant amount. And so I see. So then when there's now that pressure from the market saying, hey, these are the new skill sets that we need. Then there's some pressure from the job market to the higher educational systems or institutions than to make those changes. That's very interesting. Would you say that? So given what you know, I keep saying, well, more questions, I was just so interested because you're right. I mean, I think we're all very curious about the mind and just the view of a college student, especially for me as a teacher too, because we're preparing kids for college. That's like what we preach in the educational world, like college and career. And one of the things that I'm hearing from you is college question mark why? Because it doesn't necessarily translate into the necessary skills. So then what would you say? Would you say what are the skills that are necessary in your opinion for one to now thrive in this new world with AI? Obviously leveraging AI, imagine would be one. And what would be the skill sets do you think? And there are studies on this, like people talk about the global competencies of like all the skills that they need. I'm very curious to hear from your perspective. Yeah, in terms of skill sets. Yeah, I, I'm like, as you said, I'm sure there's lots of great papers and research published out there. Well, I generally try and preach because I've also gone to many different high schools that you have talks about AI. What I generally preach is number one is critical thinking or like really just to boy that down is just, you don't trust everything that you hear. You're actually able to think for yourself and to think is this actually what I believe is correct based off of like all the evidence I've been given. And I think that is one of the most critical skills in just in an AI future world because then AI will be able to give you so much information and they'll be able to make conclusions for you. It's very capable of doing that. But whether that is the right conclusion for you, I don't think that's always the case. And so in order to use AI effectively, I think that's the most important. But really going back to your first point about college is a really necessary college question work, I think in terms of pure skills of what you learn let's say in the classroom. Of course, they have great problem solving skills. I think they train things like critical thinking. But that isn't so transparent, let's say on your transcript or all the class that you're taking. I do think though that college because it's such a great social environment that can be extremely beneficial for those who are fresh out of high school. I still think the social aspect is definitely the most valuable part of a college by far to understand what your peers are doing to be motivated by them to figure out what you want to do with your life. I think like those are all great reasons for going to college. I just think that in terms of the skills for what you learn in college or with your teaching college, with what their workforce needs, there's definitely like a gap there. Interesting. Yeah, I would imagine like you're saying, these skills are not necessarily reflected on the transcripts. And I'd imagine that there would be a shift to demonstrating knowledge or skill sets. And I'm thinking like portfolios. I think portfolios are a great way of showing what you're thinking or what you're able to accomplish in your skill sets. And I think in high schools too, grades are important. And I think shifting through to a more portfolio format where students create and they're able to show the future employers or your colleges, hey, this is what I was able to do. And these were the skills that were required to do it. I think that seems to me a greater accurate view of a student and a person, a future employee, than just numbers or letters on the transcript. So I would love to go more about the critical thinking piece because, man, yeah, there's so much more there. Let's go now into just AI first. And what your latest thoughts about AI have been-- and I'm sure you're thinking about this-- just day and night as you're building grassroots. What are some new revelation or insights that you've been having about AI? Sure. I think AI in specifically regards to education, I think we see a future at Grasso where AI is the primary teacher of material. Because I mean, how we see it is, let's say K12. Because education is like K12 higher. And of course, workforce development. But within K12, I think there's really just two important pieces. One is the materials or what you're actually learning. And the other one is teaching how to be a good social human being or the babysitting part of K12, which is actually so important as well. So there's two aspects of it. And of course, AI can't do the second one. But we think that AI can actually completely do and do it to a very well degree than most teachers, especially in developing countries or less fortunate areas even in the US. We think AI can do much better. And so that's where we see AI go in education. And we think there's a large gap between right now what AI is able to do. Let's say it's able to do incredibly complex problems, for example. But the actual tuning of how it can be best pedagogically and to have teaching or in terms of emotional aspects, I think there's very big potential there is just that it's going to be a lot of product building rather than just the plug and play inherent model itself. Sure. So when you say that-- because potentially educators who are listening to this-- because I came to a very similar conclusion as well. And for anybody to say that AI can do instruction, I think could be very like, oh my gosh, that's what I was hired to do. That's like my identity as a teacher. Like, what am I if I'm not instructing? And so before we go into that conversation, I want to drill it down a little bit. And could you tell us a little bit more about what you mean by instruction? Because it could vary. And I think people have different ideas about instruction. What is your definition of instruction? Yeah, OK. So I think there's one aspect of which school is primarily dominated by now in terms of K12 is-- all the students are based on the grades. And then how will they do in classes on? How will they know the material? Have they memorized what it is? Can they apply the concepts in a problem-solving manner? Actually learning of the material itself. But really, teachers also have a range of other tasks that they have to do. Of course, involving teaching students, how to study, motivating them, talking about them about their life. But even beyond that, let's say even in a physics classroom, there's like, OK, we can do experiments. Or just science in general. Do experiments, do group projects. Applying it at your concepts where you learn in actual real world applications and other aspects as well. And so I think that's also a part of instruction, which isn't incorporated in the pure materials learning itself. And so I think that's a distinction that when we're building as well that we're very aware of is that we actually try looking into can we do this sort of, let's say, project-based or the type of instruction as well. And I think AI, it's not capable of doing it just because it's not human. And there's so many important aspects of a human teacher or a human advisor going over that type of instruction that AI is just not able to do. But AI is able to do just very, very well on traditional grades. They look at that. So what you distinguish perhaps is more material-based instruction versus maybe more like group work or maybe soft skills of-- sorts maybe. So when you say material based instruction, are you thinking about like textbooks, or just any kind of standard that maybe California gives any of that stuff, it can essentially teach or tutor the kids to that, right? And when it comes to the creating, I don't know, meaningful projects, that would imagine what fall in the domain of the teacher, right? And so would you say that's kind of like the correct understanding of that? I mean, that's that's where we see the at least where I see the future of new education going, is that's like I call like baby sitting, but like really it is engaging the students in various other aspects like social aspects, soft skill, which is quite broad in general, but yeah, I think that's a great term for it. Whereas the actual like learning about, you know, how to go about doing those things, or let's say, you know, like if you do an experiment, which chemicals to mix together, how to measure things, like, etc, I think the AI is there to teach that. And I think there's also, there's a school, like a couple of private schools in Texas that are calling Alpha School, I think. I'm sure you probably know of them, but yeah, Alpha School does something very similar where they have AI teach for let's say like two hours a day or something about the actual materials based. And then the rest of the day is actually sort of group building activities with the teachers and the students. So that's very interesting with Alpha School from what you know, when they do the two hours, is it just like they're just like talking with the chapeau and they're just like asking questions and is that what that looks like? To my knowledge, it is similar. Of course, not all AI is like chapeau in our product also is not because like a pure pure chapeau interface, especially for younger kids, is definitely not the most engaging interface like they're not going to use that. Normally, they know how to, right? But the interface may be different, but really it is more like how a teacher might teach, like actually saying here's a material or if you take a course online, but now instead of before we take a course, it's just like watch this video, do these problems rinse and repeat. Now, you can actually have something that's catered towards a student and actually talking with them. And so I think that enables you to actually teach students effectively the materials with AI only. Sure, sure. So the UI is not necessarily just a chapeau. It could be other things, right? And maybe the UI just looks different, right? So what, and I know we talked about the role of the AI in an educational setting. And in your opinion, and we thought it would touch the pond, what would be the role of the teacher then? So what would they be doing? What makes them, what parts of their job is not yet automatable by AI? Yeah, I think it is just you can work with students. Like, okay, before, or right now, let's say a teacher says, here's what we're going to learn in class today. We're going to walk through this concept that concept. They go through like maybe a mini lecture in between the sort of engages students make sure they're actually learning. The teacher may have prepared some activities for hand, like let's play like a who, let's play Quizlet, something like that. And then here's your homework. We're going to grade it. We're going to talk about logistics, etc. And so I think like that's roughly from what I've, understand like how a normal school day goes for a teacher. And so what, what is automatable then is then perhaps the teacher doesn't need to really go through the lecture part, nor the grading part that they do outside of school, nor the test making or the test creating. Like all of those tasks that actually take an enormous amount of time right now for the teachers. Rather than instead of doing those, then you can actually hop into direct linked activities, teachers may spend a lot more time on developing what those look like, how to engage students. The entire classroom will be like from start to end. There's not, there's not going to be like a monotone lecture perhaps portion. Students may be required to use AI tools in school while teachers can, you know, take some time to prepare or relax, or that could be done outside of school. I'm not sure. But I think then the vast majority of what the teachers will be doing is much more interactivity. Sure. So it's more focused on the interaction, the relationship building, the report building, that kind of relationship. Yeah, yeah, I think so. All right. So in terms of like the future of education, and I know we talked about what the AI's capabilities are right now when it comes to instruction. And it's automating that piece so that teachers can think about cool projects and how to engage students. What do you think the future is going to look like in your opinion? What AI? So in specifically like how AI will teach the students? Could be teaching, could be some other form that maybe not many are not many people are thinking about just it just like what could it be next in the next five, 10 years? What do you think AI will be able to do? And how will the impact education? Yeah. So I think if we're starting out like the very fundamentals right now, the the basis of education is okay, you're going to probably have some sort of standard, depending on which country you're in for different grade levels in K-12 education, then students will need to demonstrate their proficiency in it within tests. Some of them are standardized, let's say like AP STACT. Some of them are just within the school. So how well they do in comparison with their classmates on these tests or projects that are graded. And so like if we look at the basis of itself and like your students are learning different topics that are sort of like spread out, they're required to learn history and math and science and whatever. I honestly, I don't see that changing much. Even something like standardized testing, I don't see it changing much. Even like a five year span, I think at the K-12 education level, it's really important for students to build a basis of knowledge understanding because really in order to for example to critically think you need to have knowledge. And so that that is like a first step. And so I think all of that basis will still stay more or less the same. I think really what what we may be able to see is that we can go a bit beyond that now. And so besides only just focusing on like helping students get the A's or not fail the class and like actually like learn the material self, you can now go beyond that with AI now. And so then you can actually look into things like building projects. Like at the very beginning, I was encouraging everyone to build their own personal project or with students. I think that could be like a lot more widespread in the future where like for example learning coding isn't just about, oh, can you sort of do like build the most common like like maze game that everyone builds. Right. Like how boring is that? Whereas like maybe education like CS in the future will be everyone builds their own like idea that I can actually that's unique that can actually solve a real problem or issue within their score or within their community. That would be so powerful. Where you not a young age students are able to begin doing those those projects and AI enables you to do that. And so I think that that should be a big focus of the change in education. I think the current system will stay like more or less the same. The way in learning will change. And I also think that because the way in learning will change, you now have more time because it's more efficient to learn what's what you would have to do all the things. That's where I think at least education should be headed. Sure. So with the standardized testing and the current system being in place, we might be able to do a little bit more in terms of projects and creating meaningful experiences for your students. That's awesome. I know that I probably should have asked this a little bit back. And so we're going to rewind back a little bit. Why so I'm sure you could have chosen any other field that you're going to like fintech or say I don't know, hi, like the super heavy AI. I don't know. Why education? Yeah. So actually traditionally if you look at various different metrics, let's say like VC funding. At tech is is very low. Like, yeah, I mean so many other industries give a much better return. There's bigger markets in terms of just pure financially. I chose education really because I'm passionate about it. And I think really if I wanted to I told myself I I wanted to work on a startup. Even success for me, I would need to be passionate about it, or else I think I'd fail anyway. And so education really was a thing where, from a young age, I've always cared about education. Perhaps it was from the fact that I did a lot of volunteering in countries outside of the US for education. I actually been in education within China as well as US, and then so I can actually compare the different systems as well. And so education doesn't mean a lot to me, and I think it's given me a lot of equitable opportunity. And us as a company, we are so as well. One of our co-founders is a first-generation college student. And so education also really literally changed his life. And so I think for us, we want to be able to, not only increase or like, let's say improve the highest levels of education, but also make that accessible to a lot more people. - That's awesome. So it's just something that you find very meaningful, and you see potential. I mean, I have heard say, people say that education is the great equalizer, and it just gives more opportunity for people. Would you say there's like a specific instance in your life where you're like, man, that was the moment where I was like, education is where I want to go. Is there like a specific moment where it's just more general, or like, no, this is what I really want to pursue? - I think it probably was more general or gradual. It wasn't something that was super obvious at first. I will say that. It's not like, oh, I like from a young age, or like even when I first started thinking about startup, it's like, educating the only option I have. I don't think it was like that. When I first doing startup, I was also trying to explore, like, what could work, et cetera. And when I was doing my first small startup, I think one of the reasons why I was like, I wanted to stop it was just because it turned out, I just wasn't motivated enough, or like I really wanted to work something that I was just really passionate about. And at that time, there was many, many moments where I was like, if I could work on anything else, it would be an education. So it became more clear to me over time that like this was the path for me. And I think all great entrepreneurs, like whatever they're doing, they're just really passionate about that field, or about solving problem. Like I think you have to be really motivated within the field and problem that you're solving. And for me, that just turned out to be education. So you were just kind of thinking from first principles where you're like, okay, like to say, I'm just starting from the ground up. If I had to pick something that I'm passionate about, what is it going to be? And then you land it on education, and that's why you wanted to pursue. Yeah, I think that's more or less how it went about. It's just like it, if I were to work on anything, it would be an education. And if I really wanted to start up, why would I not choose fields that I'm most passionate about? Sure. I'm just so curious as to, because I would imagine, in New Zealand that you are at least my understanding is that you are somebody of very high agency, meaning you are somebody who goes out there and just goes for it and just gets it done. And not everybody makes those decisions, right? So I'm just so curious, like what about you differentiate your skills? What are your self from others in the sense of your agency? Where did you cultivate that from? How did you get? And the reason why I ask is because one of the big questions in education that so many people are struggling with or wrestling with is agency. How do we get students to take ownership of their learning and move forward in the vision that they have themselves and be self-motivated and intrinsically motivated to do the thing that they want to do? And actually take steps, tangible steps to get there. And I would imagine that if a high school teacher saw you and do the things that you're doing now, I think they'll be very proud because, man, Leeland is somebody who has high agency and is able to make those decisions. So that's my first question. My second question is, what is the definition of success for you? And maybe these two questions after that we can end. So first of all, where do you get your sense of agency from? How did that develop? I'm very flattered that you think. I'm a high-send agency and that's a very good thing. I think, for me, it's more like if I'm going to do something, I sort of just laser in and I'm like, I just don't care about anything else. And if it fails, it fails. And I've gotten many, a lot of people, close friends and family saying, it's not a good thing because you don't ever have a backup plan. Like you just do that thing. But I think in terms of how to grow it, I definitely wasn't always so motivated. Let's say in high school, I was doing things like math competitions or like physical competitions. And really, I wasn't graded it, honestly. I spent a lot of time, I think, in effort and it sort of was like my identity thing that I would do along with my friends, take classes outside of school. And I think a lot of resources and time was poured into it. But I didn't perform well, probably because I just wasn't that passionate about it. And so I totally see like, it's not something that I just intrinsically have for sure. Nor did I have it a lot. I think what might have made the difference for me personally. I mean, it's a great question, by the way. I honestly don't know. I don't have a great answer for how to do this at scale. But I think for me personally, something that was always drilled into me from like my dad, for example, was that because he sort of does his job for the money, but he doesn't care about the job that much. He always told me, no matter what you do, always try to find what you're passionate about. And so I spent a lot of my high school years just doing random things. I did a lot of music. I did band, I did piano. I did these competitions. I did a lot of other people did to try and find-- I think I also did like an investment competition, which-- because I thought I liked it. Like a decent amount. It was like my favorite thing at a time. I ended up like majoring in business economics when I first went into college, which turned out it just was not like the best fit for me. I tacked on CS and I did applied math later on in Northwestern. But I think that probably made the biggest difference. It's that I was always constantly in search of what do I like to do rather than just-- I just need to perform well on this one thing. And I think because of that, I was always like-- if I can grab onto something that I was like, well, I actually really like doing this. I thought that was so rare and valuable to me that I really wanted to spend more time and just totally invest myself. So I think personally, that's what might have happened. And then regarding your second question, it was-- what was it again? Yeah, so it was a question of box of sex, a success. And I really do appreciate what you're sharing about doing a lot of things. You just have to try a whole bunch of things. And I love the question of, what do I like? What gets my fire going? And that's the type of question I think we need to be asking in education for our students is what puts the fire under your butt to get you moving? Like, what are you passionate about? And that question, that reflective question, of asking that question over and over again, because I remember having journals of journal after journal after journal after journal thinking and reflecting on, what do I like? What is my vision? What is my calling for my life? What is my purpose? What is my contribution to the world? I still think about that. I have a little bit more-- I honed in a little bit more now, more than ever. But that was a tough question for people to answer. And I know I'm going to another question. Do you have to go? No, no, no, no. I'm just going to ask you another question. If you can reimagine education and because if we get Lee Land with his sense of purpose and sense of agency, and we put him in a medicine or a startup or engineering, I think he could be very successful because he's found something that aligned with his purpose as the agency to get it. And then because he's as the agency now with AI, he can learn whatever skill he needs to learn to be able to accomplish that thing, at least that's my opinion. And so if you could reimagine education totally, let's just say standards I test wasn't even a thing. You were like, let's just get rid of all that multiple choice standards all gone. And you are wanting to produce, mass-produce at scale, the type of people that you want in society with high agency and purpose. How would you do it? It's a great question, isn't it? - That's a very tough question. question. It's very obvious. I mean, I think just to backtrack some logic, help me answer it to be honest. I think standardized tasks, for example, or just like great in general, it's a system that works and that hasn't been changed much because I think because it's very hard to do things at scale, especially like when you look at, let's say Asian countries where you have higher population density. The standardization of like tests, for example, like even like college admissions become even more intense, because it's so hard to differentiate between students and obviously that I think that leads to much worse education. I think the US college system, even though it has flaws, I think it's still like very amazing overall. I think that would probably be my answer is that if you can remove all standardization, essentially, if you can actually have, democratized ways of having great human teachers, great role models. I think that's one. So I think if everyone could have great role models and how to go about that is a really difficult question, but if you can train teachers to be great role models. And then when you teach the students, I think everyone should get a very liberal education, but beyond that, I think each student should be very much encouraged and pushed to always try and do something that's according to their interests and passions and to actually really dive deep into it because I think for example, like high school clubs, I think they're a great way to go about it, but I think there's a lot of loss of let's say social capital, where in a better high school, all these students are very motivated to do it because they actually know this thing. They've seen their friends do it, you can actually work with friends, there's precedent already set, and then all these teachers are telling about it, whereas in other schools, maybe less advantage, they just don't have this knowledge of you can actually go out and build this club. In order they have people telling them they don't have classmates and teachers guiding them and exactly how to do that. I think you become very disadvantaged that way. And I think if you can standardize in a sense that aspect of the social capital and in exactly what you can be doing to best maximize your education, whether it's middle school or high school, I think that would probably be the, it would be extremely powerful. So I think like a liberal education is still essential. I think everyone should still learn a wide variety of skills and knowledge, but I think that social capital components, if everyone can actually know and like interconnect about how to do things like build clubs or like do asset projects or do research etc, whatever it may be, if everyone can have that same knowledge and saying that you can actually do that, that would probably be a really big change in education. Sure. Yeah, I think when I think liberal education is important and I really would also see how that would be taught in a way that's interconnected and solving a real world problem that is meaningful for students. And I think that would be really, really awesome. And with the social capital, like you're saying, even this connection right here, what I've been realizing as I'm doing this AI math guide podcast is that I just get to connect with really amazing people. And when I connect with you, it somehow opens up another door to connect with somebody else, then opens up another door to connect somebody else. And it just becomes this interweb connectedness of people and thought resources and idea resources. And it allows us to then all it's kind of the idea of the rising sea raises all ships idea. And so that ability to connect with others, learn from them and iterate on your own thinking, I think is so powerful. And I think one thing that if I would just share is I think that standardized testing and grades and the way that the system was built can be though it could be very efficient, could be in many ways detrimental to students. And the reason why is because I think it dehumanizes their intrinsic personality, calling their humanity and reduces them to a number or a grade. And I've, and people have different thoughts about this. And even the way that ABCDF was created, it was just some dude and Harvard was like I just need to be able to sift through students easily. And I don't want F students who and math was a way to weed out students rather than bringing out the best in them. And so when we look at the way that the the just the educational system, the history behind it. And almost I don't know it's the potential inequity that could have come from this kind of foundation and perpetuating that to where we're at now where we're emphasizing grades and standardized hasn't you can have a totally different perspective and that's completely okay. And my goal as an educator and I guess a podcast there now is to stretch our thinking of reimagining our brains around what could be education now that we have AI to be able to help us now. Is it going back to grades? Is it going back to standardized testing? Is it going back to teaching 1,000 standards that no student is going to remember and is not going to take and going to help them in their life? So any last thoughts about that before we end the podcast? I think that's like I can see the vision that you're describing and I think it's it's so powerful and I really respect what you're doing. I don't think AI is is is a technology that can necessarily enhance that that much. I think that's more of like a systemic and policy change and I think that's much more difficult than saying I can build a technology that can do that but I agree I think if if we can begin changing towards that more that would be very powerful. Yeah and I think that yes it is definitely a policy change right? I think it also could be from grassroots actually which is the name of a company right? It's like it starts from yeah it starts from the ground up where there's enough people saying hey let's rethink education and obviously you need to have when you're rethinking it you need to have a version of it that's better as a solution to this current system that you're questioning and trying to change and it would be so awesome that you as the edtech founder of grassroots to reimagine a whole different system that is genuinely good for kids and I think you already are right? And with that world start building it and yes there might be other vendors that might not necessarily resonate with this kind of vision but you know and that's what you got into education that's what I'm in education that's what I'm an edtech right? It's because we're not just building for what the system already is we're building for what it could be and hoping that one day the change would happen and people will follow the direction that we're going and edtech I believe and I'm talking so much right now I know it's a podcast interviewing you and really I think educational change comes from three things is the pedagogy is the technology and it's the policy and when these three things come together it's just it's the perfect it's like the stool with the three-legged stool once you have all of these three things it could stand and it could be strong and edtech it starts with you Leland building the type of technology that comes from a reimagined version of education I just feel like I was like MLK for a second I mean MLK is like way much better than I am but I do have a totally agree I totally agree I just think it's going to be a really like hard like step by step change I think there's there's sort of it's such a big change that needs to happen across like such a like massive population for example I think I totally agree I'm also building in order to change edtech not not to only conform within the current center. Bye. I think it comes with step-by-step changes. And of course, however fast you can iterate and make those steps is the better. But I think jumping steps is near impossible. I think we need to make those steps one by one and just try to make them as fast as possible. Yeah. Yeah, no, 100%. I do say with my team, you got to play the game to rewrite the rules of the game. And so, yeah, I definitely agree with that piece too. All right, Yeliland, I just want to say thank you so much for your time. I think that you are incredible and just the fact that you're going out there, making waves, and making moves. And if you're interested in Yeliland's app, it will be in the description. Go check it out. And I'll also put his profile on the description below. And any last words of encouragement, hope for our listeners before we end? I think education is changing in a good direction. Honestly, I think largely due to people like UJ, I think we have a bright future ahead. So don't worry about AI guys. It's a positive change, I think, as a whole. And as long as we move slowly and cautiously, I think we have a bright future ahead of our kids. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Luland. And thank you for everybody who's listening. This is another episode of the AMATGuy podcast, where we reimagine education and the age of AI. So thank you so much. And I hope everybody has a great rest of the day. Bye-bye. All right, Luland.