On April 17, 2017, my dad passed away For the last 13 months, I worked @CBinsights and also ran his chemical manufacturing biz in India It was acquired on June 1 Lessons, thank yous and observations here cbinsights.com/research/team…

Fidgets in schools are a plague Somehow we've normalized not paying attention + distracting your classmates under the banner of vague therapy-speak

Don't hear many stories like this (unfortunately) Sports gambling is a giant self-inflicted wound for the 🇺🇸 Like the opioid crisis but more insidious because the impacts are less visible I see middle school students colloquially using gambling terms and language regularly now I wonder if anything changes this cjr.org/the-interview/nicole…

Government services are being flooded cuz of AI This is really interesting as gov't bureaucracies often make things difficult so having AI be able to navigate them on behalf of citizens feels like a good thing But overwhelming these services with AI generated requests, complaints, applications, etc is going to stress systems not made for this level of inbound A host of gov tech tools to help automate responses is likely already emerging (or will emerge) but what I find interesting is that the relationship and expectations between citizens and their government is changing dramatically right now

Young people don't believe what they see Last week, I taught classes (5th to 8th grade) in which students designed ads for the businesses they're creating at @ForgePrep I showed some high converting ads from recent'ish history (digital ads + physical flyers) The ads often pre-dated the current AI boom, but... ...students immediately thought the images were AI created Nothing looked "real" to them The fact that young people seem to believe and trust so little of what they see is very interesting TBH, I was very surprised at how pervasive the "That is so AI" comments were I do think this portends some important things for culture, media, community and more I'm unsure exactly what those implications are right now, but I know they will be big

Students kept asking if we will have uniforms So we said, you decide I was surprised by the results (as you'll see in the video) Their persuasive speeches brought together their work on claim, evidence, reasoning (CER) and pathos, logos, ethos and cost modeling and much more. People often report being more afraid of public speaking than death 😳, but @ForgePrep students will get lots of reps doing this And I expect they’ll be able to own any room they walk into very soon Very proud of our students for their speeches that preceded this vote

Is Mischief Night still a thing the day before Halloween? If yes, where? Anywhere in NJ?

While the machines get smarter, us humans...

Our 5th to 8th graders are creating their first resume WTH?!! As you start a school, you learn the absolute crazy amount of stuff schools have to buy And so instead of buying everything from others, we're letting students run & operate some of those businesses including: * photo day * yearbook * our merch store But to get on the 3-4 person teams that run these businesses, students have to write a resume, apply and interview Resume examples below They're excited (and nervous) for the process and the prospect of running a complete business with Forge as the 1st customer If they run it well, they also share in the profits

Andreessen Horowitz's new college alternative is smart... ...and it is the first of many such schools Why it's smart? It's a "no lose" proposition ▪️ Help develop talented people who could join your portfolio companies. ▪️ Build relationships with future founders years before they raise money. ▪️ Build a reputation for producing successful people. That last point deserves an asterisk. If you select exceptionally capable, motivated, technical students, many would probably succeed wherever they went. Separating the value of the education from the quality of the selection will be hard. The Ivy League is familiar with this arrangement. Why it's the start of a trend? ▪️Colleges increasingly let in people who are not qualified... ▪️...and in the pursuit of tuition dollars, they graduate unqualified students The result is the college degree is increasingly less credible among employers So at some point, more companies are going to build their own alternatives to college not as an altruistic endeavor but out of enlightened self-interest Props to A16Z for taking a stab I imagine in a few years, some @ForgePrep students might even choose a path like this

Jensen Huang of Nvidia thinks kids don't need to learn basic math With audiobooks,why even learn to read? ""It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it"

Startup idea: A rigorous college that just admits the most qualified students Oddly, this is a crazy idea

Drone photo of the @ForgePrep campus We signed a lease in November 2025 and then... * gut renovated as 73 year old building including brutal HVAC / ventilation work * recruited 35 amazing students & founding families * built an entirely new type of curriculum * assembled an exceptional team of educators * got into the WSJ and other media pubs * grew our newsletter to 4300+ It's been fun to be back grinding in full startup mode. Stay tuned though...lots more coming

Best reason I've seen that Silicon Valley Jehovah's Witnesses don't really believe their own predictions

Yesterday, we had our first-ever Monday morning meeting and 2 of our students led the whole school in The Pledge of Allegiance. It was awesome. Thx to 2 of our students, Teddy and Arjan, for taking the lead and kicking off this Monday morning tradition.

This was pretty shocking Our students were in school at Forge Prep for 3 days this past week, and... ..for that entire time, they never used a Chromebook or watched a video No phones or smart watches either ...and they survived Oddly, they seemed to actually like it WTF??!!! There were lots of games played (Jenga, Uno, basketball, volleyball and Blokus being favorites)

While people whine about datacenters... ...the actual infrastructure that builds society is crumbling... and there are no protests and zero media coverage of this 67% of Americans are dissatisfied with K-12 education a 27 year low

Yesterday, we welcomed 35 students and their families to @ForgePrep for our first day of school. Your children’s education is the most important investment you’ll make in their future. To our 35 founding families, thank you for trusting us with it. Let’s go Honey Badgers!

"Syracuse increased tuition well above the rate of inflation to $69,180 for this year, up from $40,458 in 2013-14. Total cost of attendance is now $98,544." 🤣“We cannot marginalize and erode the competitive moats [around Syracuse’s best programs] by compromising the selectivity, by compromising the prestige.” -- Syracuse Chancellor Michael Haynie

This is our largest "classroom" @ForgePrep What don't you see? ▪️ Rows & columns of desks ▪️25-30 student seats We call these our seminar rooms A while ago, I'd read a great quote by Loris Malaguzzi, the founder of the Reggio Emilia approach who said "There are three teachers of children: adults, other children, and their physical environment." We've been very purposeful trying to build an environment that lives up to that ideal Our seminar rooms are just one example. Students sit facing each other and often, the Guide is sitting with them right at the table. So in addition to learning from the adult (the Guide), they will from each other. I'm really excited for students to join us next week...and also excited that we'll never subject students to rooms of 25 students sitting in columns & rows of desks #backtoschool