john
@know
if you were rich how would you help people?
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Cameron Armstrong
@cameron
Plan + seed 10,000 technical training pipelines targeting at rural/appalachia/middle america/southwest teens/20 somethings that would've previously taken CTE/automotive/blue collar type life paths - includes ex-prisoners. Program Characteristics are: - 2 year track - Software (Code foundations + Solo/Team Full stack Project focused curricula with an emphasis on AI tool utilization) + Hardware (Machining, manufacturing, Engineering Fundamentals) generalist program - 1 year extension option in specific functional areas - security, critical language study, likely driven by needs of the local area - Every program feeds directly into technical roles in existing local companies or nearby cities.
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john
@know
more people trained in this way, why?
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Cameron Armstrong
@cameron
So many reasons, but the biggest are: - Modern techl talent is aggressively concentrated on the coasts (specifically NYC/SF) which leads to a startupland hyperfixation on a small subset of problems that don't help most americans (consumer social), hyperfinancialization, and a B2B SAAS that either creates tools to sell to other startups or re-entrenches existing F100 companies and ignores any real, no shit problems that aren't "venture scale" - Technical + product talent drought outside of the coasts means chicken + egg problem for anyone good enough to compete with coast talent but doesn't want to leave their current ecosystem (like Ohio or w/e) so local companies can't really win even if their idea is spot on - Hardware + Software dual competency is underrated frontier of new class of interesting + useful problems imo (maybe @july can concur) - Most americans have been left out of this massive wealth transfer bc all of it is driven by investors and founders who all come from the same 20 universities
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Cameron Armstrong
@cameron
Step 0 is getting more americans than just rich kids with the right parents access to the skills + tools used to create these companies
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john
@know
I like it. Are there any problems that the current cohort of tech-skilled persons are facing that would be worth considering when seeding the culture for these programs? Seems like a cool opportunity for new culture to be seeded amongst tech builders too. Conversely are there any problems you could see this cohort of tech-skilled persons facing that would be different to their coastal, rich-parent counterparts?
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Cameron Armstrong
@cameron
I think the current cohort of tech skilled persons are facing the reality that ZIRP era tech salaries were not sustainable when everyone that graduates with a CS degree wants to move to the coast and work in FAANG disney with sojourns into startupland, but that universe doesn't even exist to the folks I'm interested in serving. For new tech set I want to create, the problems will be more or less the same ones they have now with job retraining. Reframing their world view around better role models. Challenges with self-doubt/personal history not allowing them to believe they have options. Their pre-existing communities/networks needing their support/energy while they try to improve their own station. Issues with healthy self-expression + emotional processing. Social context switching practice.
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