Billionaire’s Advice to Young People | Joe Liemandt

BigDeal

Codie Sanchez

Marketing, Business, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.9 • 970 Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2025

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Most billionaires disappear after they make their money. Joe Liemandt did exactly that — vanishing for 20 years after building Trilogy into a software empire. Now he's back with a radical mission: transform education for a billion kids using AI. In this episode, the reclusive tech mogul breaks his silence to reveal why he's betting another billion dollars that everything we know about school is wrong. Thanks to GoDaddy for sponsoring this video! Head to ⁠godaddy.com/codiesanchez⁠ to get started with GoDaddy Airo® today. From fifth graders negotiating food truck gross margins to middle schoolers getting paid $1,000 to hit the top 1% academically, Joe's Alpha School is flipping education on its head. Kids learn twice as much in just two hours a day, then spend afternoons launching Broadway musicals, building apps, or training for D1 sports. The results? 96% of students love school more than vacation, and every single class tests in the top 1% nationally. We dive deep into why Joe believes the 100-year-old classroom model is dead, how AI tutors can teach kids 10x faster, and why paying students to learn might be the most controversial — and effective — motivator yet. If you've ever wondered what happens when a data-driven billionaire decides to rebuild education from scratch, or if you're tired of watching kids hate school while the world leaves them behind, this conversation will change how you think about learning forever. ___________ 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:24 The Forbes List and Raising Kids Without the Billionaire Label 00:02:39 Why Money Matters: Teaching Financial Literacy from Kindergarten 00:06:45 The MBA Myth: Why Business School Won't Make You an Entrepreneur 00:08:01 Alpha School Revolution: Where Kids Learn 2X in 2 Hours 00:08:43 Breaking the 100-Year-Old Education System 00:18:33 The Three Girls Who Proved Math Isn't Gender-Specific 00:20:05 Paying Kids $1,000 to Reach Top 1% 00:26:59 From Broke to Billionaire: The Trilogy Story 00:28:08 The Entrepreneur's Blind Belief That Changes Reality 00:30:58 From Consumer to Creator: Breaking Kids' TikTok Addiction 00:34:01 High Standards Are the Key to Happiness 00:40:02 The Food Truck That Teaches Gross Margins 00:47:05 Motivation Engineering: Time Back as Currency 00:52:49 From Tech Bro to Principal: Joe's Personal Transformation 00:58:58 The Billion Dollar Mission to Transform Global Education 01:08:51 Making Millionaires in High School 01:10:32 AI in Education: The Good, Bad, and Terrifying ___________ MORE FROM BIGDEAL 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@podcastbigdeal 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigdeal.podcast 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@big.deal.pod MORE FROM CODIE SANCHEZ 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@codiesanchezct 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codiesanchez 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realcodiesanchez OTHER THINGS WE DO 🌐 Our community: https://contrarianthinking.typeform.com/to/WBztXXID 📰 Free newsletter: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3XWLlZp 📚 Biz buying course: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3NhjGgN 🏠 Resibrands: https://resibrands.com/ 💰 CT Capital: https://contrarianthinking.biz/4eRyGOk 🏦 Main St Hold Co: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3YfGa8u Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	When you look at education today, do you think we can actually re-educate the entire,
0:05.0	let's even just say the US using the technology have?
0:08.0	100%.
0:09.0	What about for people who are really scared to have AI teach their kid?
0:12.0	You should be terrified.
0:13.0	They are being brainwashed by TikTok today.
0:15.0	AI could be good or bad.
0:17.0	And we need to have a huge effort to make sure that we use it for good. Founder of Trilogy Software and ESW Capital.
0:23.6	Joe is now the principal of Alpha School.
0:26.6	Today we're here with Joe Lamont.
0:27.6	I saw a tweet from you.
0:29.6	Three girls in my Alpha High Group were described by their parents as not math science girls.
0:33.6	They've been focused on other pursuits.
0:35.6	But their math SAT scores, 790, 790.
0:39.5	People read that and say, that's crazy. In our school, that's normal. If we spent 10 years
0:45.3	and educate kids the way we've been educating for 100 years, those kids are going to go into an AI
0:49.1	world and have no skills that matter. AI gives these kids superpowerpowers. You all believe if we educate kids like
0:55.0	this, they will be more successful and thus we will have all these beneficial repercussions.
0:59.7	What does the data say? We are the best performing academic school in the country. Every single
1:04.1	class we have is top one person. No school can say that. Here's why though. Here's what you should
1:08.9	actually do with your opinion.
1:20.0	So you've been described in so many news articles as private, reclusive, mysterious, and a billionaire.
	...

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