Patrick Skinner - edu/acc

For those who are interested in working in EdTech, I need to be honest with you about what you're signing up for. You probably shouldn't apply. EdTech's graveyard is full of brilliant engineers. AltSchool raised $200M and closed. Knewton raised $180M and sold for scraps. 2,148 edtech startups in India shut down in the past five years. They didn't fail because of a lack of technical skill. They failed from mission drift. Here's what working in edtech actually means: You're not building software. You're building a theory of how children learn. - @MitchForest When you're 2 months into the same feature, and it still doesn't work, you won't have the dopamine hits of shipping fast. You'll need something deeper. For the engineers who build learning apps for @AlphaSchoolATX, they are REQUIRED to spend 2 hours every day studying. Not coding. Studying and reading papers on cognitive load theory, motivation research, and translating learning science into applications. Two hours. Every single day. Engineers like @yiran__c write about the neuroscience of handwriting. @arpangup shares the Harada Method. @LamarDealMaker explores AI for skill development. This isn't optional. It's the job. Your success metrics will lie to you. High DAUs don't mean kids are learning. Viral engagement doesn't mean mastery. The metrics that drive consumer tech success actively undermine educational outcomes. The money will tempt you to build the wrong thing. EdTech market: $400B by 2030. That capital creates pressure to optimize for pitch decks instead of classrooms. Byju's hit $22B before collapsing. An MBA analyzes constraints. A builder changes reality. What we require: ➡️ Mission Alignment ➡️ Agency ➡️ Strong Engineering Skills If you're chasing market opportunity or building for your resume, don't apply. But if you're a builder who sees broken systems and feels an overwhelming need to fix them? If you believe high standards create happy kids? If you want to change education for a billion children? Before applying, read the link in the reply. And if you're still interested after understanding what it really takes, let's talk about joining us in building the future of EdTech.

@tonyolendo I breathed that. I still remember the cheap side events we all met at in Colombia during DEVCON. But all the events changed and turned into hype trains and bank partnerships. I loved teaching about world changing tech. So I still do that… just not in crypto.

@PSkinnerTech Because I’m building for those who look like me and live where I do. Building in crypto was never a notch on a career belt, it’s freedom tech for those who need it the most.

It's so good to see so many of my mutuals from the past, but I've got one question. Why haven't you left crypto yet?

@Galliard232634 Ya I still got some of those. 😭

@PSkinnerTech Someone’s gotta carry those bags 🥲

@SicarioOfCrypto @fedesarquis Ya. I’d love for that to be true. I felt part of those teams at times too. But I pursued bigger impacts. Let me know when a team like that arrives.

@PSkinnerTech @fedesarquis The thesis still exists. Just that it needs teams with a better business model, a narrative and a backbone to win

@fedesarquis The thesis of debanking and giving people financial sovereignty left when all the major players sold out to the banks. That’s why I left.

@PSkinnerTech The thesis of why I joined is still there, why leave?

@TomZarebczan Sign me up!

@PSkinnerTech Likewise! We may or may not be cooking something new 😂 (not crypto, but will probably have payments at some point).

@naruto11eth NARUTO!!!!!!!!!

greed is good for your growth.

@ankushKun_ How about old friends doing cool shit?

all my TL feed is people saying hi to their mutuals. But I want to see new people doing cool shit

@timtimtim_eth Hey brother! Hope you're doing well!

@PSkinnerTech Damn I see you Patrick Back on my timeline

@TomZarebczan Loved working with you guys!

@PSkinnerTech 😭

@TheRealWizar Ah, Thunderbluff.

Can someone explain to me how improving WoW's graphics would be a bad thing?

@anothercohen "You can outsource your thinking, but you cannot outsource your understanding..." is a quote that I use in almost every single one of my decks.

A slide from our last all hands. I've also started to call out this behavior publicly in Slack channels. Tired of consuming workslop

@TheMiamiApe @nikitabier Long time no see!

My timeline is FULL of friends now. Does anyone else notice the difference?! Thank you @nikitabier for fixing it.

AI in education is a good thing.

GPT-5.6-Sol one-shotted this voxel-based Manhattan. Just look at the precision... it's insane. It ran for almost a week, completely autonomously, to get the job done.

@vyrotek @griswold This is the most epic response. 🤣

@griswold canonized

I told my 8-year-old that the American Pope added B-2s to St. Peter’s Basilica, and he thought it was so cool that I can’t walk the dad joke back. Need a papal bull pls.

This is what a week in learning looks like, using a Fable-made ThreeJS brain. Here is Tennyson, testing out our math course: 899 questions, 48 tutorials, 122 atoms, all in just 5 days. The dots represent atomic skills, known as "atoms". Each ignition is the first atom attempt, crystallizing into stars when he masters it.

@MeganGierka 100% Thanks!

@PSkinnerTech Have you considered AI pre-mortems? What could failure look like before we waste tokens on something so silly? Excellent read Patrick. :)

You should never let an agent session die in vain. Every single session should be turned into a critical post-mortem doc so that every single new session can learn from the last.