Nathan King

THE COURSEBOI MANIFESTO (How to Not Get Scammed) First off, not all courses are scams, many teach real skills... But COURSEBOIS are an entirely different beast. They spawn from the black, soulless Nether of Low Ethics™️ when one (or both) of these scenarios happens: 1. A new media format / business model emerges, or 2. Barriers to entry for a business model lower Here's how to spot them: Coursebois tend to flex outcomes vs. education. The quintessential courseboi for my era of the Internet was Tai Lopez's "Here in my garage" ad. Selling a lifestyle and promising if you follow "67 Steps" it'll be yours too. Showing out comes CAN serve as proof, but you'd need to show outcomes of STUDENTS, not yourself... The ethical ones focus on frameworks and systems, not Lambos, mansions, girls, etc. Example: One of @ramit's early courses was called Earn1k. It was literally a course about making your first $1,000 on the side, complete with concrete examples of students who went through the course and achieved the outcome promised. I took that course 15 years ago and made $5k in a summer designing websites. I bought it, did the work, and got the outcome. Success. Coursebois love top-of-funnel metrics. "My apps do $3.6mm a month" or "We do a billion views a month" are common phrases for coursebois. OK cool, but $3.6mm - COGS of running app - app store fee - taxes - cofounder split - living expenses of an ostentatious lifestyle = ??? No mention of profitability, margin profile, conversion rate on the views. Dollars and views are agnostic metrics unless contextualized against a business reality. They’ll never talk about course-completion rates. Tai Lopez's “67 Steps” program reportely had <0.5% of buyers finishing the 67th step. If they hide dropoff or completion rates, they're more likely to be selling hopium than solid value. To be clear: low completion rate doesn't immediately = scam, it just means you made a course that people who paid $ for don't give a fuck about, which isn't great proof of value. They promise outcomes that are objectively low-probability, even if course material is followed. "Quit your job in 30 days" "Build viral apps" "$10k/mo in 90 days" any of these phrases is an immediate red flag. There's a power law to almost all outcomes on this beautiful Earth, so using the outlier example as your flagship marketing tagline is low ethic and a bad signal for course quality. When barriers to entry fall, the Coursebois arrive. I'm old enough now to realize there is Nothing New Under The Sun...it's all a transmutation of what's come before. If you think any of the hype marketing you're seeing lately on here is revolutionary, here's a basic timeline of this industry: Direct Mail (1950s–80s): Mail list rentals + cheap postage lowered the cost of reaching strangers → copywriting gurus and “mail order riches” promises. Gary Halbert's era. Infomercials (1980s–90s): Late-night TV airtime got cheap → anyone could run 30-minute sermons → classified ad gurus, get-rich-quick tapes, Tony Robbins infomercials. Early Internet (1999–2006): Email service providers + ClickBank made digital delivery cheap → launch formula gurus and “$1M in 24 hours” hype. Frank Kern, "Mass Control", etc. Blogging / SEO & Web 2.0 (2007–2012): WordPress + cheap hosting made publishing trivial → “passive income” gurus teaching how to monetize blogs and YouTube channels. Shopify & Amazon FBA (2013–2017): Drag-and-drop e-comm + Amazon logistics lowered the bar for retail → dropship gurus, FBA private-label courses. Cheap Facebook/IG Ads (2013–2018): Self-serve ad platforms removed the need for agencies → SMMA (social media marketing agency) gurus promising $10k/month retainers. Creator Economy Platforms (2018–2021): Patreon, Gumroad, Substack, OnlyFans made monetization plug-and-play → “quit your job, get paid for your content” courses. TikTok Virality (2020–2022): Insane algo pull + lower friction to create videos → hustle-tok bros teaching reselling, “UGC side hustle” courses. AI Tools (2023–Now): ChatGPT, MidJourney, no-code APIs made software creation accessible → “prompt = $10k/month” gurus and AI agency courses. Every time the edge starts to erode, coursebois spawn from their Hellhole and start cashing in on shovel-selling because it's dramatically higher margin and easier than running the actual business they're teaching about. Coursebois will always be with us. They're the Sisyphus of capitalism, forever pushing the boulder of low-ethic dream-selling uphill, only for it to roll back down on us all when the next bizopp or media format arrives. We can't stop them, but we can mock them and stop falling for them. P.S. Things I've done that I've never sold a course on: - Sold 100k copies of my books - Built audience of >14mm - Gotten billions of views - 8 fig of revenue/yr - The list goes on BECAUSE IT'S LAME

@EconTalker @daisychristo @daisychristo’s analogy of academic assessment to the price function was brilliant. And calling Russ a Soviet may elevate her status to match Mike Munger as most facetiously playful guest.

Hoarding and minimalism. Two sides of the same coin? So says @Michael_Easter in this week's EconTalk. Link in the first reply.