[MetricMike]

So I get that American education tends to create "interchangeable cogs", but I'm dubious that "applying the Lean Startup methods will fix it". America doesn't just dominate the web just because of Silicon Valley - giant corporations like Microsoft and IBM and the baby Bells had a great part in it as well (and still do).

Does individualized attention towards each student's strength and passion scale to a nation? Shouldn't the focus of a national education system be to provide everyone with a solid base and then from there allow them to explore and develop their dreams?

I'm quite biased towards incrementalism, but I think the problem (defined as Americans emerging from the education system with no passion or creativity) would be better addressed by decreasing or removing the incredible burden it takes to get specialized, formal training in graduate school not by trying to get the Department of Education to attempt to pivot (expensively) towards focusing on each individual in an already chronically underfunded industry.

[wpietri]

Yeah, as a Lean Startup advocate from before the term was coined, I think the LS angle here is purest bullshit.

The Lean Startup methods are not a magic potion that you can pour all over everything that you think sucks. It's a very specific toolkit for a very specific problem space.

In particular it requires a reasonably short feedback loop and the ability to minimize consequences of mistakes. Neither is true for education, which is a 10- to 20-year process, and in which failure can harm a person for life.

And as long as I'm on the topic of Lean Startup bullshit, everybody please keep an eye out for the oxymoronic "Lean Startup for the Enterprise". Consultants have discovered there's no money in selling to startups, so they're packaging the new hotness for their best clients: people with more money than sense.

[guard-of-terra]

Aargh. Microsoft didn't become Microsoft because of cogs. Microsoft is DYING because of cogs.

[rgraham]

How exactly is the $263 billion dollar market cap company that pays dividends and has $2 earnings per share with millions of customers dying? Slowed growth at that scale is an artifact of size relative to market potential. It doesn't mean the company is dying. Not even if you really dislike it.

[guard-of-terra]

I used to dislike it, but now I don't care. That's the "dying" part.

But you can just read Paul Graham - he's the thinker.

[SamuelMulder]

He actually starts out by pointing out that the American education system is not very good at creating "interchangeable cogs".

[jcromartie]

It's not just "American education", it's almost all education systems around the world.