- Reframe: education institutions aren’t content delivery systems. They’re transformation machines.
- The 2/10 → 6/10 metric. Feed in an 18-year-old at 3/10 capability, four years later a 6/10 walks out.
- The machine does the work: structure, mentorship, peers, deadlines, stakes. Not content alone.
- Examples: Stanford, The Knowledge Society, Buildspace. Different machines, same pattern.
“You feed Stanford an 18-year-old who’s a 3/10 in their ability to impact the world, and four years later, a 6/10 walks out.”
The metaphor is useful but limited. One lens—industrial, vocational. Good for breaking rigid thinking about education. But it doesn’t capture formation of values, taste, vision. What made Steve Jobs wasn’t just capability—it was the calligraphy class, the liberal arts. Machines for becoming capable differ from machines for discovering what’s worth pursuing.