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Field Notes on Higher Education
52 Plays15 days ago
FIELD NOTES // Episode 1: Higher Education
LOCATION: Between Silicon Valley, Minnesota, and the future of learning
SUBJECT: Kids, AI, college, and the skills that still matter
OBSERVATIONS
• AI is already part of how kids learn, create, and ask questions.
• Screens are everywhere, but so is the need for creativity, judgment, and real conversation.
• College still matters, but the old path of good grades → college → good job feels less certain.
DISCUSSION
In this episode of Field Notes, Jarad, Brandon, and Travis talk about higher education, AI, parenting, and how to prepare kids for a future none of us can fully predict.
From indoor kids and screen-time battles to bigger questions about college, work, and lifelong learning, the conversation asks what skills will matter most in an AI-shaped world.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
→ Education still matters, but the format may change.
→ AI fluency is becoming a life skill.
→ Creativity, critical thinking, and human connection may matter more than ever.
→ There is no perfect parenting formula. We are all adapting as we go.
FIELD QUESTION
If your kids can access almost any information instantly, what do you most want them to learn how to do with it?
END OF NOTES
WHERE TO FIND US
Brandon - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brmiddle/
Travis - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tlzimbelman/
Jarad - www.myoldnotebooks.com; https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaradbacklund/
Transcript
Introduction and Weekly Anecdotes
00:00:27
Jarad Backlund
Welcome to Field Notes. Hey, I'm Jared here with Travis and Brandon. Hey, I want to talk a little bit about our weeks. How are you guys doing? Travis, how's your week going?
00:00:37
Travis Z
Man, it's going well. I just laughed at jewel-encrusted insights. I'm pretty sure I've never had a jewel-encrusted insights. I've had some crusty insights. I've had some insights that have been...
00:00:49
Jarad Backlund
You have that tramp stamp that's a jewel, right? So I feel like is that that's where I got it from.
00:00:53
Brandon Middleton
at that one Hopefully we'll drop some
00:00:55
Travis Z
we we don't
00:00:55
Jarad Backlund
Your wife texted me.
00:00:56
Travis Z
We don't talk about that until episode seven, so don't jump ahead.
00:00:59
Jarad Backlund
Got it, got it, got it.
00:01:03
Travis Z
My week is going well.
00:01:05
Brandon Middleton
Hopefully we will drop some gems today.
00:01:05
Travis Z
What's up, Brandon?
00:01:08
Brandon Middleton
Hopefully everybody
Exploring Education Themes
00:01:09
Travis Z
jas Yeah. there go
00:01:09
Brandon Middleton
listening will pick up something of value.
00:01:12
Brandon Middleton
We'll just leave it there, I guess. I'm having a good week.
00:01:14
Travis Z
yeah
00:01:15
Jarad Backlund
That's great.
00:01:15
Brandon Middleton
I'm talking a lot with folks about education and AI and a bunch of fun stuff. Everybody's healthy and happy. Knock on wood, kids about to get out of school. So I'm pumped up. I'm jazzed for this.
00:01:27
Jarad Backlund
That's awesome. This week, so every week in Field Notes, we're going to talk about a theme. This week, we're going to talk about higher education, which is something we're all passionate about. And Brandon here lives and breathes on a daily basis. So we'll dive into that. Before we do that, I thought maybe we could just talk a little bit about kind of what's going on on on in our lives.
00:01:48
Jarad Backlund
You know, I can talk a little bit. So I've got two boys, 10 and 12 will call them. And
00:01:54
Travis Z
Thank you.
00:01:54
Jarad Backlund
They are indoor kids. I tell you, man, i played every sport in the world growing up. That is not them. We've tried. They have some of the genetic coordination. They have no interest.
00:02:06
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:02:06
Jarad Backlund
it's so the other So I'll call last weekend's outing, taking indoor kids to get some exercise.
00:02:07
Brandon Middleton
man
00:02:13
Jarad Backlund
We went to go run a mile. Again, I'm no shining example. So my mile was slightly faster, mostly because my legs are longer.
00:02:20
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:02:22
Jarad Backlund
But I'll tell you, man, the amount of complaining the amount of like trying to trip each other and just like, oh my gosh, indoor kids get some exercise. I see all these families, they're like running. There's a grandma that passed me. She was running pretty fast. I just like, I don't know, man. Like it's, if you guys have any inspiration and how I can get indoor kids to get more exercise, I will take it.
00:02:45
Brandon Middleton
kids love money so anything i tell my son to do is like can i get like five dollars to take out the garbage or could i get like you know one dollar to pick this fork up off the ground that my brother actually dropped so it's an interesting uh dynamic but i've been just bribing them with money for stuff that they actually need to do these days it's probably a better way to do parenting but uh sometimes you've got to take what you can get
00:02:48
Jarad Backlund
My kids will have money.
00:03:08
Jarad Backlund
No. Perfect.
00:03:12
Jarad Backlund
What about you, Travis, over there in Minnesota? Is that there another way to do it?
00:03:15
Travis Z
well
00:03:16
Jarad Backlund
The switch?
00:03:17
Travis Z
Well, we got to find something that has exercise built in that has that is fun.
00:03:17
Brandon Middleton
Yeah.
00:03:21
Travis Z
And so our girls are in a golf. And so we will try to get out and do that. So we we don't try to tie. we don't i walk most rounds, but the girls don't.
00:03:32
Travis Z
like Their legs are just too little and the course is too long. So that's just too much now. But we will do we will park farther away and we will take some more steps. And they don't even notice that it's built in. It's not walking or running, but one of the other things we've done in the winter to try to stay active, because it gets cold here in Minnesota, bitterly cold, is we love ice fishing.
00:03:48
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:03:52
Travis Z
And so the kids always get to pick out whatever snacks they want before we go ice fishing. And so it's more so about the snacks than it is even about the fishing, but we're all spending time together.
00:03:57
Jarad Backlund
Oh,
00:04:01
Travis Z
So I still count that as a win too.
00:04:04
Jarad Backlund
I want snacks.
Parenting Stories and Activities
00:04:06
Jarad Backlund
Oh, want some snacks. bre Brandon, you had talked about your kids are almost done with school. Apparently, one of my kids is done this week. I was told by him this morning.
00:04:15
Jarad Backlund
what do you guys What do your kids get out? What are the summer points?
00:04:19
Brandon Middleton
Oh, man, I think the boys, I've got seven, 10 and 14. And the oldest one is my girl. But the boys need to get a little stronger at swimming this summer. So it's going to be some combination of swim camp.
00:04:32
Brandon Middleton
They also like to trip each other on soccer fields and basketball courts. So we're going to do a couple of soccer camps probably for the boys and then My daughter actually wanted to fill out a job application and try to work at the ice cream shop locally on University Avenue.
00:04:46
Jarad Backlund
Amazing.
00:04:47
Brandon Middleton
So we'll see it we'll see if a 14 year old can actually get a job permit and make some money.
00:04:48
Jarad Backlund
you Speaking of money.
00:04:56
Brandon Middleton
that's i mean She's always asking me for for mine. So it'd be great if she had her own. So let's see how that goes.
00:05:02
Jarad Backlund
What's a job permit? What does that mean?
00:05:04
Brandon Middleton
So you have to apply and your school can actually sponsor you getting a work permit before you turn 16 years old.
00:05:06
Jarad Backlund
No, you don't.
00:05:11
Brandon Middleton
So a lot of the kids in the kind of the Stanford University kind of university town, you know, they use the summertime to try to save up some money, get a couple, couple jobs.
00:05:23
Brandon Middleton
A a few of them are hustlers. It's like two and three jobs at a time, I hear. So we'll see how my daughter does in that market.
00:05:31
Jarad Backlund
I mean, i worked before I was 16. did you Did you guys, I'm assuming did too, did you have job permits or whatever? I think I started working at eight and it was not a choice. Here you I've hired you out and I'm taking half your money. That's what I remember.
00:05:50
Travis Z
I grew up on a farm in the Dakotas. I mean, the land of child labor, essentially, back in the 80s and 90s. Like you just were expected. What are we doing Saturday? We're we're bailing hay. So grab some gloves.
00:06:02
Jarad Backlund
That's great.
00:06:03
Brandon Middleton
Very interesting. I mean, the caddy story for me, I kind of grew up walking courses, Olympia Fields Country Club in the south suburbs of Chicago is my first like official and legit job. I think I did.
00:06:15
Brandon Middleton
And that one did not require any kind of permit. of any kind. I just needed to have an older caddy that would vouch for me and to not hurt myself and embarrass our caddy shack in front of any of the members.
00:06:27
Brandon Middleton
So I did that for about eight or nine years, paid for my undergrad with that caddy money. So yeah, i was a skinny 95 pound old, i think to start.
00:06:34
Jarad Backlund
Wow.
00:06:38
Jarad Backlund
and That's great. What about you, Travis? What's the plans for the summer?
00:06:43
Travis Z
We also have some swimmers in the family, so they love to be outside in the water. lot of people of Minnesota have access to some sort of cabin type thing.
00:06:53
Travis Z
It's the land of 10,000 lakes, so everybody in Minnesota loves to spend as much time in the summer lakeside as possible. So we'll probably do as much of that as possible. and it Maybe trends into the conversation later here about about education, too.
00:07:02
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:07:06
Travis Z
Like we've we've got a little place and we've intentionally not put a TV there. So there is no there's no access to a television once you go there. The expectation is you got to go outside and have some sort of a adventure and get some non-screen time.
00:07:20
Travis Z
So we've been really thankful for that. So we're doing
Technology in Education: A Double-Edged Sword
00:07:22
Travis Z
some of that. We got some road trips planned too. We're going out to the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore with some friends from California that are flying in for that. So that's going to be epic. And yeah, pretty much no big trips though. we We're staying pretty local this summer, I think.
00:07:37
Jarad Backlund
That's great. By the way, I will not be frequenting your cabin because 95% of my vacation is catching up on Netflix and Hulu. So sorry, man. Not that you invited me, but still.
00:07:48
Brandon Middleton
Yeah. Let us know how it goes, right?
00:07:51
Jarad Backlund
Yeah, please send us some photos from your nineteen fifty s cabin, which again, punishment of some kind. I didn't know you didn't like your kids. It's okay.
00:08:00
Jarad Backlund
Folks, today, just a reminder, we're going to talk about higher education, and we're going to go into our world-famous segment, Headlines and Hot Takes.
00:08:18
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:08:38
Travis Z
Jared, can we rebrand this as headlines and head bangs or hot takes and head bangs with that type of metal intro? It feels like we just need to head bang a little.
00:08:46
Jarad Backlund
I just want to be clear here for those who are watching this on YouTube that Travis was the one who was bopping along to the rap and Brandon was rocking out to the the rock music, perhaps skirting stereotypes.
00:08:59
Jarad Backlund
i so what I love it.
00:09:01
Brandon Middleton
Yeah. We're breaking out of boxes here.
00:09:04
Jarad Backlund
I love breaking out of boxes. Gems, we're making gems.
00:09:08
Travis Z
Yeah.
00:09:08
Jarad Backlund
Brandon, you sent Travis and and I a few stories. Maybe you could kind of talk us through some of what you're seeing in the education space.
00:09:16
Brandon Middleton
Yeah, so we all have kids, and I think I spend a lot of my day job trying to figure out what's going to happen post like high school and post-college for some of these kids. So I have a pretty...
00:09:28
Brandon Middleton
pretty interesting couple of questions to ask you guys in terms of like the skills gap and like what you're kind of training yourself and maybe training your kids to do. So first hot take question is how are you keeping your own skills up?
00:09:42
Brandon Middleton
And then second question after that, or how you training your kids to build skills for the first time? And I'll start with with you, Jared.
00:09:51
Jarad Backlund
Josh Triplett, gosh I have skills, thank you that's kind of you. Triplett, I've been messing around with quad code it took. course on that and for me it's it's taking that risk of saying you know i live a lot with numbers and then spreadsheets and i grew up in the world of spreadsheets and convincing myself that the amount of time i'm going to spend to produce something in quad code means i don't have to go recreate it in excel and the times where i've done that it's been wildly successful and being able to build robust models and
00:10:03
Brandon Middleton
Thank
00:10:27
Jarad Backlund
reports and slides and all of those things has just been really strong. So that's me just trying to stay relevant, trying to encourage my team to think about being daily active AI users.
00:10:38
Jarad Backlund
for For my kids, I don't know how much should I have to do. I'll just be honest. Like it is so, you know, my 12-year-old told me one time he had his chat GPT bird clawed next to him.
00:10:51
Jarad Backlund
And it's just open all the time. That's what I asked. I said, he's like, well, I just have it open all the time. I'm doing homework. I'm doing... I'm programming game. I'm doing something with my friends. Like it's just there. And I'm asking it questions all the time.
00:11:04
Jarad Backlund
and so I read a thing today, you know, that AI native. For him, and it's just like us and our our phones and AOL Instant Messenger and email for us. Like I think it's just going to be naturally part of who they are.
Balancing Tech and Human Skills
00:11:18
Brandon Middleton
No, that's very interesting. And like the question that comes from me is like, does the next generation like have the skills to differentiate or push back when what's coming out of these systems is not like all the way factual or if it's too subjective in somebody's opinion and pull from a blog article as opposed to something that's a little bit more legitimate. So No, I hear that. i respect that. And in the Bay Area, we have a lot of AI native people and AI native kids being born. So let me pass the popcorn over to the Midwest and see if there's a different hot take on that one for you, Travis.
00:11:58
Travis Z
Well, I mean, it touches a little bit on why we don't have a screen at the cabin, right? Like, and interestingly, there's fiber optic there. Like, so we, I have faster internet internet at the cabin than I do in my house in the Twin Cities, which is amazing.
00:12:11
Travis Z
But we chose not to have a screen there because it's, it's maybe a microcosm of the bigger macro stance that we have on this, which is, it is so.
00:12:13
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:12:21
Travis Z
And meshed into everything we do, screens and technology, is so meshed into everything we do, just as adults, like it's even more so native for the kids and they're going to get it everywhere else. So we don't need to push it because we feel like it's pretty well baked into everything else.
00:12:34
Travis Z
And we think it's valuable to have time away to to help foster some of those other courses. skills that we think will make them successful later in future. So think creativity.
00:12:44
Travis Z
Like if i if I'm limited in tools, I have to get creative in what I do and what I make.
00:12:49
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:12:49
Travis Z
Critical thinking, like how do I evaluate what to do in this situation? Again, kind of to your point, like critical thinking around veracity of news sources, around information that we get.
00:13:00
Travis Z
elements of just trying to figure out how to work together as humans without technology enabling that. One of the conversations I had this earlier this week with somebody who owns a company, we were talking about AI tools and hiring strategies. And he said a lot of the young kids, you can I won't say what generation he might be in, but a lot of the young kids these days who are sending me resumes and cover letters, I know they're using AI for it and everything looks amazing.
00:13:26
Travis Z
But then I get them in real life and they can't string two sentences together. There's a human element that's missing. And he's like, and I can't hire them because they have to operate in the human role. And so there's an element of like, we couldn't, we shouldn't ignore the technology. but also we should make sure we still got the human interaction elements there too. So in restaurants, sometimes like I'm encouraging my kids when the waiter or waiter waitress comes back, look her in the eye and speak loudly and clearly and politely and say, thank you. you know So these are the types of things we're trying to just make sure they're very good there with our kids, knowing that they're going to get all the technology stuff along the way too.
00:14:03
Brandon Middleton
No, that's a great point.
00:14:03
Jarad Backlund
i trying to think like uh when we were at berkeley what is it like students always that was that kind of the motto i think uh my college is like learn by doing i think there's some piece of always trying to get better at things that i think a lot about i don't know brandon you might be the the king of that in my life i don't know what do you actually i'd rather actually know what you're working on so i can copy it but
00:14:28
Travis Z
Ditto.
00:14:28
Brandon Middleton
No.
00:14:28
Travis Z
what' you Spill the tea.
00:14:30
Brandon Middleton
I mean, at work, there's so many different, and I just recently moved over from AWS to like a, AI startup. So the tools that an AI startup uses to boost the productivity of its employees is kind of a sight to behold. And I think in terms of keeping my skills up, there's so much like institutional knowledge that's built up in these enterprise systems like Slack or like, you know, Dropbox or Notion or even just email. So figuring out ways to leverage
00:15:03
Brandon Middleton
Uh, the technology to not have to manually go into my email box, but to summon kind of themes out of tens or hundreds of messages that I can act on in a leveraged way is something that I'm learning a lot more about, uh, is orders of magnitude, fewer people here at Replit, uh, than there were at Amazon. You know, we had more than a million people at Amazon. So the idea that one person needs to sometimes act as 50 people, and you can only do that if you kind of master the skills of of of AI leverage. So a lot of what that looks like for me is trying to think more from a systematic viewpoint, like how do I write something that's a skeleton of something that I can pass to a data source, like an email inbox or you know a Notion page, and then
00:15:57
Brandon Middleton
have as much of the requirements and the specifications of what I need out of that data source as it passes through kind of my, whatever I've prompted and then thinking about how to actually as one person or a few people actually verify the output quality so that the next step that i you know, need to take doesn't embarrass our team or, you know, isn't factually accurate.
00:16:24
Brandon Middleton
So all of those kinds of skills moving from more manual way of doing things to just systematic, Acting as 10 X, you know, 50 X, sometimes a hundred X leverage resource is something that I'm trying to figure out for myself. And
Children's Tech Use and Education Choices
00:16:40
Brandon Middleton
like you all are saying, like when I'm at home, I usually have my laptop.
00:16:44
Brandon Middleton
open and I'm trying to show my kids little tips and tricks and things that just hopefully are more caught than like explicitly taught to them. And you know, you live in Silicon Valley, then I think just the nature of being in the oxygen here is going to give you maybe a tech forward approach. So kids are doing just fine. Trying to pull them off of screens and get them to touch grass a little bit more often, but so far the balance is okay.
00:17:13
Travis Z
How remind everybody here, Brandon, how old are your kids these days?
00:17:17
Brandon Middleton
Yeah. So the oldest is 14. That's the the daughter.
00:17:19
Travis Z
Yeah.
00:17:20
Brandon Middleton
And then boys are 10 and seven.
00:17:21
Travis Z
Yeah.
00:17:24
Brandon Middleton
So those are my rugrats that love soccer and basketball.
00:17:25
Travis Z
Okay.
00:17:29
Brandon Middleton
And, Yeah, in terms of touching grass, maybe the last question before I pass it over to you, Travis, if if you had to put a number on the ratio of time between digital discovery and maybe like touching grass and being outside, you guys right at 50-50 or like do you have a very specific kind of number? It's got to be this amount of time for digital versus this amount of time for for outside and nature-based.
00:17:55
Travis Z
And that's why I asked about ages because ours are six and eight. so we're just a little bit behind you in the trend there. And so we're a little bit more conservative too. And I expect it to change as they get up to 10, 12, 14, where your older ones are there.
00:18:16
Brandon Middleton
Hmm. Hmm.
00:18:17
Travis Z
Yeah, because they are also in a Montessori school that has a no screens policy. And so their day starts.
00:18:27
Travis Z
We get them on the bus. They go to school. They're at school till 3, 3.30. They get home. They just got home here at 4 o'clock. I heard one of them playing piano, practicing piano downstairs.
00:18:38
Travis Z
And then they like literally hear right now. And then one of them loves to bake. One of them loves to cook. they're gonna help mom help me. I love to cook too.
00:18:46
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:18:46
Travis Z
So we like cook together as family, have family dinner. And then we're off to bedtime most times. And so we usually don't have any screens on during that gap between dinner and bedtime. Weekends are different. So there's some built-in screen time there, but during the weekdays, during the school year, it's it's probably close to zero right now, except for some like specific things. So when they ask questions, i don't know the answer to,
00:19:11
Travis Z
I say, let's look that up. That's an interesting question. Let's do some research on this and figure that out. And so last last weekend, Emmy asked me, Dad, what do ladybugs eat? And I'm like, I have no clue what ladybugs eat.
00:19:24
Travis Z
So let's figure that out together. And so we did some research on what ladybugs eat. So we're just trying to be intentional about it rather than use it as the the constant constant source of distraction, I guess, is what we're worried about.
00:19:38
Brandon Middleton
Yeah, Jared, what about you? Like, what's your, you've got a number of nine.
00:19:40
Jarad Backlund
I'm going to come across as a ba as a bad parent, I think. By the way, Montessori School, is that the one where they believe in fairies and stuff? Which one is that?
00:19:48
Travis Z
It's pretty much black magic. Yeah.
00:19:51
Jarad Backlund
Is that? No, no, I swear there's one of them. There's one of them that's like crazy. It's like, I don't know.
00:19:55
Travis Z
No, i I might be wrong.
00:19:56
Jarad Backlund
I thought it was Montessori.
00:19:57
Brandon Middleton
Okay.
00:19:58
Travis Z
So I haven't, I haven't maybe researched every single aspect of this, but I've never caught in all my research, any mention of fairies. It was started by, in a,
00:20:05
Jarad Backlund
All I is my friend's daughter learned all about fairies and would tell me all about was it. it was so It was some kind of Montessori. I'm going to pretend it's Montessori.
00:20:14
Jarad Backlund
All right.
00:20:20
Travis Z
and But it's more more famously, I think, where in Silicon Valley got some credit because I think Sergey Brin and Larry Page were both products of Montessori schools. And so there's more real physical application and more self-guided direction in where you focus and what you do, rather than having a curriculum forced that is average and and great for most, forced on every single kid just because they have different learning styles, they have different interests.
00:20:47
Travis Z
And so it's it's a lot more loosey-goosey.
00:20:48
Jarad Backlund
Well, I think I'm too dumb to go to Montessori school.
00:20:51
Travis Z
so Sorry, what's that?
00:20:53
Jarad Backlund
I think I'm too dumb to go to your school.
00:20:55
Travis Z
no
00:20:56
Travis Z
i'm I'm a product of the public school system for for the record.
00:20:59
Brandon Middleton
Same.
00:20:59
Travis Z
So, yeah.
00:21:00
Brandon Middleton
Same.
00:21:00
Jarad Backlund
so Yeah, same. i What is the balance? So we have limits during the week. I'll be honest. It's like everything they do at school is on a laptop, right? Everything they read, like they don't have physical books anymore.
00:21:15
Jarad Backlund
And so... Everything they're told to do from a school perspective is in front of a screen. Right. So every piece of homework, every when I last night we were doing math and I handed the 12 year old some math problems.
00:21:28
Jarad Backlund
By the way, I got from ChatGPT because I didn't feel like making them up and printed it out. And he was just like.
00:21:33
Brandon Middleton
Yeah.
00:21:34
Jarad Backlund
kind't Why do I have to write this out? I'm like, oh, OK, thanks. What we try and limit is kind entertaining television or video games or PC games. And and so we have some limits on that. I think what's hard or what I struggle with is that's also like their new social time because I'm a car and I you know, they don't their friends can't hang out on a Tuesday night, but they're online on the school's Minecraft server, right? They're on Roblox, you know, with all their classmates.
00:22:04
Jarad Backlund
And so it's that, well, what do you do? Like force them to hang out with each other? Or do you like enable them to have friends that are outside of each other? And and it's always a balance of, okay, I want to have this limit of things. We try to we tend to make a rule where,
00:22:22
Jarad Backlund
you have kind of one, maybe two max outside of school things at a time. so you can focus on being a student. That's your number one job. And beyond that, then there's some balance of like wanting, like getting them in front of a PC, probably a couple hours a day. Like I think we cap it at some amount of limit and maybe more on a weekend.
00:22:45
Travis Z
Jared, for everyone listening, how how old are yours too?
00:22:45
Brandon Middleton
Yeah.
00:22:47
Travis Z
Because I think that makes a difference as well.
00:22:49
Jarad Backlund
Yeah, so 10 and 12, two boys as well. Very indoor kids. My oldest is a heck of a programmer already. And so he was making a game last night in Roblox. What do I do, right?
00:22:59
Jarad Backlund
Like that's creative.
00:23:00
Travis Z
Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, that's great.
00:23:01
Jarad Backlund
my My youngest, I'm staring at his art collection over to the side of me here. So he's doing that. But he also is trying to learn how to home key type. And he's up to like 30 some words a minute.
00:23:12
Jarad Backlund
And you're just like, wow, okay, where'd you go, 10 year old?
00:23:13
Travis Z
Awesome.
00:23:16
Jarad Backlund
I think I learned how to type on a typewriter. That's what i told him and he laughed at me.
00:23:21
Brandon Middleton
Hey, shout out Mavis Beacon from way back in the day.
00:23:23
Jarad Backlund
That's right.
00:23:24
Travis Z
There we go.
00:23:24
Jarad Backlund
Hell yeah.
00:23:25
Jarad Backlund
My goal is to keep them alive. Chris Rock talked about the goals for daughters.
00:23:28
Travis Z
good goal.
00:23:28
Brandon Middleton
Yeah.
00:23:30
Jarad Backlund
I'm talking about the goals for sons. Just keep them alive.
00:23:33
Brandon Middleton
Yeah.
00:23:35
Travis Z
Yeah, and I hope my comments don't come across as as condescending in any way. This is just a choice that we've
00:23:41
Jarad Backlund
I'd say hippie. Is hippie the right word? Yeah, hippie.
00:23:43
Travis Z
it's It's a little granola-ish, yeah.
00:23:43
Jarad Backlund
For sure.
00:23:45
Travis Z
I mean, one of the things that makes it easy, though, to your point, is there's not a lot of peer pressure our kids have to deal with. If like we were in public school and we took this dance where the school had a very screen-forward stance, all their friends had screen, smartwatches, and phones, and we tried to to do that, I think they would be castigated and and socially outcast, right?
00:23:50
Jarad Backlund
sure
00:24:02
Travis Z
like So this one thing that's helped a ton is that every other kid out of 600 kids in this this school system
00:24:03
Brandon Middleton
Yeah.
00:24:10
Travis Z
also don't have smartphones watches or screens all day either and so they're all in it together in that type of a community and so that has made it a lot easier to be there with like-minded parents and kids in the same situation so nobody feels left out or cast out yeah and i think our stance is going to change as they get older too like we i've picked up a raspberry pi it's still in the box here for for projects with with them like i i want to do some of this we just haven't gotten to that point yet so
00:24:37
Jarad Backlund
Just writing down castigated. I need to look that up later. OK.
00:24:40
Brandon Middleton
Yeah, he said veracity earlier, I believe. We got one nerd.
00:24:44
Jarad Backlund
oh Oh, I went to public school the fancy kind.
00:24:45
Brandon Middleton
Yeah.
00:24:47
Travis Z
yeah
00:24:51
Travis Z
Well, tune in later for words that make you sound and smart with Travis. No, I do appreciate you guys. So feel free to call me out anytime here. Yeah, I just don't want to sound like we've got, you know, this reminds me of a good friend, Mike, I had who worked at Google with me, sat right next to me. And he's ahead of, he was ahead of me with kids. And we were having our first. And I'm like, I said, I, you know, to confess, I'm scared. i't I feel like I should have read all the books. I don't know what I'm doing as a parent. And he goes, let me let you in on a little secret.
00:25:19
Travis Z
None of us do. We're all winging it. And he said, even with, he said, my kids are so different from each other after we figured out, like, cracking the code on the first one and we had the second one he's like totally different kid everything that we thought we figured out for the first room doesn't apply to the second one like just different person have to take different stance it doesn't work on them so gonna like adapt our style again and he said you're gonna run into all these well-meaning people who've cracked the code for their kid and and want to share with you what they've learned and what worked for them smile and say thank you and then move on because it's 99 not going to work for your kid because they're totally different from their kids
00:25:27
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:25:54
Travis Z
So that's why it stuck with me too, his advice. Like it's, it's good to share this stuff and tips, tricks, and hints, but also like you got to adapt it to your situation.
00:26:02
Brandon Middleton
Yeah, and that's a great kind of lead in. i heard you had a hot take about college and I'd love for you to kind of give us your sense about, youre do you have the question that you're that you're gonna ask that's got some consequential answers that come along with it?
00:26:23
Brandon Middleton
Or do you want me to throw it out there for you, Travis?
00:26:28
Travis Z
Let's throw it out. Let's make it official. Yeah.
00:26:30
Brandon Middleton
Okay, here we go. so we all have children and we all have heard and seen in the American dream that the prescription is that your kids get good grades in high school and your kids go to college and then your kids get good jobs as a result.
00:26:33
Travis Z
Yeah.
00:26:46
Brandon Middleton
And then they kind of go up into the right throughout their careers. What's your hot take about whether you feel your kids will or should go to college? We'll start with Travis, go to Jared, and then i'll I'll round out the answer from my side.
00:27:03
Travis Z
Yeah, I saw it. I'm gonna leave it up to them. And I don't i feel like that's a cop out. So I guess like maybe a version of the question is will college still exist in its current form in 15 years when my kids get their birth 10 years? And I think it still will. I think the models got change.
00:27:20
Travis Z
And I think that they're gonna have an opportunity to do so much more learning technology assisted learning that it's not, it's no longer the primary channel to go get more get more education, right?
00:27:20
Brandon Middleton
you
00:27:31
Travis Z
And so i think they're going to have opportunities to do more of that on their own. And then I think it's going to look different as far as I hope it is more application. Now that you've got all of the world's information at your fingertips and in a more tech assisted way than ever before, what are you going to do with it?
00:27:46
Travis Z
What does the application look like? So I actually hope that that they do go in some way or it end up in something like that where they can take that knowledge and then spend the time launching and iterating. what do What do you do with that? Launch, and iterate, build something, grow it, fail at it, try again. And that's what I hope it's more realw world application rather than what what they call sometimes in the the learning world, sit and get, right?
00:28:10
Travis Z
They're not just going go to class, be fed information and and try to absorb it, remember it for four years later when they graduate and then they they move into real world.
00:28:12
Brandon Middleton
Yeah.
00:28:22
Brandon Middleton
Yeah, so that's the Midwest answer. What's your Silicon Valley dad answer,
00:28:28
Jarad Backlund
Wait, can I go Peter Thiel on us? no college is for idiots.
00:28:31
Brandon Middleton
you.
00:28:34
Jarad Backlund
You know, you guys talked about it. it's Every kid is different. I will tell you, i think education is the single most valuable thing you can do for your kids.
Is College Education Necessary?
00:28:42
Jarad Backlund
And I don't care what AI does, like education will be valuable. Now, what form that takes, I'm in the same camp as Travis. Like I barely know if I'm going to keep my job.
00:28:52
Jarad Backlund
I don't know if my team's going to keep their job.
00:28:53
Brandon Middleton
Mm-hmm.
00:28:54
Jarad Backlund
So heck if I know if my 10 year old, what he's going to do. What I will say is, It'll be interesting to see the structure change. The one I've been thinking about a lot lately is why is four years special?
00:29:08
Jarad Backlund
If I am being asked to do more with less resources, tell me why I couldn't graduate in two and a half years with a four year degree. Why do my kids uh need to go to four years and couldn't they condense it using ai couldn't they take extra units right that you know do it faster couldn't we do it with less units certainly a lot of this is driven by the overall education system and endowments and man i think about the cost of the uc program when we went and then what it is now so there's a lot of money motivation here but
00:29:45
Jarad Backlund
Someone, someone's going to, like two things I'm hearing from my friends whose kids are getting, going to college. Well, one, all the schools that I never even heard of that weren't even near my radar are now like the hot schools, right?
00:29:58
Brandon Middleton
Thank
00:29:58
Jarad Backlund
Did you know there's a UC Riverside? No idea. Didn't know. There's something in Hayward, I think. I don't know. i That was not on my list of UC schools I applied to, but now is like a great school.
00:30:10
Jarad Backlund
But the other thing I'm hearing is these small private colleges are starting to reach out and be like, hey, I am whatever in the middle of Texas, come to my small private school, I'll help you out.
00:30:22
Jarad Backlund
you know It's the 5 cent wine deal, you know I'll give you a scholarship, but all I really did was raise the price and then give you a scholarship. So it looks like I'm giving you a deal. And I think it's those folks, the ones who are trying to compete that might say, hey, like it's not an associate's degree, it's a three year degree, but you get four and four year degree in three years. Right. So I wonder, you know, some of the accreditation pieces will have to change. I wonder if you'll start to see more creativity around that.
00:30:51
Jarad Backlund
I think there will always be people who can just skip college and it's better for them to go start a business. I think I think vocational skills are going to be valuable, though my friends Newest consulting gig is with a company with robots installing plumbing. and I'm like, well, crap. but Like, like i I don't have a retirement plan. Again, like, I hope universal basic income comes out pretty soon here.
00:31:16
Jarad Backlund
But that's how I think about college is It's too early to tell. yeah I was having a big discussion today with someone at work around what is AI going to mean across the company and what does that mean in terms of how many people we need and how big it's going to be.
00:31:24
Brandon Middleton
Thank
00:31:32
Jarad Backlund
And these are all fun, just philosophical questions, but in 10 years, like our kids are going to have to face that for real. And it freaks me out a little bit.
00:31:40
Brandon Middleton
Yeah, I feel like it's a working backwards function from the jobs that are available in any particular like period of time. So we need to start to ask ourselves as a society, kind of what do we want like human beings to actually be working on in order to form inform the stuff that they study and the stuff that they learn and like the stuff that they position themselves towards?
00:32:04
Brandon Middleton
in college and increasingly like in high school, you could probably leverage the tools today to actually start your business four years earlier than you would have like when we were, you know, 16, 17, 18 years old. And I don't think there's any reason why kids can't actually figure out how to be little entrepreneurs, whatever that means in their own neighborhood, in their own walk of life, to identify a market, provide some value, do some exchange, and then be able to tell the story to high school high school, private, college, public or private of like what they've done in the world up until this point.
00:32:19
Travis Z
Thank you.
00:32:45
Brandon Middleton
Whereas we might not have had the the the opportunity to necessarily provide that value in the same way in our generation.
00:32:53
Brandon Middleton
So I think college is necessary, especially for social and emotional, just adulting, just in general, like being responsible for yourself, kind of being less socially awkward, if that's the category you find yourself in.
00:33:07
Brandon Middleton
And
The Evolving Role of Education
00:33:08
Brandon Middleton
with the screen generation, a lot of people I think will need that as they turn 18, 19, 20 years old, if you kind are in this generation, i think it's getting a little bit worse and not better. So college will be good for people just from a purely social perspective. So I don't think the value of is going away. I think what you'll do in it, probably find your co-founders, try and fail a lot of ideas that are kind of entrepreneurial ventures.
00:33:33
Brandon Middleton
And then at the end of that time, the social networks and the bonds that you make human to human are going to matter just as much as they always have. Whether you choose a small, small college in the middle of Texas, like you're talking about, or you choose some huge school that's really, you know, well known and hundreds of years old. So that's my personal feel about college. And I, you know, for my day job, I talk to colleges and universities all the time. So it's a little bit informed by that as well.
00:34:01
Travis Z
I picked up somewhere that, oh go ahead.
00:34:02
Jarad Backlund
I love it.
00:34:03
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:34:03
Jarad Backlund
Go ahead.
00:34:03
Travis Z
Go ahead, Jared. Sorry.
00:34:04
Jarad Backlund
Nope. No, go for it.
00:34:05
Travis Z
but i I picked up somewhere that like, what what's the purpose of high school? The purpose of a high school is within, within some, structure or parental supervision you are you're proving that you're teachable and that you can apply yourself and learn to get you to college to then what to get to basically do the same thing but with less structure you're more independent you can pick a major setting a goal you can understand how the steps over four years are are going to get you to that goal you can apply yourself with less structure and oversight to be able to achieve that show that you're teachable in an area of study right
00:34:38
Travis Z
And then you can do it in a social context too. You can achieve those goals with a team, with with other people, and they haven't they don't vote you out of off the island, right? I mean, and so so largely speaking, and also I think at some point when
00:34:47
Brandon Middleton
Mm-hmm.
00:34:51
Travis Z
when people went to went to college, it sounds like old timey, there was an element well, I think of all the things I'm going to learn, things I can't, which kind of suggests things I can't learn on my own anywhere else. And I think that mode is broken down. You know, at at iPhone 6, you had more computing power in your pocket with an iphone than what we sent men to the moon with in the 60s and 70s, right? And so that's that's amazing. all Elon Musk, I think, said, love him or hate him. All the information in the world is largely available at your fingertips right now. The only thing that's holding you back is you and your self-discipline, like in your ability to apply yourself.
00:35:27
Travis Z
like So it's it's it's all there. It's the motive getting information at some physical place is not the barrier the the element of
00:35:35
Travis Z
of of restriction anymore. And so then what is it really for? If we've got all the information at our fingertips, do we need to go to college to Brandon's point? Do we need to go to college to to show that we can apply ourselves and we can build things? And I think for a lot of kids, maybe in the future, the answer is no, but you're missing maybe that social aspect.
00:35:35
Brandon Middleton
Mm-hmm.
00:35:55
Travis Z
as long as if they can't get it anywhere else. So I assume for some kids, they're going have to go there to to get that maybe. But I think there's a lot of kids that might be able to find that and show that to an employer that they they've been able to do that on their own in different ways. and As long as you check those boxes, I show that I'm teachable. I show that I i can achieve goals, set goals, apply myself. i can learn. i can build things. I've applied myself. Here's that's something I've built. Here's my portfolio of work is is maybe how it feels too. That could become really attractive and
00:36:25
Travis Z
is that Is that accreditation enough where you don't need a a university signing off on it?
00:36:32
Brandon Middleton
I love it. Yeah, I think it's a broad and open question that it will be answered over the course of several years. But yeah, hopefully the listeners kind of find some value in kind of the the hot take and kind of the discussion and the double click into higher ed and the value of college and like the parenting of kids that are growing up in, what's this generation even called?
00:36:53
Brandon Middleton
Is Gen Z, Gen Alpha? Are we on Gen Alpha?
00:36:56
Jarad Backlund
uh i call my kids gen lazy is that no no guys guys i don't know if that was a hot enough take so let me do this college is for idiots even though i spent all my money on it hot take
00:36:56
Brandon Middleton
Is that it?
00:37:15
Travis Z
Is that the mic drop music like you drop the mic and you're walking out now?
00:37:18
Jarad Backlund
it is it is
00:37:19
Brandon Middleton
I think that that statement is probably what's going to be on the front of the YouTube video that we like advertise that
00:37:24
Jarad Backlund
is going we go It's going to be good. guarantee it's going to copy it. Okay, I'll transition to the next thing.
00:37:33
Travis Z
like the slow jams there.
00:37:35
Jarad Backlund
I, again, like breaking stereotypes, guys. So so next, at wrapping up headlines and hot takes, we're going to try some different wrap-up segments. we all We're chatting and we all have different traditions in our
Reflections and Personal Growth
00:37:49
Jarad Backlund
home.
00:37:50
Jarad Backlund
And this week, our education expert, Brandon, is going to run our wrap-up section. So Brandon, let me hand it over to you. what are we going to talk about this week?
00:37:59
Brandon Middleton
All right, so there's a teaching framework that I like to use when I teach in the d.school at Stanford. This framework is i like, I wish, and I wonder. So lot of design thinkers and folks that do human-centered design, they think with things, they're very visual and colorful. So a reaction to my week and stuff that I like, I wish, and I wonder about this week.
00:38:25
Brandon Middleton
So I'll start and you guys try to follow me in terms of, you know, things from your week, things that you've noticed in the last seven days that you, again, like, wish and wonder.
00:38:36
Brandon Middleton
So I'm a basketball fan. the The game yesterday, double overtime, Spurs and Oklahoma City. That's one of my hottest I like moments.
00:38:47
Jarad Backlund
Sports, woo, sports.
00:38:50
Brandon Middleton
Three guys on a podcast. We had to drop a little bit of sports somewhere.
00:38:54
Jarad Backlund
sure
00:38:54
Brandon Middleton
so That's my I like for the week. I wish. There's so much like information that's coming out all the time that I feel that it's hard to to put my arms around all of it.
00:39:08
Brandon Middleton
So I wish I had a tool to help me figure out how to digest even more news headlines and information about about my industry, about parenting, about all the stuff that we've talked about than I even have the capacity to do right now. So if anybody's out there that's got a solution, please message me and I will listen to you.
00:39:29
Brandon Middleton
I wonder, so we started to pull on this a little bit in previous segments, but the the question of I wonder what humans will be doing by the time Travis's six-year-old gets to be like,
00:39:44
Brandon Middleton
college graduate age. So let's call this like 23, 24. So in 18 years, what the world will actually look like. I try to forward project and I can never do it more than just a couple of years. So that's something I'm wondering about a little bit. So I'll pass the popcorn over to who wants it? Jarrett, Travis, which one of you guys want to take a I like, a I wish and I wonder? I'll pass the rock over to you, Travis.
00:40:12
Travis Z
All right, sounds good. i This is my first time using this format and I was under the misconcili- and misunderstood this to to think that they all had to be connected so now I see there's more freedom in this once you went from and NBA to education than I realized so I might pivot a little bit here on the fly I like the human interactions the serendipitous human interactions I don't expect today somebody came to like open up my sprinklers it's the same guy that's come every spring to open up the sprinklers here in Minnesota things freeze so you have to like shut it down for the winter open it up in the spring again And Mark, it's a gloomy day.
00:40:49
Travis Z
It's rainy, a little drizzly, rainy. It's kind of dreary and sad outside. And Mark, the sprinkler guy like shows up. i was like, Hey, it's good to see you Mark. Like, and he goes, it's a beautiful day. And it was such a refreshing, just like optimistic attitude.
00:41:02
Travis Z
I wasn't expecting from the sprinkler guy. i was like, we need more of this in the world.
00:41:05
Jarad Backlund
How Midwest of you. oh that's great.
00:41:07
Travis Z
we We need, we need more of this in the world.
00:41:07
Brandon Middleton
What's
00:41:09
Travis Z
Just like optimism.
00:41:11
Brandon Middleton
it called?
00:41:11
Travis Z
And think,
00:41:11
Brandon Middleton
Minnesota nice, isn't it? Huh?
00:41:13
Travis Z
yeah
00:41:14
Jarad Backlund
Yeah, I live in California awful.
00:41:14
Travis Z
i think
00:41:18
Travis Z
you know there's lots of room here you guys can move anytime i'll i'll welcome you uh there it reminds me with something i like which is that you get to choose your own mindset and your frame of mind and you get to interpret if this is going to be an amazing day based on on how you think about it rather than letting the circumstances control it or not so i liked that i was reminded of that I wish I had so I don't want to steal Brandon's, but actually this conversation has come up, too. And I wish there was something that we could do to keep up with information because it feels like the amount of information and the amount of change is faster than ever. Everybody talk I talk to phils says something, some version of I'm way behind or I caught up this weekend and now it's Tuesday and I feel like I'm behind again, which means that just not none of us can keep up with that. So I wonder, I wish that there was something like that.
00:42:16
Travis Z
What do I wonder? I wonder, this is based on different conversation i had this week. I wonder if we, as Humans living in cities can support small and medium business enough so that over decades they don't get drowned out by the megacorps.
00:42:38
Brandon Middleton
hmm
00:42:39
Travis Z
I love Amazon. i'm an Amazon Prime subscriber and there are some serious benefits to it. And also I love the fact that there's an ice cream shop around the corner. I love that there's a Chinese restaurant a block and a half way. And i love that there's a hardware store, independent hardware store nearby, which prices are higher, but also like, it's really nice to have that in the community. And so I wonder what that looks like collectively to try to figure out how we support small and medium businesses so that they stay in our communities. And I don't know what that looks like, because it is just so easy to hit the Amazon Prime Easy button and order something cheap and have it delivered the next morning.
00:43:17
Jarad Backlund
For sure.
00:43:18
Travis Z
Yeah.
00:43:20
Brandon Middleton
JB, how about you?
00:43:20
Jarad Backlund
Okay.
00:43:22
Brandon Middleton
Hmm.
00:43:22
Jarad Backlund
I like, so my therapist recommended a good book to me called Get Out of Your Own Way. And it's, I think it's 40 or 38 things of kind of common mental blocks. I think I've been thinking a lot about I tend to be like a lot of people in Silicon Valley are perfectionists and a very one zero mindset.
00:43:44
Jarad Backlund
So how do you get out of your own way? And I like it because at the end, it's got some very practical applications and each chapter is just a little bit short. So some of them resonate, some of them don't.
00:43:52
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:43:54
Jarad Backlund
But I think of the 40, I think there about five. I've gone back and reread a few times. I'm like, oh, this is something to work on. So I like that. Again, get out of your own way.
00:44:06
Jarad Backlund
I think, let's see, I wish. Let me pick a different angle because I i agree with you. I wish in general, I had more clarity and less hype about how the world is changing from an AI perspective.
00:44:22
Jarad Backlund
It is quite interesting to hear the diaspora of opinions. That's a Travis word. of It's a biggu where a big word, a big word, word.
00:44:29
Brandon Middleton
Big word, big word alert, yeah.
00:44:32
Jarad Backlund
Big word.
00:44:36
Jarad Backlund
It's fascinating to watch a bunch of tech companies hiding behind as a reason to lay a bunch of people off. People I know, friends of mine, former people on my team. And I wish wish I had more clarity on how much of this is hype and we're firing ahead of things or really just because we can.
00:44:55
Jarad Backlund
and we probably over hired in general versus, really having clarity and deep thought around educating folks to do the next thing and to not just jumping to the non-human approach of just kind of, I see it every day on LinkedIn, like, Hey, part of caught up in some giant layoff or meta or something.
00:45:17
Jarad Backlund
I wonder and been doing some thinking and some writing and thinking about how important company size and culture are to your career success.
00:45:28
Brandon Middleton
Mm-hmm.
00:45:28
Jarad Backlund
And it's caused me to wonder how where I live in Silicon Valley, which is a very unique culture, very driven culture. I see it in my kids schools, like in a scary way.
00:45:41
Jarad Backlund
I wonder how much that actually fits my value system and who I want to be in the career I do. you know Travis, you used to live here. and Maybe you have a take on this, but you live in Minnesota now. And i wouldn't say you're different, but you and I, in all the years we've known each other, have never talked about you know, going to a cabin with no TV until you move there.
00:46:03
Jarad Backlund
Right now, maybe that was always a part of you and and things, but it's just one of those things where what we talk about, how we think about things, what our kids do is just so shaped by that. So I wonder how, how, how I should adapt.
00:46:18
Jarad Backlund
And not only that, but how do I set my kids up for success? How do I educate them that Silicon Valley is not normal, perhaps, and that it causes good things and bad things.
00:46:24
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:46:29
Jarad Backlund
It's not just you.
00:46:29
Travis Z
Yeah. Can I add something to that, actually?
00:46:32
Jarad Backlund
Please.
00:46:33
Travis Z
So we used to live in Sunnyvale. we were in Silicon Valley for 10 years 11 years. And the church that we went to was was a Central Expressway. And anybody who knows the Bay Area from Sunnyvale all the way up to Palo Alto and Central Expressway, you're right alongside the Caltrain line.
00:46:49
Travis Z
Alma and Central. And so one morning as we're driving north on Sunday, there is these pop up tents at the crossing intersections with a guy and a safety vest at each one. And I was just like, oh, it's kind of weird. Like, is there a football game at Stanford today where people are going cross and they are getting ready for that? What's going on?
00:47:10
Travis Z
And when I got to church, I was asking somebody else about it. He's like, oh no, no, it's finals week. And I said, finals week, like what, what's this about? And he's like, well, there's an increase of suicides of kids throwing themselves in front of trains, uh, Caltrain in Palo Alto in, during finals week, because they can't handle the stress.
00:47:27
Travis Z
And it, it was one of those moments where I was like, oh man, the stress for these kids is not all of them, but for some of them, they get it so badly. that they feel like, and i'm sure in any other school, in any other situation, locality, like you're saying, Jared, they'd be at the top of the top of the top, right?
00:47:35
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:47:42
Travis Z
And because their parents have selected into this location, all of them are are typically
00:47:50
Travis Z
successful achievement-oriented people. And then there's a lot of pressure on the kids to do the same. And you're competing against some of the top of the top of the top. So there's a lot of pressure to succeed. And then when they feel like they don't get that, that they're taking drastic action, unfortunately. which has consequences on the family too, you know, for them too. So it was one of those moments where I realized this is a very different place from what education looks like and what achievement and success means too.
00:48:21
Travis Z
And you can't,
Mental Health and Parental Choices
00:48:21
Travis Z
I don't think my hot take is you can't blame that on the parents like or the or the school system.
00:48:24
Brandon Middleton
Yeah.
00:48:27
Travis Z
It's probably a combination thereof. They're in this environment. They're in some of the highest areas of competition. And also there's an element of, I think, the responsibility of the parents and the kid too, to realize like, what does success look like? and what's What's healthy success look like for you as a kid? And it's not the same as every other kid out there. And that's okay.
00:48:44
Travis Z
and And I think those conversations have to happen at home. my My hot take there. We get less of it here. There's still competitive academically, but success is, it runs at a different like pace here. Success looks different here.
00:49:00
Brandon Middleton
Yeah, there's a great book.
00:49:00
Jarad Backlund
That's good to know. Yeah, go for it,
00:49:02
Brandon Middleton
great Great book on some of these topics in the Bay Area specifically. And the book is called Palo Alto by this guy called Malcolm Harris.
00:49:09
Jarad Backlund
Brendan.
00:49:11
Brandon Middleton
And it takes kind of you all the way back to the middle 1800s, like right before the gold rush started and talks about literally how the Bay Area architecturally and physically was constructed to be what it is today, like a pressure cooker that you just mentioned with helicopter parents and first generation people who've immigrated here trying to one up each other and compete like at the highest levels. And man, I wasn't here
00:49:41
Brandon Middleton
it probably took a decade and a half for me to understand kind of the full story of, you know, moving from Illinois to this area and why I experienced and saw some of what I saw.
00:49:52
Brandon Middleton
But, uh, yeah, for anybody listening and wanting to read a very long book, it's took me 30 hours to listen to.
00:49:56
Travis Z
Thank you.
00:49:59
Brandon Middleton
So super long, but a lot of information.
00:50:02
Jarad Backlund
Jeez.
00:50:02
Brandon Middleton
in
00:50:04
Jarad Backlund
Yeah, we've been talking about book smarts a lot today, the education system and and life is so much more than that. You know, I didn't really go on my mental health journey until my 30s.
00:50:17
Jarad Backlund
And one of the things I probably spend more time than most parents on is educating my kids and how to recognize their emotions and How to have tools that I just didn't have. And my gosh, would my life have been better. And so, yeah, education is so much more than what you've read and the system that you grew up in. But we make so many choices. you know, you're choosing to send your kids to Montessori school. I i send my kids to a smaller Christian school.
00:50:46
Jarad Backlund
These are all choices that we're making and remembering that you know book knowledge is a nearly everything. And we talked about ratios before. maybe Maybe it needs to be even less. Maybe it needs to be more like 50-50 and less more less than like it probably is today.
00:51:04
Travis Z
There's probably a good discussion because we're talking about this in the context of kids and that's great. And also what's a success look like as a dad? What's a success look like as a husband? What's a success look like as just the human being this world? And and it is it the title? Is it the the amount of money? Is it how much coins you can stack up in the game before you you lose the the three hearts you got and the and you die?
00:51:26
Travis Z
And so there's maybe a good conversation about that, but there's a lot behind that too.
00:51:26
Brandon Middleton
Thank
00:51:29
Travis Z
So yeah.
00:51:30
Jarad Backlund
There is, and and I think it's a great segue. we will be tackling different topics over the next 10 weeks here on Field Notes, and I'm sure one of them will be parenting.
Conclusion and Social Media Info
00:51:41
Jarad Backlund
We've said the word AI enough to get picked up by the algorithm.
00:51:46
Jarad Backlund
i Hail AI.
00:51:50
Jarad Backlund
We're going to come here together, and we're going to talk about all of these topics. We hope you can join us. Brandon, where can people find you?
00:51:58
Brandon Middleton
Yeah, I'm not too hard to find on LinkedIn, on X, which formula formerly called Twitter, B-R-M-I-D-D-L-E, B-R Middle, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, and on Instagram. I'm B-W-A-R-E-2-1-8.
00:52:16
Brandon Middleton
So yeah, looking forward to connecting with folks who want to talk tech, parenting, AI, all the stuff that we've we've covered a little bit today.
00:52:25
Jarad Backlund
And Travis, how about
00:52:28
Travis Z
Man, I love this this group of guys because it's so diverse. I'm not on Facebook. I'm not on Instagram. I'm not on TikTok.
00:52:36
Jarad Backlund
you?
00:52:36
Travis Z
I'm not on Snapchat.
00:52:37
Jarad Backlund
Someday we'll also talk about how we used to work there together and why we're both not on Facebook and Instagram, if that's okay.
00:52:39
Travis Z
Yeah.
00:52:43
Travis Z
So please, please direct your carrier pigeons to me in Bloomington, Minnesota.
00:52:48
Brandon Middleton
Thank you.
00:52:48
Travis Z
No, I am. Yeah. hu I am available on email and linked LinkedIn, I think is the thing that would would be easiest to reach out to me. So TLZNZ, I, M as in Mike, B as in Bravo, E-L-M-A-N.
00:53:07
Travis Z
at Travis Zimbelman. So there is one other Travis Zimbelman out there. It's a pretty unique class name. There's not a lot of us, but ironically, there is another Travis in Louisiana. He's a podiatrist.
00:53:19
Travis Z
So if you find that one first, he's not me. He's probably still a cool guy. But and if you have foot problems, check him out. I can't help you there. But but yeah, i'm I'm probably the one on LinkedIn you'll find.
00:53:31
Jarad Backlund
And fun fact, that that Travis is also a gemologist, just like you. Anyway, you can find us.
00:53:37
Brandon Middleton
No.
00:53:39
Jarad Backlund
Come on, come on, guys. That was good. Guys, you can find Field Notes here on Instagram, on YouTube at Field Notes Podcast. I'm going to say that again because I can't speak.
00:53:49
Jarad Backlund
Field Notes Podcast on both YouTube and Instagram. And you can find me on LinkedIn and I'll put all the other connection points in the notes of the show. Guys, good to see you.
00:54:00
Jarad Backlund
I'll see you guys next week. Good topic. Brandon, thanks for being smarter than all of us. Travis, thanks for teaching me 16 words I'd never heard of that convinced you made up. Later.
00:54:09
Brandon Middleton
Keep speaking those big books, folks. We'll see you in the next episode.