Brian Lang Conversation - Mat Holm Walking Club - May 27, 2025

Context

Casual conversation during Mat Holm walking club between Gary Sheng and Brian Lang, covering education innovation, family life, and collaborative ventures. Brian had recently suffered a hamstring injury and was returning to physical activity.

Key Topics Discussed

Brian's Personal Background & Family

Brian shared a humorous and revealing story about his recent "old man injury":

• The Incident: "Mother's Day. Children are 11, 8, and 6, and they were all being cockheads. We had gotten in trouble twice already... I walk upstairs, my six-year-old is shitting, my eight-year-old was the Grim Reaper for Halloween... Like Bradley told me to poop on the toy, so they were shitting on it. And I'm trying to spank him, and I'm just like, oh, I feel like my hamstring explodes."

• Recovery: "I was literally almost on the ground. That was, whatever, three weeks ago. And I feel like this is the first time I've moved since then."

Family Education Setup:

• Lives in Central City, Austin
• Three children in different educational arrangements:
  • Daughter (11): Went to art school, now at Valor charter school
  • Middle son (8): Attends Fowler in Ballard area
  • Youngest (6): Attends Veritas (private Christian school) 3 days, homeschooled 2 days
• Wife handles homeschooling responsibilities

Views on Current Schools:

• "I'm not super religious, but Veritas is. My issue with Veritas is, especially on the younger grades, they're very involved with that stuff, which is fine, but they homeschool too harshly."
• "So my youngest goes three days and then homeschools two. That's a lot of burden... I personally would rather have them go to school."

Revolutionary Education Model

Brian detailed the innovative school system he co-founded with Joe Lamont:

The Vision:

• "What is, it's the best at preparing kids for life in the AI age. And the first two hours of the day is an adaptive AI tutor that gets you through Common Core. So you get high test scores, all the things that, the vanity metrics. The whole rest of the day is your divine purpose, your geeky guy, whatever you want to call it."

The System:

• Running for 10 years, started K-5, aged up to include middle and high school
• 8 campuses expanding nationally: "West Palm, Miami, New York, Santa Barbara, Houston, a few more"
• 8:1 student-teacher ratio
• Austin flagships are the best: "where we have most ability to kind of micromanage and make sure everything is really great"

Co-Founder Joe Lamont:

• "his name is Joe Lamont, six richest man in Austin, made his money on software"
• "realized that there's a, he saw it coming years ago, that AI would allow for getting all the baseline knowledge basically eventually free. But then all that matters is creating new knowledge and becoming, creating new things in the world, adding net new value"

Student Outcomes:

• "What we're doing is giving the kids time back to focus on what they're uniquely gifted at"
• "some kids that, once we know that they're solving on their common core academics, they're in school building only a couple days a week. Because they've gone through all their lessons, and they're literally meeting with investors"
• Success story: "this one kid that graduated last year, raised $3 million for a local bike park"

Brian's Professional Journey

Background:

• "After starting my career at Google as a software engineer, ran a youth empowerment non-profit, been advising the Catholic Church for a while, too, on AI and education"
• Joe Lamont recruited him: "this is probably the most important thing you could work on, and you don't have to stop at the other advisory work to do"

Current High-Level Work:

• "What Ron and I are doing is we're kind of at this executive level"
• White House Connections: "last week we were at the White House, talking to the head of crypto and the head of the faith office. The crypto one was interesting because what it really was was the Frontier Tech Office under David Sachs"
• Bill Ackman Visit: "Bill Ackman's coming to check out the school today. We're going to show him around, talk to his wife, talk to his kids"

Philosophy on Education & Society

Core Beliefs:

• "Right now we're outsourcing our kids to the state. And that's fucked."
• "usually, by the time that, well really every level of education, you're so busy studying for nonsense, You don't even have time to know how you fit into the real world"

System Reform Vision:

• "We're trying to unite the smartest people in the world to work on [education] And make sure they get really rich along the way. So that we align all the incentives"
• "we're eliminating all of our administrators, essentially, when we're placing it with like automated school buildings, essentially, over time"
• On teacher pay: "I'm not saying teachers need to be paid so much, but like, they should be paid more"

Personal Philosophy:

• "I want to be the dumbest and poorest guy in every room. That's hard to do"
• On self-reflection: "You should not have to wait for someone else to get you back. It's actually how you have better human beings. Because if you have shame, people just hide all their darkness"

Upcoming Initiatives

Alpha Family Summit:

• "we have an invite only parent summit for thinking parents called the Alpha Family Summit on June 14th"
• Target audience: "thinking parents" who want to "retake ownership of your family's future"

Expansion Plans:

• Working on policy initiatives: "we're trying to like push as fast as possible so that we don't have any kids left behind"
• Real estate development: Joe planning 10+ properties
• National scaling of school model

Personal Quirks & Insights

George H.W. Bush Connection:

• "funny thing is like literally the Bush family have done such crazy shit, terrible stuff, but I would not be alive without George H.W. Bush. So, I literally owe my life to Texas and Texan governors"
• Born in rural Illinois, recently moved to Austin

Living Situation:

• "I lived in Austin a year ago for a month in January, but I've been here for now five months, four months"
• Interested in real estate innovation: "I just think that there's so much interesting real estate innovation here"

Time Management:

• "I got eight minutes before my next call"
• Very busy schedule with high-level meetings and calls

Key Takeaways

1. Revolutionary Education Model: Brian and Joe have created a functioning alternative to traditional education that uses AI for baseline learning and focuses the majority of time on individual gifts and real-world application.

2. High-Level Connections: Operating at the intersection of education, policy, and billionaire networks, with direct White House access and connections to figures like Bill Ackman.

3. Family-Centered Approach: Despite professional success, Brian remains grounded in family life and parenting challenges, seeking better educational options for his own children.

4. Systemic Vision: Not just creating alternative schools, but working to transform the entire educational landscape through policy, technology, and aligned incentives.

5. Personal Authenticity: Balances high-level professional work with honest sharing about parenting struggles and physical limitations ("old man injury").

Connection to Gary's Work

The conversation reveals significant overlap with Gary's educational interests and suggests potential collaboration opportunities in the "best schools in the world" initiative that Brian mentioned Gary and Ron are working on together.