Anand Sanwal

Anand Sanwal » Trying to mess things up · anandsanwal.me · American English

Semi-random thoughts on entrepreneurship, education and other miscellaneous.

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The School Erosion Cycle: Montclair, NJ Case Study
Dec 11, 2025 · original
This essay first appeared in my newsletter. Sign up here if interested in Unf^cking Education . At a town hall meeting in Montclair, New Jersey this September (2025), a high school senior stood up to speak. According to The Montclair Pod’s reporting on the meeting, the student described how his soccer team had been “forced to sit on the floor to get to games” due to overcrowded buses.[1] With the district facing massive cuts, he asked Superintendent Ruth B. Turner whether athletics would be eliminated. Turner, the report noted, “couldn’t make promises.” What prompted this student’s question and Turner’s non-committal answer? And more importantly, what does this mean for Montclair schools over the medium- to long-term? Can they recover, and how long will it take? (short answer: it will be hard and take a decade or two) I answer these questions below in details, but first what is the issue
Education in a Post Text World
Sep 9, 2025 · original
This essay first appeared in my newsletter. Sign up here if interested in Unf^cking Education . Recently, adults have been sounding the alarm that students are not reading books. The underlying worry-infused premise is this: Our students are not reading long-form texts Civilization will collapse if we do not fix it. As a result, the discussion centers on how we get back to past days of reading glory . That is the wrong frame. As it relates to reading, the toothpaste is out of the tube. Translation: We are not going back to a time when students sat quietly and brute forced (or more likely used Cliffs Notes or SparkNotes) to work their way through The Odyssey or Hamlet. There are too many competing distractions, and alternative media formats like video, audio, memes, graphics and emerging interactive formats that are not just more compelling but which may also offer the benefits of speed,
Fine Isn’t the Goal
Sep 4, 2025 · original
This essay first appeared in my newsletter. Sign up here if interested in Unf^cking Education . When I talk to parents about school , I hear three responses. A small group loves their child’s school. They got lucky. A larger group is dissatisfied. Their kids are bored, anxious, disengaged. But the most common response is: “It wasn’t perfect, but I turned out fine.” I used to say this too. I defended the system that raised me. But here’s the problem: We have no idea what we might have become. Think back to what you were curious about at 8 or 12 or 15. What if school had said let’s go deeper instead of that’s not on the test ? What if instead of memorizing dates, you had explored your own questions ? What if instead of filling in bubbles, you had solved real problems that mattered to you and your community? Saying “I turned out fine” is like owning a Ferrari and never driving it past 30 mi
The AI-Education Death Spiral aka Let the Kids Cheat
Aug 20, 2025 · original
This essay first appeared in my newsletter. Sign up here if interested in Unf^cking Education . Your kid didn’t write their essay last night. ChatGPT did. And maybe this is a good thing? I’m serious. They’re copying essays from AI, running them through “humanizing” tools, and handing in work they’ve barely read. They’re having AI listen to lectures so they don’t have to. They’re sneaking AI via their mobile phones into tests. They’re using ChatGPT for everything from math homework to history essays to college applications. (Note: see graph below as it is surprising to see how far Claude is behind ChatGPT in schools). And they should be. To be clear, I’m not advocating for AI in real learning. AI is only useful right now as a stress test as it reveals how hollow adolescent work has become. If it pushes schools toward offering work with relevance, impact, and agency and away from hopeless
Entrepreneurship Is Still Where Science Was in 1600
Aug 6, 2025 · original
This essay first appeared in my newsletter. Sign up here if interested in Unf^cking Education . In 2011, two professors at the University of Virginia, Saras Sarasvathy and Sankaran Venkataraman, penned a research paper entitled Entrepreneurship as Method: Open Questions for an Entrepreneurial Future , and in it, they made an argument that should have been a turning point. “There exists an ‘entrepreneurial method’ analogous to the scientific method spelled out by Francis Bacon and others with regard to the natural realm.” They weren’t talking about business school case studies or MBA electives. They meant a universal, systematic way of creating value under uncertainty, i.e., the entrepreneurship equivalent of the scientific method. And they spelled out the implications: “One normative implication of accepting the argument would be to teach entrepreneurship not only to entrepreneurs but to
The Boldest Education Experiment in 20 Years Was Just the Beginning
Aug 4, 2025 · original
This essay first appeared in my newsletter. Sign up here if interested in Unf^cking Education . Sending your kid to college is a $300,000 bet that four years of lectures will prepare them for a world that cares more about what you can build than what you can recite . For a long time, it felt like the only option. But it’s not. The School of Entrepreneuring will offer graduates $200,000 to start a company instead of going to college. When I tell people this, they say it’s crazy (or that I’m crazy). It’s not. (And I am not) It’s based on the most successful education experiment of the last two decades: the Thiel Fellowship. What the Thiel Fellowship Proved In 2011, Peter Thiel tried something radical: give teenagers $100,000 over two years to skip college and build something ambitious. A small snapshot of the results: Company Founder (Fellow) Status Valuation / Market Cap Figma Dylan Field
Entrepreneuring Is the Best Natural Lab for Learning
Jun 17, 2025 · original
This essay first appeared in my newsletter. Sign up here if interested in Unf^cking Education . Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way. We’re building a national network of Schools of Entrepreneuring for 5th to 12th graders where they learn by building. At graduation, they’ll get a $200k investment if they choose to build a company. So yes, I’m conflicted here. But for the record, the idea for a new type of school came to me first. The realization that entrepreneuring is the best way to help young people learn came second. And so today, I want to walk you through what made me realize this. This is not written to get you to send your child to the School of Entrepreneuring , although of course, that would be a happy accident. It is instead to help you see that an entrepreneuring education: Enables young people to maximize their potential and have fun doing it Helps parents see their kids
Not Yet
Jun 16, 2025 · original
I’ve got a bunch of friends who’ve always wanted to build a startup. They’ve had ideas for years. Scribbled them into emails. Sent late-night texts: “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” But then that f’n voice kicks in: “Not yet.” Let me find a co-founder Let me talk to a few more customers Let’s get a little more experience. Let’s wait until the market is better. Let’s save a bit more. Let’s wait until the kids are older. It’s always something. A new reason. A new excuse. A new delay. They scroll past startup stories thinking, “I had that same idea!” They say, “I can’t believe that guy got funding for that.” They meet founders and say isht like, “He’s not even that smart.” But here’s the truth: The timing will never be perfect. The plan will never be airtight. “Ready” never comes I am so hoping they turn “not yet” into “now” at some point. But honestly? I’m no longer optimistic they will Somewhere
The Problem With School Might Be… Parents
Jun 12, 2025 · original
This essay first appeared in my newsletter Sign up here if interested in Unf^cking Education . Yesterday, at my cousin’s kids’ middle school, they had a Field Day. It’s a day of outdoor activities and experiments and during Field Day this year, the worst thing happened. It started to rain. Some kids called their parents to report they were wet and needed new clothes or wanted to be picked up. A kerfuffle erupted in the parent WhatsApp group. Parents called the school irresponsible. Others complained about interrupted workdays to drop off dry clothes. Still others demanded to know why they weren’t warned in advance to pack backup outfits. All of this drama because their kids got wet. It reminded me of those horror movies where the call is coming from inside the house. Maybe the enemy of our children’s education isn’t the schools and the curriculum , the teachers , the incentives ? Perhaps
We Got Bamboozled by the Teach Kids to Code Hype
Jun 2, 2025 · original
This essay first appeared in my newsletter Sign up here if interested in Unf^cking Education . In the last decade, a new mantra hypnotized American schools: “Every child should learn to code.” The President said it. Governors echoed it. Tech CEOs funded it—directly or via nonprofits they controlled. The pitch was surgical. It wasn’t just about skills. It was about the future. About equity. About national competitiveness. And it hits every note that makes school boards and superintendents stop thinking critically. “Future-ready students!” “ Closing the equity gap! ” “Democratizing opportunity!” These slogans worked like magic spells—triggering reflexive approval instead of rigorous scrutiny. Because who wants to be the person against equity or the future? But schools didn’t stop to ask the most important question: Is this what students actually need? Fast forward to today. Computer scienc

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