The Future of Apprenticeships with Sophie Ruddock of Multiverse

Sophie Ruddock is a former impact investor and consultant with 10+ years experience across the private, public and non-profit sectors. She is one of the  founding members of Multiverse, a tech company building an outstanding alternative to college. She spent the last 4 years growing Multiverse’s delivery operations in the U.K, before moving onto leading their expansion to NYC as GM North America.

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Alexander Sarlin: 0:04

Welcome to Ed Tech insiders. In this podcast we talk to educators and educational technology investors, thought leaders, founders and operators about the most interesting and exciting trends in the field. I'm your host Alex Sarlin, an educational technology veteran with over a decade of work at leading edtech companies. Sophie Ruddock is a former impact investor and consultant. With more than 10 years of experience across the private, public and nonprofit sectors. She is one of the founding members of multiverse, a tech company building an outstanding alternative to college. She spent the last four years growing multiverses delivery operations in the UK, before moving on to leading their expansion to New York City as the General Manager of North America. Sophie Ruddock, Welcome to EdTech insiders.

Sophie Ruddock: 0:59

Thanks for having me, Alex,

Alexander Sarlin: 1:01

it's great to have you here. You have such a diverse and interesting personal background, you've worked in nonprofits, you've worked in politics, political campaigns, think tanks, all over the spectrum, tell us a little bit about your journey into the EdTech space, with multiverse which is this massive success.

Sophie Ruddock: 1:19

So I have always spent my career thinking about systemic social change. And one of the biggest areas that I saw needed disrupting was the intersection between education and workforce. And at the same time, I had been working in a field called impact investment where I really looked to see how you can better align societal outcomes with commercial outcomes and hadn't seen that much in terms of organizations that were really proving that you can do well and do good. So as I combined my twin interests in sort of thinking about building scaling organizations that can deliver both social good and financial return, alongside my desire to really create a more equitable society, when I was introduced to multiverse five, six years ago, it was an absolute no brainer for me, because it was not looking to make the current system better or faster or more efficient. Instead, it was looking to really create a new normal, and in doing so turn the system on its head,

Alexander Sarlin: 2:19

that's fantastic. And, uh, you know, it's always makes me feel very encouraged when people who care about you know, social impact and impact investing and sort of making the world better doing well and doing good, as you mentioned, move into edtech. Because I think edtech is one of the best fields to do that with, you can grow enormous products and build great companies like multiverse and help a ton of people along the way, and really change how society thinks about education. So you guys have done a really good job of that already. So I want to start with Multiplus made big headlines just a couple of weeks ago, by becoming Europe's newest and only second ever, ad tech unicorn. That's a private company valued at a billion dollars or more, had a really big funding round. So congratulations, in case somebody missed the news. Can you give our listeners a brief overview of what multiverse does and how this round came about? Yes, well,

Sophie Ruddock: 3:12

thank you so much, we are incredibly excited. Multiverse is an education technology company that's really focused on building an alternative to college and corporate training through paid professional apprenticeships. Or friendships get young people without a four year college degree into jobs where they receive tuition free and debt free training in areas like data analytics, software engineering, or digital marketing, all while applying that real world learning to projects on the job at companies from Verizon to box to Cisco and visa and apprenticeships can also be used to upskill and rescale existing employees into new industries or departments. What I think is very unique about what multiverse does is that we manage this end to end from finding incredibly talented individuals and assessing them for grit rather than grades. So tearing off the idea of a traditional resume and GPA being a predictor of job success, match them to these exciting high growth companies. And then we actually develop the curriculum on these subjects. And so our team of designers are industry experts, learning scientists, who are really experts in their fields. And we then deliver this on the job through multiverse coaches who are in fact full time employees and actually responsible for bringing this curriculum to life. And ultimately, this funding round came about because we believe apprenticeships can address two of the biggest issues that are facing society in the world of work today. First is really around equipping businesses with the skills that they need as a result of this dramatic tech and digital transformation that has occurred over the last few years. And secondly, creating a more accessible and diverse talent pipeline, and in doing so building a more representative workforce to truly reflect the society we operate in. And our investors saw that opportunity as well. And the momentum that is that we're starting to build around professional apprenticeships, there's so

Alexander Sarlin: 5:06

much to unpack in there, I want to start with two words that you put right in the middle of there that I think is worth double clicking on, which is tuition free debt free. How does multiverse think about creating an educational opportunity for young people that truly has no cost to them? How does that work? So

Sophie Ruddock: 5:26

ultimately, we think about the outcome that we're trying to deliver. And the outcomes that we're that we're looking to deliver our progression parts for our apprentices induce with meaningful roles with family sustaining wages, and for the businesses, helping them to close the skills gap, deliver return on investment in the form of productivity gains, closing the skills gap, and a more representative society and also really build a workforce of the future that's gonna stay. And so because businesses get so much value, from our programs from our apprentices, they pay for the training whilst paying a salary directly to the apprentice.

Alexander Sarlin: 6:05

That makes sense. And you know, we've seen a couple of different models that are sort of adjacent to that over the last few years where people are starting to say, instead of piling all of this debt on individuals and saying you're responsible for your own learning, and your own cost of learning, maybe others who benefit from a society being educated should fit some of the bill. So who do you consider your sort of primary customers? Is it the companies that are hiring and paying for the service? Or the apprentices? It may be a little bit of a unfair question, I'm sure it's both. But how do you think about that triangle of serving both companies and individuals.

Sophie Ruddock: 6:42

So we're definitely in some ways, a marketplace, and therefore both apprentices and companies are our customers. And both need to be primary. Because by see it rather than a triangle, it's more of a virtuous cycle, the apprentice doesn't succeed, then the company doesn't address that talent needs. And if the company isn't there, then we failed to create opportunities for our apprentices. And so on The Apprentice side, we're working with those that are starting their careers for the first time we call career starters. Those that are at the start of their career, typically, between the ages of 18 and 26, are also as I said, those that are looking to upskill or rescale. And then on the company side, we're partnering often with business leaders, such as CIOs and chief technology officers and head of data and analytics to help them tackle their skills challenges, whether it's at high growth companies like ClassPass, and box or more established organizations like Cisco and Verizon. And what we see is that they will, because of the value that that getting, actually they tend to expand their programs very quickly, like two thirds of our clients are expanding their programs within six months because of that quick and immediate impact. And so, yes, budget cycle needs to exist, both at the core of what we do.

Alexander Sarlin: 7:58

You mentioned how multiverse sort of serves to be a one stop shop and a lot of ways it creates curriculum, it does recruiting, there's actually coaching as part of the model. How do you do the recruiting so that you can really match incoming apprentices with companies and job roles that are unfilled within large and emerging and high growth companies? How do you make that connection?

Sophie Ruddock: 8:23

Yeah, well, first, let's talk about how we find these incredible individuals. You hear a lot about the pipeline problem. But we believe that that is not the core issue. And actually, the core issue is a sightline problem, that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. And so as a starter we look to work with organizations in the communities that we serve to find this exceptional talent. So whether that's nonprofits like opportunity at work, or Girls Who Code or generation who are all focused on the skill space, or charter schools, community colleges, we are finding talent that our employer partners are not currently tapping into in Tik Tok to be a huge source for attracting candidates. And in fact, many of our tic TOCs have gone viral, bringing in 10s of 1000s of qualified applicants in very short spaces of time. But then we work to build a platform to actually measure potential and character rather than just academic achievement. And so at a high level, this is looking at assessments and situational judgment tests, to assess attributes like coachability, curiosity, grit, interpersonal skills, and critical thinking, so that we're really looking for the predictors of job success. There's very little correlation between what your GPA was in college and how you ended up doing in fact, they're your household income growing up is a better predictor of future career earnings than just about anything else. And then we'll coach these candidates ahead of the interview with their employers, they are prepared to bring their best selves forward. But ultimately, we are providing a shortlist of individuals that we have assessed, but companies make the final hiring decision as these apprentices will be working full time at these organizations.

Alexander Sarlin: 10:07

It's really fascinating. And I mean, if I'm hearing you correctly, some of the things that you do, which are really quite different than either regular corporate recruiting or traditional academic recruiting or enrollment is used really modern channels like Tic tock reach people where they are get them to really get excited about it, rather than going through sort of traditional old school channels, and then use a really different type of selection criteria. So you've mentioned a couple of times, grades are not, you know, important for multiverse. It's really about your grid coachability some of these success skills that you found a way to measure that are actually more predictive than many other things. And that leads to higher diversity. And, you know, as we're talking about alternatives, you mentioned that alternatives to education multiverses, pretty out front about saying that apprentices are actually an alternative to education, and some other companies in the space. Don't quite always say it that way. They say it's a supplement, or it's a route that can be you know, in and out of traditional education, but multiverses pretty clear from what I've read about saying, hey, apprenticeship can be an authentic alternative. And, you know, one of the things we've been covering a lot on the podcast is that the student loan forgiveness is in the news in the us all the time. Right now, the value of formal education is sort of being questioned more than ever before, students are looking into alternatives to the standard four year college degree, we're seeing poll results saying fewer students want to do a regular degree, they want faster routes to employment, they want more assurance that it's going to pay off. So I'd love to hear your perspective from multiverse. Why do young people pursue apprenticeships over traditional college and how is multiverse trying to challenge that traditional model?

Sophie Ruddock: 11:54

So there are a few things that I'll touch on here. But it's worth saying that whilst we are an alternative to formal education, we do still see apprenticeships as a key part of what this workforce and education system should look like. So we talk a lot about being an outstanding alternative to university. But really why a young person will select an apprenticeship over college is for a few main reasons. The first is that they get to earn from day one. So we see young people becoming increasingly commercially savvy, and the debt that you take on by going to college, which often yields very little return. I think there was a recent study that said 10 years on college graduates earning on average between 40 and $70,000, and still paying off their student loans. Our average salary is between 50 and $70,000, from day one, which is pretty powerful. And 68% of our apprentices are then promoted or receive a raise on or at the end of that apprenticeship we touched on earlier, but it's also tuition free, so they're not paying for training, as you would a four year degree or even a bootcamp or digital credential. And then I think the third reason is about how they get to learn. So this is this big focus on applied learning and training for modern jobs. There's such a disconnect that's growing between what employers need and what colleges are teaching for. And so our apprenticeships are really responding to the challenges of today. And it's a much stickier curriculum, in the sense that what we're teaching actually can then be applied almost immediately. Whereas traditional classroom learning, you often have to wait between one and four years to then apply that skill. I often think you know, you can't learn to ride a bike by reading a book. And that's sort of how I think about our friendships, you get to be able to try and apply almost immediately. And then those training wheels come off. And then I think finally the broader support that our apprentices get in the form of their coaches and community. Our coaches are responsible, not just for teaching, the hard skills, but they're responsible for the success of our apprentices. So they teach many durable skills as well. Everything from how do I write this email to my manager? Or how do I create an agenda for my team meeting? And you see this now there's been a big shift in job postings, and more and more job postings are requesting these durable skills. But also, you touched on this at the beginning, you know, why does someone pursue an apprenticeship over college, and one of the main reasons that we see young people want to go to college is the network and the social aspect that they that they get. And we don't want that to ever have to be a false choice. You go to college and you build a network or you do an apprenticeship and you miss out. And so we have created a community for our apprentices to be able to meet on and offline. Everything from clubs, sports team societies, sort of speakers you'd expect to see on an Ivy League campus ranging from government officials to top CEOs, but also they have a lot of fun. You know, we had an apprentice wedding last year, and these relationships are sending our apprentices up to really make these context for their careers as well as friends for life,

Alexander Sarlin: 15:03

I'm really glad you're mentioning the social aspect of education, because I think, you know, some of the advocates of traditional formal education, whether they're just people who have graduated from it years ago and see it as the norm, or people who work in higher education and wanted to, you know, stay as the status quo, you know, talk about some of the value propositions of traditional university, as you know, creating well rounded people or, you know, educated society, or you know, that you make your best relationships of your life in college. And those have traditionally been some of the arguments that have been sort of propped up to justify the very, very high cost of tuition and the traditional model. So when you're mentioning the social environment, I think that's really important for people to hear that college is not the only place to meet people, a college is not the only way to make friends build a community, there are alternatives and people who are offering alternative models are thinking carefully about it. So I'd love to hear you address this. You mentioned the social aspect and some of the obviously the financial aspect is there, how does multiverse really work to create very diverse and effective group of leaders for the future, the way a college would, but in a non traditional environment? And I have a little add on for that, which is, how do you ensure that people are trained for the entire world and not just for the single company that are practicing it? I'm sure you get that question all the time. Yeah. So

Sophie Ruddock: 16:29

festival it how do we compete to create a new diverse group of leaders? College isn't working for everyone, right? Right. We've touched on this already. But the costs are just prohibitive. The outcomes are spread in really inequitable ways. degree requirements actually screen out huge portions of individuals, particularly from black and brown communities, degrees have very little relevance, often for the jobs needed in the modern world. So if you look at just from a pure cost perspective, the cost of the degree has gone up 14 100%, in the last 30 years, with the product not changing at all. And that, for me is an outlier. In almost every other product innovation that that exists, what we see is actually people are starting to really question that return on investment from a degree because of the fact that large majority of individuals are left behind and went many ways college actually widens the opportunity gap. So yeah, the biggest indicator of the school that you get into is still your parents income, and 38 of the top 100 schools in America, there are more students from the top 1% of income earning households than that are from the bottom 60%. And I won't do death by statistics. But for me, you just have to look at the data. And it's really stark. And then to your point, how do you ensure that you're developing individuals for the future, as we've talked about, you know, there is this disconnect between what employers need and what colleges are teaching for, we talk a lot about creating a group of T shaped individuals who can go very deep in a certain subject specialism, but also have that breadth of skills. So that actually, as new technologies emerge, as new problems emerge in the in the workplace, our apprentices actually set out to be able to adapt with the changing needs of the workforce. And on top of that, how we build our programs, works backwards from the needs that employers are looking for. So if I take our software engineering curriculum, we go out and we spend months in market talking to Chief Technology Officers, engineers, engineering managers, across a range of sectors, from government, to healthcare, to big tech to high growth organizations, and build up a very strong understanding of what are the skills someone needs to be successful, we then actually work backwards from that to build our curriculum, so that we know if we are successful in achieving these outcomes in terms of knowledge, skills, behaviors, and mindset that we are going to deliver on what employers need. And then again, unlike college, what we can do is we're constantly in market, so we're constantly responding to the emerging needs of employers. And that might mean adding a new module, it might mean pivoting to a new technology, that we have that flexibility, whereas actually, I think there is still no cybersecurity major that even exists in colleges today. So we're able to be very flexible and not have to wait many years to be able to update all curriculums.

Alexander Sarlin: 19:31

That's a really strong stance on how to make sure that you're providing really relevant up to date, educational opportunities that are transferable. When you say you're working backwards from employers to build your curriculum. It's not working backwards from one single company where it's just about the exact toolkit and technologies and ideas that they use. It's about the entire sector and beyond the sector. You know, how do you create that T shape of somebody who can start making money on day one or four A college that entirely learn on the job, but then be able to take that learning and transfer it and move it to, you know, anywhere they want to go in their career without having to restart is what I'm hearing. And I think that sounds like a powerful model.

Sophie Ruddock: 20:13

Thank you. We're really excited by the outcomes that we see. And we'll see how employers really starting to adopt this model and see the results, we often will track how our apprentices are doing against their graduate peers. And we often see our apprentices being promoted, more quickly, delivering more value for their employer, and then also staying longer in positions of leadership. So we're seeing work,

Alexander Sarlin: 20:38

you don't have to be afraid of death by statistics on this podcast. We all love statistics, it actually, you know, a couple of things are saying remind me of a couple of studies that really, really caught my eye over the last few years. And I think it's a good segue to the next question. One was a number. I think this was maybe four years ago or so. But there was a survey among parents that basically said that parents would prefer their children to get Google internships than to get into Harvard. Because for one thing, Google internships are actually more selective than Harvard. But also, it was such an applied useful, you know, you can sort of imagine why somebody might say that getting that internship is unbelievably powerful springboard for a career. And then there was a Pew research study that just came out, I think, last week, or the last couple of weeks that basically said that, you know, black and Hispanic students are much less likely to have college degrees, if they're over 25. Compared, I think it's 42% of white people over 25 and 30, something percent of black people and 20, low 20s for Hispanic. And when they ask them why they didn't get their degree, black and Hispanic students are much more likely to say it's because they had to work to support family, or the opportunity cost of education was the reason they couldn't receive it. So we can attach the stats in the in some of the show notes. But when you talk about the sort of unfairness, the widening gap that traditional higher ed can put on students, especially with the cost, it's really, really high. So I want to use that as a segue to the idea of, you know, one trend we fall out on the podcast we talked a little bit about this before is the sort of shift over time of the financial burden onto other societal players who benefit from an educated population that includes governments that includes corporations, like the ones multiverse works with whether they're large or small. How do you see the future of education funding? evolving? Do you think that more and more corporations and companies are going to lean into this space and sort of take the burden, but it's not just a burden, you know, take the responsibility for funding education themselves?

Sophie Ruddock: 22:44

Yes, as you say, the future of education is unfolding. And as a big part of that is an acknowledgement that there are there should be genuine pathways outside of a four year university. And that that delivers as good if not better outcomes for the individual and the employer. And so by setting up a model where employers pay for the costs of the apprenticeship, we're starting to remove that disconnect. You only have to talk to some of the big tech organizations who say they could hire every single computer science graduate in the country, and still have 1000s of open heads to know that employers are desperate to fill that critical skills gaps. And then if you care about representation, and building a much more equitable workforce that truly reflects the society that we operate in, relying on degree requirements that as you just touched on disproportionately exclude those from black and Hispanic communities, you will absolutely not move the needle when it comes to either skills or diversity unless you start to actually rethink those models.

Alexander Sarlin: 23:54

So here's a question for you, for our listeners who are listening to this episode and saying, Wow, this is a really smart model, it's really interesting the ability to take the tuition completely off of students to give them work experience to get them paid. And then to get them a really top quality education. It's pretty compelling. Those of our listeners who are working in traditional educational models, how would you recommend they start to think about succeeding and thriving in this world where corporations are actually part of the conversation and it's not, you know, Fannie Mae and a student and a college? It's actually Cisco and Dropbox and a college? How can colleges fit into this virtuous cycle?

Sophie Ruddock: 24:38

I think first of all, acknowledging that there is there is space for multiple pathways. And so not to see this as a rat but really see this as a broader opportunity for positive outcomes for everybody from a university perspective, in the same way that you know, we work backwards from the skills that employers need I do think that there is an opportunity more broadly, to really think about the end goal, which is, how do you set someone up for a fulfilling meaningful career? And what are the skills, attributes and experiences that someone needs to be able to do that. And it's why we partner with a lot of high schools so that we can start building the pipeline. That's why we have a huge emphasis on durable skills. And it's why we really focus on integrating with the workforce for exactly that reason.

Alexander Sarlin: 25:32

I love that emphasis on, you know, career building as a core piece of how you develop your curriculum and how you think about what your student population wants. You know, one thing we've mentioned on the podcast a few times, because I am a huge fan of alternative routes, is that students over the years have said are more and more and more likely to say that the reason they're going to college is to get a career is rare to be able to access a really, you know, successful and fulfilling career, they've set it in higher and higher numbers, each generation, yet, colleges just don't always think about that. They don't assume that as the core goal of the students, they still think that it's some of the peripheral things that the social the, you know, well rounded. I'd love to hear you speak for one more before we go on to more of the series D for one more moment about how you think about taking what you learn from the market. When you talk to these companies and you talk to different people in the sector, and actually turning it into curriculum and applied activities for your learner's what does that process look like? And what might other people, you know, borrow from multiverse to make sure that they're doing some of that as well.

Sophie Ruddock: 26:43

So I think the main thing that you touched on there is really listening, listening to what employers need, and what individuals themselves want. And that is always the starting point. Now, a big thing, right data is data is just data until you can synthesize that and identify the trends and really paint a picture. But for us, you know, not just talking to technology companies, we're not just talking to startups, I'm not just talking to nonprofits, but actually talking across a range of a range of roles, a range of industries, and a range of individuals themselves to get a better sense of not just watched the curriculum look like but what's the end goal? We have an incredible team of product managers and learning scientists and learning designers who will spend this time in the market to first and foremost understand, what should we be teaching. And then by using the best pedagogical approaches, or how someone learns, actually then bring that into a curriculum that that comes to life. And that might be learning that there are certain technologies that we need to frontload. Or that actually, there are certain things that should be self taught, because they come up much better when it comes to group coaching, when it comes to the application of learning. But I do think that spending time to really listen to what the market needs and wants, because sometimes that really does surprise you. And then also knowing that there are multiple drivers for both employers and apprentices alike. And so for apprentices, yes, big motivation for them as being able to earn and learn. But as we touched on earlier, there is also that desire to build those networks, build those professional connections, and people are ambitious, they want to get promoted, and they want to know that this is a route that's going to deliver that for them. And so it's really important for us that we don't just stop at the end of the 12 month program, we think about these ongoing career paths for the individual whilst also continuing to support our employers to be nimble.

Alexander Sarlin: 28:46

I notice how you follow up with your students to see how many of them get promoted, I think you said 68% of your apprentices get promoted. Even that statistic, the fact that you're measuring that and following your students and their their outcomes, after their apprenticeship in that specific way, I think is a testament to how you think about, you know, your role in helping your students be successful in something that other educators should borrow. Like, that makes a lot of sense, listening, listening, listening, talking to as broad a group of people and stakeholders as possible. And just really not sitting on your laurels, sort of taking nothing for granted. You know, the workplace changes a lot. And if you actually get out and talk to people in it, there's all sorts of really interesting insights that can be brought back into an educational experience, especially when combined with learning design, pedagogical methods and you know, turned into a really stimulating and effective curriculum. I do need to jump back to this funding news because it is the round was significant round, right? The multiverses series D funding round just a few weeks ago was hundreds of millions of dollars, and it's going to be an enormous accelerant for multiverse for those of our listeners here who are in the US who may not yet know the name multiverse, it's something you're definitely going to know. Tell us some of what the funding is going to be Use for what is the future of multiverse,

Sophie Ruddock: 30:02

or festival? Thank you. We're incredibly excited. I'm mainly excited about the funding round because of what it symbolizes for apprenticeships, and starting to create this really new category for the future of work. And there are really three things that we're going to use this funding for. The first which should come as no surprise is continued expansion. We've seen the incredible power of apprenticeships for individuals and their employers. And so we feel a big responsibility to ensure that there remain widely available. We currently support about 9000 apprentices and we plan to get to 10s of 1000s. And then ultimately, hundreds of 1000s of apprentices all benefiting from this personalized coaching and global community. And so remaining very focused on that, particularly in the US. The second piece is really around more progression routes for our apprentices. No, much like the college model, a single shot of learning at the start of your career is not setting someone up for long term career success, particularly when 85% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 don't yet exist today. And one of the things that you see with a four year undergraduate degree is an assumption that it's enough to take you through a multi decade career. And so we won't make that same mistake with apprenticeships and so on. Our vision is really for the system in which people can continue to return to apprenticeships whenever they need to up level and progress in that career. And then finally, as we see apprenticeships as a category and as a route become aspirational, and understood as part of the education system, we have a question which we are seeking to answer, which is how do we scale them so that they can reach millions of individuals. And this requires a huge investment in technology. Our products already lead the way in education, educational design, and the outcomes. But our vision is so that it becomes a best in class consumer tech experience as well. We know that this is just the beginning. So this funding is very exciting accelerant for us.

Alexander Sarlin: 32:06

That's all really, truly exciting to hear. So an expansion of the number of apprentices and expansion of progressions, including that sort of open loop idea where people can come back and continue to learn throughout their career, which I think is something we all aspire to, but not that many places actually can come through on. So it's amazing to hear that you're taking it so seriously, as well as product and technology and getting to you know, even more of a world class product. I think those are terrific, terrific plans. So you are the general manager of North America. You mentioned the US. You know we've had a really good time on this podcast speaking to European entrepreneurs and edtech. Folks, I'm just continually impressed, just say the least about what has been happening in the European ed tech sector. As we mentioned multiverses the second ed tech unicorn after go student which is based in Austria, I'd love to hear you speak a little bit about the European ad tech scene and the differences between the US and Europe when it comes to multiverse when it comes to what the apprenticeships look like what companies you work with. Tell us about the US versus Europe. I know you work out of out of the US but with a European company, as well as what that European ad tech sector sort of feels like in the last couple of years.

Sophie Ruddock: 33:22

Generally speaking, when it comes to apprenticeships, there is a much better understanding of apprenticeships as an alternative training and education pathway in the UK and Europe. And that apprenticeships can be seen as corporate and not just something for the trades. in both the UK and Europe, there is more regulatory power when it comes to incentivizing apprenticeships. And in fact, the UK government went as far as stimulating the apprenticeship market through a payroll tax on corporations, which can only be used to fund apprenticeship training. So some really progressive marks a policy that and as far as some of those sort of challenges and differences, the concept of a four year college degree. And the aspiration around that is much more embedded in the culture in the US. It's just seen as an expected step that young people should do that post high school. And so creating an alternative to something that's been so ingrained in the narrative around the American dream will definitely be an uphill battle. But one of the biggest things that I've noticed as being in the States is actually that a lot of people will look to the Swiss and German models of apprenticeships as best practice. And I actually think that that's a mistake, and they should be looking to the UK instead, in the Swiss and German models. This has been a model that's been there for century. And it's so embedded in their education system that you go down a vocational route or you go down an academic route, and they are held in equal esteem. Whereas if we were to do that in the States, this would require a total overhaul of the kids route. All system, because you actually need people the age of really 14 starting to select that route. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't look to that. But if we want to create genuine pathways without requiring an entire K through 12, through post secondary overhaul, I actually think that looking to the UK is a much better model for the states, which requires that choice post high school, and allowing people to make that choice at the age of 1819 20, about which route they go down. And that's very much the model that we've taken when it comes to the states. We're hopeful that other models like this will emerge, I think it will be a very strong positive thing for the sector. Where whilst Multiverse will become synonymous with professional apprenticeships, there should be many offerings in the space to continue to keep quality high and create those pathways.

Alexander Sarlin: 35:58

That's a really nuanced and super interesting answer. I agree that when we in the US, or I'll speak for myself, when I in the US think about some of the European apprenticeship models, as you mentioned, it's much more common. But I do sometimes just sort of lock into the Swiss German model where you have industry associations, putting together whole vocational pathways for students that as you say, dip all the way down into K 12. And are held in serious esteem, it's not considered a sort of second class education at all. But what it's missing, I think you're pinpointing really well here is that idea of, for one thing, it just doesn't match some of the mental models that we have in the US right now. But I think it's also sort of missing that idea of putting words in your mouth, but of individual companies, rather than associations, being able to sort of really play the game of apprenticeships in major ways. You know, in Germany, you have like all the auto manufacturers sort of together, creating these incredible, you know, automotive academies. But that's not really how we think in the US, it's very rare that you have that many companies working together for this sort of social good. So it feels like we're very far from that it's really interesting to hear that the UK model takes very differently as well as you're clearly appointed by doing starting later starting after the secondary school so that you don't have to completely revamp K 12. Really, really, really interesting point, I would love to hear a little bit about you mentioned how the US has less public policy that sort of promotes apprenticeships, and as far as I know, there's very little in place. How have you dealt with that somebody is coming over from a UK based company creating this entire structure in the US? How do you see the future of this? Are there going to be government policies? Is there going to be a turning point where people realize this is a really exciting model? And do the kind of payroll tax or policy agenda that would actually enable this to happen? Or do you see glimpses of it in certain states.

Sophie Ruddock: 37:55

It's something that I think a lot about, particularly having been on the ground in the UK and then sort of having the great privilege and pleasure of getting to do this, again, in the States. Apprenticeship are one of the only issues that have complete bipartisan support, which I think is an incredible starting point, you can ask someone on either side of the aisle, and they will generally be support for apprenticeships, which which is incredibly positive, and there is some money going. But to put it in perspective, the multiverse funding round that we just raised is almost double what President Biden has put towards apprenticeships, and so we are investing currently more in apprenticeships than the US government. But that being said, I think that there is a lot of opportunity. We've just joined a coalition of industry leaders, intermediaries, government officials in a new apprenticeship council called apprenticeships for America. And the idea being very much around creating communities of practice, ensuring that we have those feedback loops, both to local senators and Congress people as well as to the Department of Labor. I think there is definitely openness and willingness to explore new models to help stimulate the demand. It's very much just the beginning. So we're excited to be part of that conversation. There are some great examples of local best practices as well, where individual states have implemented apprentice tax credits and other more innovative pieces of policy, or with the idea of

Alexander Sarlin: 39:24

capitalizing the market. That's exciting to know that there is some movement in that direction. And yeah, you're right. It really is one of the only things I could think of that is that is bipartisan support the idea of apprenticeships just feel like something that we have really under under invested in in the US. But obviously we continue to under invest because you're spending more than almost double what the US spends. So we could talk for hours about this. And I hope that our listeners are hearing all of the things that multiverse is doing and feeling very excited about the future of US education to employment pipeline, but we have to And our interview and we always end with the same two questions. One is, what is the most exciting trend that you see from your particular perspective in the education technology landscape right now that you think our listeners should keep an eye on in the future

Sophie Ruddock: 40:14

college alternatives. In all seriousness, in the history of ad tech, there has been a lot of innovation that's gone into making the current system faster, better and cheaper. But now we are seeing the shift to creating real alternatives to that system, and in doing so really challenged that status quo. Apprenticeships are one, but there are others. There are credentialing programs, like what Google is doing. There are homegrown initiatives that employers are developing and running themselves. And I think that this will continue to be a really exciting space when you think about tackling both the skills ever growing skills gap and diversity together and not seeing them as a false choice, but something that you can really do together.

Alexander Sarlin: 41:03

That's a great answer, if a bit obvious for diverse but I'll take it and what is one book, you can also mention a blog newsletter, Twitter feed, but one resource that you would recommend for someone who wants to dive deeper into some of the topics we discussed today, because this

Sophie Ruddock: 41:19

is such a changing field. And it is evolving, really by the week, I would probably rather than recommend a book I will recommend a newsletter, which is one of my favorites, which is pulled themes, the job newsletter, who he writes incredible commentary on a range of topics in the alternative to higher ed space and often will really have his finger on the pulse in terms of both challenges, opportunities, as well as some of the bigger both government and market trends.

Alexander Sarlin: 41:50

Terrific suggestion. Yeah, Paul Fein is I believe Inside Higher Ed journalist at least formerly is that right? And Ben now runs this really interesting newsletter, we will put that in the show notes for this week. As always, you should definitely check out puffins newsletter about education, employment pipeline and all the different innovations happening there. So if you've heard of multiverse gm of North America and VP, been a true pleasure today, I am a humongous fan of multiverse. I'm really excited to see and hear all of the amazing plans you have for the future of apprenticeships. Oh, thank

Sophie Ruddock: 42:26

you, Alex. It's been fun to share.

Alexander Sarlin: 42:29

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