About us and the future

Ashland Prep is a node of a broader vision for education and human capital: localized and meritocratic.

It’s the entry point for identifying talent that can change the world: the first entry to an ecosystem that identifies transitionary periods as localized moments in which people are more likely to question their current beliefs and create new ones.

High school juniors and seniors: leaving the life they may have always known for a bigger adventure. Later on, EnterEx: high school graduates, college graduates looking for their first step into a world that seems entirely new. ExitX: for people transitioning into and out of careers in legal, medicine, and finance. The future is ambiguous, the Wild West. Bluntly, we’re here for it.

The ability to create structure from ambiguity, to create stories from raw data: these are the skills that will matter in the next multiple decades. A hundred years ago, Oxford tested long division that can now be solved by Ti-89s. Thanks to tools at their disposal, students are naturally solving larger and larger problems thanks to the tools at their disposal. AI is one of those tools.

Test prep is a unique vacuum to identify this talent. To do well, really well, the most difficult problems require first principles thinking, which directly contradicts school math. This first principles thinking: the ability to “think outside the box” — is what’s necessary for what’s next. It also requires ability to thrive, even enjoy, extreme pressure. To make games out of (perceived) life-changing status games. That points on pressure and games: far more important than the actual score.

What’s next?

Ashland HQ is uniquely zoned. It’s on Venice Blvd, steps from the sand. It’s part of a bigger block and a bigger story that’s unique to Venice and all its contradictions: beauty and decay, peace and chaos, wealth and poverty. It’s walkable, filled with amenities, with an underlying layer of the the most powerful tech infrastructure in the world beneath dirty sidewalks and skateboards and palm trees.

The entire block is destined to become more nodes in the broader vision of education and human capital. As Ashland grows, so will the power of the block, until it becomes reknown for becoming a new type of educational model, a hyper-localized decentralized residential/educational/working model in which resources are shared up and down the spectrum. Startups will trade teaching time for office space. Students will intern at companies and receive equity shares in the future.

With a meritocratic future comes the end of gatekeeping. No more Ivy walls paying homage to a past that’s no longer relevant. Only the future, and model that gets replicated across the globe. And… fun. Like — it’s cool to be on a roof at sunset talking about ideas. Drinking coffee with friends. Heading down the street to eat some tacos. With or without Ashland Prep, the block will be open to all. Enjoy.

- Ravi