Tim Smith 🇺🇸

Leading Customer Success @Stripe, Go Cubs!

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@nilnoc8 @NirZicherman @garrytan The kids are arriving at college wholly unprepared. It’s not about time to study. https://t.co/yFHB9bauuk

[Justin Skycak @justinskycak]

This sounds like a joke, but it's not:

– 1 in 12 incoming UCSD freshmen don’t know middle school math,

– and the remedial math course was too advanced,

– so UCSD had to create a remedial remedial math course,

– and a quarter of the students placing into it had a perfect 4.0 GPA in their high school math courses.

That sounds so ridiculous, like something you’d read in The Onion, but it’s unfortunately real.

Here are some direct quotes from the UCSD report:

"Between 2020 and 2025, the number of students whose math skills fall below high school level increased nearly thirtyfold; moreover, 70% of those students fall below middle school levels, reaching roughly one in twelve members of the entering cohort."

"While Math 2 was designed in 2016 to remediate missing high school math knowledge, now most students had knowledge gaps that went back much further, to middle and even elementary school. To address the large number of underprepared students, the Mathematics Department redesigned Math 2 for Fall 2024 to focus entirely on elementary and middle school Common Core math subjects (grades 1-8), and introduced a new course, Math 3B, so as to cover missing high-school common core math subjects (Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II or Math I, II, III; grades 9-11)."

"Few, if any, students who place into Math 2 have successfully completed an engineering degree."

"high school math grades are only very weakly linked to students’ actual math preparation."

"The correlation between the average math grade and the placement result is only around 0.25 on a scale of 0 to 1. In 2024, over 25% of the students in Math 2 had a math grade average of 4.0."

"of those who demonstrated math skills not meeting middle school levels, 94% went beyond [the minimum high school course requirement], with 42% percent completing Calculus or Precalculus."

"The pattern of high school math classes taken in many cases suggests much higher levels of math skill than the actual math skill the student often has."

"In fact, for more than two decades the Mathematics Department has found that out of all available student data, the single best predictor for math placement has been the SAT (math section) score, with the ACT score being an equally good predictor."

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@Noahpinion It’s almost like the two major parties don’t represent the majority of the population.

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@lil_dill @StarTalkRadio @neiltyson I always enjoyed this website that visually explains the distances and scale in our own solar system: https://t.co/NRDvxDyf4a

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@buccocapital Better to be 12 months late at a great company than 12 months early at one going nowhere.

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@mattavery @MattMahanSJ That’s how we got here. Orthodoxy is not the answer.

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@gerstenzang @jeff_weinstein @stripe You even need to know which side of the street - sunny or shady.

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@levie @holgermu Non-obvious in 2007 evolution of Box:
1. [desktop] Easy-to-use SaaS app in your browser
2. [mobile] All of your files in the palm of your hand
3. [command line] all the context for your agent

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@nrmehta @btaylor And if they induct Kraft this year…🤯

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@0toHerr0 Refs got money on BYU

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@zachtratar It would be nice to have a few responsible adults working for the people of the country who are willing to accept new facts and sometimes change their mind

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@toddfather76 @gaberivera @Jason Being an agitator doesn’t justify murder

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@VitalVegas @beatals44 Fisher has to pay a flip tax to the other MLB owners if he sells before 2034 because they waived his relo fee.

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

Does OpenAI's new age prediction know that most teen boys are emotionally 5 year olds?

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@mjasay Love these pictures

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

Most incredible Bears game since this one:

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@villi Had?

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

Great view tonight too

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

SpaceX’s Starlink inflight wifi on @united is a game changer for productivity on the plane.

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@xtbot @typesfast https://t.co/T19ns4zwu0

[Tim Smith 🇺🇸 @TimothySmithSF]

@xtbot @typesfast The Visa episode of Acquired is excellent and includes a bunch of bank and card network history