About
About The Learning Collective
The Learning Collective (TLC) is a free, member-run online community for experienced tech people figuring out what's next. In small cohorts, members decide together what to keep, what to hand to AI, and what to build next, and every cohort builds something real, in public.
At a glance
- Name
- The Learning Collective, or TLC for short. The website is jointlc.org.
- Who it's for
- People in tech who know something needs to change, but aren't sure what yet. Any role: engineers, designers, researchers, product people and managers, whether they're employed, between jobs, or rethinking all of it.
- What members do
- Learn from each other, build new skills, trade the ones they already have, and work on public projects together. A project can be a tool, writing, research, teaching or a small business. Built in public, it becomes a living resume: proof of how someone thinks, not just a list of what they've done.
- Format
- Small cohorts, async-friendly, cameras optional. The community will most likely run on Slack, which most members already use.
- Who runs it
- The members. Cohorts are mostly self-organizing: whoever leads a cohort sets its size, pace and goal, and members pick the topics and host the sessions.
- Cost
- Free to join. Members can also pledge to the founding drive, from $1.
- The founding drive
- An all-or-nothing pledge drive with a goal of $1,000, a floor rather than a ceiling. No card is needed to pledge, and pledges stay open until . If the goal isn't reached, nobody pays anything. If it is, the money goes to group deals on books and courses, workshop presenters, and software discounts for members.
- Started
- October 2026. The first cohorts start , if the founding drive succeeds.
- Privacy
- Emails are never shared or sold. No sponsors buy access to members, and no recruiters mine the list. Anything paid is opt-in and clearly labelled.
Who started it
Mark Lichman started The Learning Collective in October 2026. He has spent his working life in software, including 14 years in product and hiring as a chief product officer, and like a lot of people in tech he is working out what comes next. He is facilitating the first sessions for a month or two, but the community is meant to belong to the people in it, with co-hosts from day one.
Why it exists
Work in tech is changing fast, and it's normal to feel that as a loss, including a loss of say over where a career goes. TLC is built on the idea that people will always be needed, and that working out the next step is easier with others asking the same questions. Nobody has settled what good work looks like after AI, and the people doing the work should help decide.
Not to be confused with
The Learning Collective at jointlc.org is not affiliated with Tech Learning Collective, the technology school in New York, or with other organizations that share the name.
Find TLC
- Website: jointlc.org
- Essays: jointlc.org/writing, with an RSS feed