Patrick Byrne is best known as the founder of Overstock.com, where he pioneered new models in online retail. But outside of the business world, Byrne has long been active in education reform, dedicating his resources and voice to school choice. In this episode, hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone talk with Byrne about his personal journey into education advocacy and the challenges he sees within America’s school system.

Byrne shares how his early life—where conversations at the dinner table revolved around capital markets, the Constitution, and faith—shaped his belief in civic duty and systemic reform. That sense of responsibility led him to commit large portions of his personal fortune to education initiatives, famously telling Utah legislators that because he didn’t have children of his own, he would leave his wealth to ensure every child had the chance to attend a school that fit their needs.

The discussion takes a close look at the recent “Mississippi Miracle,” in which the state rose from 49th to 9th in reading literacy. Byrne and the hosts credit strong reforms and accountability measures for the turnaround, while pointing to teachers unions as a key reason other states lag behind. Byrne argues that unions act like monopolies—protecting their own interests over students, resisting accountability, and funneling dues into progressive political causes. He references a long-quoted line from a union leader who once said he’d care about children when they started paying his salary, using it to illustrate his point that the unions’ mission has little to do with student achievement.

The conversation also broadens to the historical decline of U.S. education, particularly since the creation of the Department of Education in the Carter era. Byrne cites Milton Friedman and Abraham Lincoln, both of whom warned that the philosophy taught in schools would shape the future of society. If classrooms promote socialist ideas, Byrne warns, those values carry into the next generation.

Despite his criticisms, Byrne highlights hopeful trends. He points to data showing that low-income children in charter schools often perform on par with higher-income peers in traditional public schools. He credits parents and communities who are willing to make sacrifices—such as driving long distances every day—to give their children better opportunities. Warren and Stone underscore Byrne’s pioneering role in the school voucher movement, crediting his early investments with helping fuel today’s growing momentum across the country.

By weaving his entrepreneurial mindset with a passion for education reform, Byrne makes the case that America’s future depends on giving families choices, holding schools accountable, and refusing to accept a system that puts bureaucracy ahead of children.

Transcript

**Chuck Warren: **So folks, I worked with Patrick Byrnes for decades at Overstock.com, something he pioneered and really was a pioneer in the e-commerce field. Patrick has always had a devotion for America, for our Constitution. I think you said at your table as a kid, you talked about Reagan, the Constitution, and the Catholic Church. Do I remember that story right?

**Patrick Byrne: **Capital markets, the Constitution, not Reagan, was before Reagan, but it was capital markets, the Constitution and Catholic Church. Those were the.

**Chuck Warren: **So Pat.

**Sam Stone: **Isn’t that in the years when Kennedy was actually getting his butt kicked before he got killed?

**Patrick Byrne: **No a little bit after that.

**Chuck Warren: **He’s not that old.

**Patrick Byrne: **Late 60s. Early 70s. I love that when you’re as young as you all is old.

**Sam Stone: **Hey look, I gotta take every opportunity. The average age in my office is like 23. Its hidious. It’s terrifying.

**Chuck Warren: **One thing about Patrick, we did a lot of political projects together. And I remember one day we were pushing school choice in Utah. And Patrick told me to tell the legislators the following. I don’t have any kids. So I’m going to leave all my money to making sure kids have school choice. This was his cause. He believed deeply in it. He took it upon himself to do it. So Patrick, past week or two, we’ve had a bunch of news articles called the Mississippi Miracle.

Where Mississippi was ranked 49th in reading literacy and now has jumped to number nine?

**Sam Stone: **Number nine.

**Chuck Warren: **And the reports have come out even from progressives is a lot of the blame for the dysfunction and the gap in literacy can be blamed on teachers unions. And they pointed out Chicago, which is absolutely crazy and California and all your years in school choice battles. Do you believe teachers unions care about the kids at all, or are they only there for teachers unions?

**Patrick Byrne: **No, teachers unions, their job is to be there for teachers unions. In fact, the if you go back 40 odd years, the president of the American Federation of Teachers actually said this quote. I think you’ve heard it. We’ve talked about it years ago. We said some of the quotes, something like I’ll start worrying about the kids when they start paying my paycheck or something weird that just shows he was saying the job of the union is to look out for the teachers and let other people worry about the students. That’s not our issue.

Now, so they have no, and they act just like any union. Act like any union. They act like any monopoly. The whole point of having a monopoly is to deliver an inferior product at an inflated price and squeeze out the difference. That’s what unions do.

**Sam Stone: **The interesting thing about that is if that was all they did was worry about teacher pay and benefits, I wouldn’t think they’re the threat that they are. But it’s their political activism in every other area, the fact that they’re using teacher dues as a slush fund for every progressive cause and turning schools into indoctrination centers. Now I got a problem, a big one.

**Patrick Byrne: **I’m with you. I’m with you. know, Milton Friedman said that the well, actually, Lincoln said that the philosophy of the school room today is the philosophy of society tomorrow. And then if you have a socialist school system, it’s going to teach socialist values. You have a free market system that will teach freedom as a value. Well, what we have, I mean, when Jimmy went back when Jimmy Carter founded the Department of Education, the U.S. educational system was number one in the world.

Now our results are sort of 35th to 40th in the industrial, we’re at the bottom of the industrialized world. That’s what happens when the federal government shows up and says, hey, we’re here to, we’re going to really help you manage this. So it’s been, it’s been a disaster in the whole way down. The unions have been fighting to make education more about ideological brainwashing and less about something they can be measured on. Cause they hate to be measured cause they’re giving a lousy product and don’t want to be measured.

**Chuck Warren: **Yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, like there’s, there’s some really great lies in the world. One is we’re here from the government and we’re here to help you. You know, when someone in a business is always bringing up their faith, you can pretty much can tell you’re going to get screwed on that. Number three, number three.

**Patrick Byrne: **Alhamdulillah.

**Chuck Warren: **Then number three is when a teacher’s union says they’re there for the kids. It’s just, it’s a lie. So anyway, yeah, you know, the school choice movement has really taken a life of its own now.

And Patrick, we introduced you earlier as an e-commerce pioneer. You really are a school voucher pioneer in many ways. This would not have happened without all of your early investments. You know you lead with your fist sometimes and it had to be done. And that’s okay because as a result of that, there’s a lot of kids, especially Keel. I read something a couple of months ago that if you took out all the inner cities, America’s education is like eighth in the world.

**Patrick Byrne: **Oh really?

**Chuck Warren: **Yeah. So you have helped these kids in the inner city for the families willing to sacrifice and take them to school and pick them up, an opportunity to make a difference in this world, to have a life to pursue their dreams.

**Sam Stone: **Low-income kids in Arizona who go to charter schools have results very closely on par with the white upper-income kids who go to public schools.

**Chuck Warren: **Absolutely. So Patrick, this movement that’s happening all across the country, you were one of the early ones that said, I’m doubling down on this, I’m not tripling down, and you deserve credit for that.

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