• Do you have to be an educator to remake higher education?

  By Sarah Lacy May 1, 2013

  Silicon Valley is enamored with the narrative of the 20-something founder who doesn’t know enough of the industry he is disrupting to do otherwise. But sometimes, experience matters. I’m biased, but I’d argue that knowing a thing or two about journalism helps when building a modern media company. And last week, Lynda Weinman– founder of lynda.com– said her secret to...

  Read More
• The real problem with the tech workforce? Computer science moves faster than educators

  By Sarah Lacy April 30, 2013

  We’ve got two more clips from our in-depth sit down with Udacity’s founder Sebastian Thrun. In previous segments we talked about what has worked for Udacity as a business and Thurn’s radical thoughts on teaching. In these segments we talk less about Udacity as a company and more about the problems with education on a macro level. In...

  Read More
• Sebastian Thrun: “Grave times require radical thinkers”

  By Sarah Lacy April 30, 2013

  If you are a traditional educator, this video will likely infuriate you. In it, Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun and I talk about what is working with online education and what isn’t. He’s plenty critical of the movement he’s part of — citing the 90% drop out rates of a lot of massive online courses. “I’m the first one to...

  Read More
• How Sebastian Thrun plans to “fix computer science”

  By Sarah Lacy April 29, 2013

  We couldn’t let our month on online education end without a sit down with Sebastian Thrun. While he hasn’t had the billion dollar exits, Thrun is one of the only entrepreneurs today who could hold a candle to Elon Musk in the ballsy, futurist Renaissance man department. He helped invent Google’s self driving car and Google glass, but left all...

  Read More
• Lynda.com’s “agonizing decision” to take venture capital

  By Sarah Lacy April 26, 2013

  All week we’ve brought you clips from our interview with Lynda Weinman, the founder of lynda.com– one of the only online education companies to actually build a big, profitable, sustainable business. The company first got on our radar because of the recent whopper of a series A: $103 million round. That’s the largest round of venture capital ever invested in...

  Read More
• Why not all online education is about credits

  By Sarah Lacy April 25, 2013

  Lynda.com is an interesting leader in the online education space. You could argue it’s having one of the biggest impacts on people’s digital skill development. It’s certainly one of the most successful companies in terms of revenues and fundraising. And yet, it doesn’t actually offer any accreditation — and says it won’t ever. It’s all about learning for the joy...

  Read More
• 

  Belly dance: Can Lightbank and Chicago’s hot new company avoid Groupon’s missteps?

  By Sarah Lacy April 25, 2013

  The two conversations I’ve had with Silicon Valley insiders where loyalty company Belly has come up have both been effusive. But oddly enough, both have invoked the disaster that is Groupon. The first one was an off the record conversation months ago about how Groupon’s inexperience, arrogance and sloppiness tainted the promise of bringing the local retailers into the...

  Read More
• 

  Put away your wallet, startup. Spark decides to cover its own legal fees

  By Sarah Lacy April 24, 2013

  As startups have become more capital efficient and seed funds have proliferated, the battle for the best early stage deals has intensified. That’s led to an arms race among early stage VCs to prove how entrepreneur-friendly they can be. Some have hired armies of recruiters and PR professionals to help startups out for free, others promise quick closes with advantageous...

  Read More
• The secret to a good online course (Hint: It’s not technology)

  By Sarah Lacy April 24, 2013

  In our second installment of our Skype sit down with lynda.com founder Lynda Weinman, I asked a simple question: What makes a good online course? In the current frenzy around online education and MOOCs, we spend a lot of time focused on the science of what technology can enable — and less on the art about what may...

  Read More
• Who says education can’t be lucrative? The early days of Lynda.com

  By Sarah Lacy April 23, 2013

  We certainly couldn’t spend a month focusing on online education and not include Lynda.com. The 17-year-old company grabbed the Valley’s attention when it raised a whopping $103 million series A deal lead by Accel Partners in January– a hefty series A by any standards and the most ever raised in a single round by an edtech company, according to...

  Read More

More articles »