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3 years ago by woeirua

This will probably be downvoted like crazy here, but I thought we were against for-profit education?

Pretty sure everyone was up in arms when University of Phoenix and the like were bilking students of tens of thousands in student loans and then dumping them on the street with worthless degrees (or worse incomplete degree programs).

Sure the content of the Coursera programs may be better than anything you might have had access to with UoP, but the reality is that the degrees/certificates are just as useful right now as UoP's ever were. Until the rigor is there the degrees will continue to be worth nothing. Unfortunately, that means that Coursera's business model is probably fundamentally broken, as they have previously admitted that too many people drop out if the courses are too hard. Also, making the courses meaningful would certainly require hiring a lot of TAs to grade assignments, which would cost them a lot of money.

I agree that online education definitely has a role to play in the future... But I'm really struggling to see why everyone agrees that one for-profit school is unequivocally bad, but the other gets a free pass.

3 years ago by sammorrowdrums

I'm one of the faces of the Coursera ads (they interviewed me about career change from drummer to deveoper). I feel exactly the same. When it was free, and when for profit institutions were experimenting more too, it felt like a revolution. The Stanford 'Startup Engineering' course on Coursera was only offered back then and it was amazing. Andrew Ng's ML, Prinston's Algorithms, all free including certificate.

I used Udacity CS101, Google Python Class and loads of other free resources and changed my life. It was true when I said Coursers changed my life. What has been slightly sad as it took Coursera years to start seriously advertising with my face, and even when they interviewed me they were almost beyond recognition.

It makes me sad I just happened to learn CS and software development during the online education wild west. That's what I dreamed of for everyone. Top level education for everyone, for free. I didn't care about certificates. I had knowledge and projects I could prove.

It may not all be doom and gloom, but when people ask me for recommendations after seeing advert, I sigh a little, because situation isn't as great as it was.

https://youtu.be/Z1lqnyEp38o

3 years ago by Gene_Parmesan

Count me as another person for whom Coursera was a life-changer. I went from disaffected lawyer to deeply satisfied software dev in 4 years, in large part due to Coursera and edX, with nods to MIT's OpenCourseWare and Stanford's platform as well. Classes such as Nand to Tetris, Prof Sedgwick's algorithms, Prof Ng's ML on Coursera and MIT's Intro to CS and Programming on edX, among many others, were more than enough to get me to a place where I felt confident applying for jobs. (Especially when mixed with a few years of a Pluralsight sub as well, and some time as a volunteer with a nonprofit.)

I am deeply indebted to Coursera, but I always felt like they would struggle making money. People are only willing to pay for certs if they mean something, and unfortunately they don't. When I interviewed, every place I met with was impressed by the courses I had put myself through and the knowledge I had gained -- but not a single one even asked a question about any certificates. I always thought a sub model would probably fit them better, but it's obviously difficult-nigh-on-impossible to claw back free content. If they wanted the content to stay free, they really needed the strong backing of some sort of private entity.

3 years ago by sammorrowdrums

100% same. Never showed certificates to a soul. But just as with you, was is not too difficult showing knowledge in software industry, at least in most startups.

And yes, some of the other platforms have been amazing too. I did the full databases course on Stanfords platform. That was priceless, and also free. Relational algebra was exactly the sort of theoretical knowledge that just learning from experience and docs doesn't teach.

Interestingly I also find most companies I have seen willing to pay for courses want some kind of certificate at the end. They don't seem to value abstract learning, even though that's the part that their team leverage to hopefully help their bottom line.

I want the platforms to make money, but I feel like universities who were not wanting to be left behind when the concept was emerging gave away far more for a short moment than they ever were going to continue to do.

Certificates and credentials and things distract from actual verifiable learning in so much of education. It is deeply ironic because that is their entire purpose.

I understand regulated industries like legal, medical and engineering need to have minimum standards that require certification, but yet the quality and reliability of practitioners varies wildly. I just feel like by turning education into a product, it is a necessary evil. Government funding is an avenue that lots of academic institutions go down. Perhaps governments should invest in more free and open education. Rather than for example funneling so much money to textbook companies.

Call me naĆÆve and idealistic, I appreciate that there are problems and counter arguments, and as mentioned in many comments, competition does help to drive down prices. I certainly think we are still in a much better place now with it all. I'm still optimistic about all the amazing education opportunities online.

3 years ago by ghaff

>I always thought a sub model would probably fit them better, but it's obviously difficult-nigh-on-impossible to claw back free content.

That's basically the LinkedIn model as I understand it--which has what used to be Lynda and maybe other things. I have it available as part of my company's continuing ed materials.

But what works as a professional resource paid for by companies doesn't necessarily work for individuals who will mostly only pay for a cert that employers are specifically looking at. Maybe some would pay a Netflix-range monthly fee but I suspect not enough.

3 years ago by sammorrowdrums

What they don't really go into in edited interview properly is that early on it also felt like open courses online could end paying for mediocre teaching, you could basically skip around doing best-in-class courses from top teachers and experts in their fields, and it didn't matter if you had no money in the world, just internet and a computer.

3 years ago by Graffur

Online learners need to be use multiple sources and tools to learn. Use some of Coursera's free content with some YouTube videos with some blog posts with some Udemy sales with some library books.

It's unreasonable to expect one institution to provide all of the above for free and they just can't compete with the broad range of the internet.

The internet itself is the revolution in learning, not Coursera and not Udemy.

3 years ago by sammorrowdrums

I don't disagree. It is true I feel sentimental, the sadness is only that what I had at that precise moment in history was so amazing and so "let's just try it and see how it goes" from educators, platforms and students that it made it so easy to access great classes including lecturers time from places like Stanford for free. What I got is not available for free. All the knowledge is available, from free and open sources though. Just not packaged as easily.

But you are still correct.

3 years ago by golergka

If it provided such an enormous value to you, what's wrong with paying for it?

3 years ago by nosianu

I took more than 60 courses on Coursera and edX, like the parent commenter mostly during the completely free days. About a fifth of it was top level, about a third was "easy" courses, for example history of architecture.

I did not take a single course in my profession (I'm a CS guy doing architecture work now). Most of it was in chemistry, org. chem, bio-chem., anatomy, physiology, medicinal chemistry (drug development), neuroscience, biology/genetics, clinical study design - plus a lot of statistics practical courses (using R to do stuff, there was a very good multi-course series on Coursera).

I would not have paid anything because 1) it was just for fun, I cannot make any money with what I learned, and 2) I was earning a pittance only because I was doing did for a few years while recovering my health.

I think I can generalize the second point at least a little bit - I could see a lot of people taking such courses exactly when they are not busy in their jobs. It takes waaayyyyy too much effort to do this on the side when you have an active job and especially a family on top. Therefore I think a lot of the people who would be interested are exactly those who may not have the budget to pay.

Even more so because there are plenty of alternatives (for me my learning marathon years started with 100 hours of physiology lectures in a Youtube channel, and if I had to pay anything for access there was no way I would have ever even found any for-pay courses in the first place since the whole thing was completely accidental, one thing leading to another), and also because those "certificates" don't mean a thing.

The FOR PAY model removes all the "play" part, only people with a plan andintent come to such a place in the first place. I think free education would be far better, attracting more "accidents" like myself who never planned for any of it.

Already when I took the courses I knew they were doomed to disappear (in that form) because there would be insufficient profit. I always thought some way to fund such sites so that they can provide FREE quality education would be better instead of forcing them into the usual profit constraints. Of course 99% would be "wasted" from the point of view of the monetary-minded people (for whom my own years-long for fun learning would be completely useless too), but even they might see that even just a tiny percentage of people who do benefit and who would never found the opportunity in a for-pay edu system would be worth it, globhal-economically speaking. The price is insignificant compared to any presence-based learning (and having created multimedia learning content I certainly don't undervalue the effort for even a single course, but it's a one-time effort, and the continued presence of TAs can be achieved from within the learning community, I did that too for some of the more technical courses, free support to other learners helped me learn that much more by having to research other people's questions).

3 years ago by sammorrowdrums

Also I would probably consider a pay-it-forward model of being able to sponsor others doing the courses that have subsequently brought me value, now that I have actually got some value from doing them.

3 years ago by sammorrowdrums

For me nothing, in principal, but in reality I would not have done it. I finished Startup Engineering staying on friends couch between gigs. I did not have the cash.

And when I first tried coding from a self-paced course much earlier on, I wouldn't have started casually with a paywall.

Also, I valued the fact people in economies where they would almost certainly not afford US / European prices could freely participate as long as internet was available.

For me it is sort of like if you had to pay for git. It is one of my most used and valued tools, but part of its inherent value is its ubiquity, which I do believe has only come to pass because of the fact it is free software in all senses.

There's a difference between something we all have, and something we could have if we are able/willing to pay and I think education overall needs a bit of both.

3 years ago by 3eto

People underestimate the value of free.

There are millions of kids and people of all ages going to extremes to access the internet to learn new stuff.

I met a kid in a remote village who would cycle for miles every weekend they were not working to seat in a public library to learn on the internet, for that kid a course costing 1 penny would be too expensive and no one in the family had a credit card to begin with.

Sal Khan deserves all the praise and more, Khan Academy is now in multiple languages, his videos are literally changing peopleā€™s lives.

MITā€™s edX used to be free, they are now monetising the courses and will withdraw access after their self imposed artificial course time has run out if you donā€™t pay them, this also creates a second class of students, the ones with money get special privileges and get graded and the poor ones donā€™t and offering ā€˜financial aidā€™ doesnā€™t work if you really want to reach far and wide, how many will close the site when they see it costs thousands of dollars for a course? In a sense edX is way more disappointing than Coursera.

But just like I stopped recommending Coursera when they started restricting access to their courses I look forward to shorting their stock when they go public and donating the profits to educational nonprofits.

3 years ago by cute_boi

Yup I am tired with this strategy.

Start with free tell them you are doing novel thing -> Becomes Popular -> Start milking money

I am thankful to Khan Academy for this exact reason. Everyone is equal in their eyes and doesn't discriminate people based on how rich they are.

European and American people don't realize how much privileged they are.

3 years ago by paulcarroty

> But just like I stopped recommending Coursera when they started restricting access to their courses

Same story, now I recommend Freecodecamp & Khan Academy. Some of Stanford free courses are very good too.

3 years ago by dmurray

Coursera's upsell advertising (I'm working through, and recommend, Dan Grossman's Programming Languages right now) seems to have switched away from advertising the vocational benefits of their certificates to making it sound like a charity.

It used to be "get this certificate to get 6x more LinkedIn views". Now, 50% of the ads I get are "support Coursera's mission to bring people education for free".

3 years ago by yunesj

> I thought we were against for-profit education?

Jeeze, not everyone on HN has the same viewpoint!

These categories of schools just have different funding mechanisms and thus different incentive structures. Compared to private nonprofits, for-profits can crowdfund creation of the school, but give up some ownership. On the other hand, public nonprofits are controlled by politicians and the general public.

> why did [many people] think that one for-profit is bad, and the other gets a free pass

I suppose for most people it was a value judgement, rather than an ideological one. The same reason why someone might dislike McDonaldā€™s, but still like Veganburg. Bang-per-buck, many Coursera classes are a better value than those at other schools, whether they are for-profit, private nonprofit, or public.

3 years ago by theptip

I donā€™t get why weā€™d dismiss a cheaper option out-of-hand. Easy to steel-man this one;

* economy of scale means itā€™s cheaper for the same quality

* egalitarian access means you donā€™t need X gpa to get the top classes

* online means the TAM / impact is way bigger

* lack of actual degree for most courses means you are spending your dollars on actual learning and not merely paying to signal middle-class membership

Iā€™m not necessarily buying in to all of these but I think thereā€™s clearly enough to justify the business on its surface. Havenā€™t dug into the biz metrics though.

Anecdotally a friend did Open University which is probably equivalent to the full degrees offered at Coursera, but less convenient. They spent years grinding out a degree after work. They are a data scientist now. So this path is valuable and increases access to (Iā€™d argue overly) credentialed jobs.

3 years ago by the_only_law

Open University is an incredibly interesting idea to me, and apparently a respected University in the UK at least, but even with that it just doesnā€™t feel right.

For someone who did not take the traditional path to schooling, wanting to go back open access is amazing, but if the primary value of the credential is correlated with selectivity, I canā€™t help but feel off. It effectively feels like pay to play and to the average person who hasnā€™t heard of the school/program, does it signal more than a for-profit. I also couldnā€™t be sure, not being familiar with how UK programs are generally structured, but a lot of the programs looks extremely superficial, and wide, like what you would get from a low tier AS program at a bad community college. This is kinda the same feeling I had with certain degree options through Coursera as well.

3 years ago by nprateem

I considered doing an MBA with the OU. I called up, but I'd "missed the deadline", and I haven't gone back. The next round was starting in 3 or 6 months or something, not to mention it'd cost me several Ā£k. In the meantime I've continued to take many courses on Coursera.

The only time a certificate would be useful to me would be if I wanted to change career. Other than that, I just want the knowledge, and Coursera lets me blast through courses to get top quality information. I love it.

3 years ago by theptip

OU is legit. My pal did Physics, then got into an engineering masters at a good university, then did a data science for grads transition course.

Flexible course curriculum but it seems they give you the stamp you need to get to the next level, and perhaps more importantly, the flexibility to do it at your own pace. It may be that as you say you can pick your curriculum to be shallow, I donā€™t know the details Iā€™m afraid.

I think a lot of roles just care about box-ticking; degree in CS or related STEM field. The recruiter doesnā€™t care where from if you tick the box. In some sense itā€™s BS, and Coursera may be the cheapest way to hack the system here.

My friend found it really rewarding and empowering to get his degree even though he took a detour to get it, so i can at least provide a third-hand vouching for the quality of OU from an educational content perspective, as well as passing the bar for credentialism too.

Caveat Emptor, I donā€™t have any positive or negative testimonials on Coursera for getting a job. And Iā€™d actually suggest in software that you can get into the field without a degree much more easily than other STEM fields. But if youā€™re not in a tech hub then the credential might help you to get a foot in the door if you are otherwise struggling to see a way to do so.

3 years ago by andyjohnson0

I know two people with OU degrees (CS and Law respectively) and their qualifications are proper, legitimate degrees. The content seemed as challenging (frequently more so) as the material I had to contend with doing a full-time three year degree. But they did it over eight years while also doing a full-time day job. Anyone who can do that has my sincere admiration. I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it.

3 years ago by modeless

I took Geoff Hinton's Coursera course on neural nets when it was first offered and it was incredible. No exaggeration to say it changed the course of my career. That's all to Geoff's credit of course, not Coursera per se. But the idea that you can get instruction from the world's foremost expert in a topic rather than whoever your university happened to hire, or even if you're not in university at all, is pretty disruptive.

3 years ago by abraxas

I also took that course. It might be a bit due to my less than stellar math background but mostly due to the way Geoff explains stuff that I had a really hard time keeping up.

I ended up giving up and not bothering with deep learning and neural nets until the amazing, legendary, awesome CS231n was made available taught by Andrej Karpathy.

I don't know what it is about the way Andrej teaches but it's so good that I literally binge watched all of CS231n over a weekend and then went back to the start and watched again while working through the exercises.

Just goes to show that not every teaching style will fit every student and that's why online learning has a big future - teaching/learning style compatibility is a hugely under-appreciated issue.

I admire Geoff Hinton. I'm also proud of his accomplishments as a fellow Canadian. But I'm not in sync with the way he explains stuff though I'll always watch every lecture and presentation he puts out on video.

3 years ago by huseyinkeles

Karpathy really knows how to teach and keep you engaged.

Random anecdote; I learned how to solve Rubikā€™s cube and get to sub 30 seconds by watching his YouTube channel ~10 years ago (He was a PhD student at Stanford at the time). I was always amazed by his teaching skills even back then.

https://youtube.com/user/badmephisto/videos

3 years ago by modeless

It was definitely not a casual course. I went in hoping for a graduate level course and that's what it was. I had to spend a lot of time on it. I didn't find the math too advanced but understanding the lectures and doing the exercises took a while.

Karpathy's CS231n was indeed another great course. We're really spoiled for choice these days.

3 years ago by nx7487

Risk vs reward, you probably _can't_ get a "career changing" course without making it too difficult for some people.

3 years ago by lordnacho

The real benefit of this online course thing is that you can find multiple explanations of anything, instead of being stuck with whoever is teaching at your institution.

3 years ago by teruakohatu

> rather than whoever your university happened to hire

Two years ago Geoff Hinton requested his course be removed because it was out of date.

At a university, at least at a post-graduate level, you are probably going to be taught by a deep learning researcher passionate about the subject, with the added advantage of support if you struggle with some concepts.

3 years ago by obsequiosity

True, but while there's a qualitative difference between traditional university provided education and on-demand e-learning, there's also a striking monetary and commitment difference.

3 years ago by modeless

Yeah, it's definitely out of date now. That's Coursera's responsibility to replace it with something more recent.

3 years ago by anonymousDan

What are the main aspects that are out of date? Can you point to a more up to date course?

3 years ago by nknealk

Probably the most important line:

To reinforce our long-term commitment to providing global access to affordable and flexible world-class learning, on February 1, 2021, we amended our certificate of incorporation to become a Delaware public benefit corporation. Public benefit corporations are a relatively new class of corporations that are intended to produce a public benefit and to operate in a responsible and sustainable manner. Under Delaware law, public benefit corporations are required to identify in their certificate of incorporation the public benefit or benefits they will promote, and their directors have a duty to manage the affairs of the corporation in a manner that balances the pecuniary interests of the stockholders, the best interests of those materially affected by the corporationā€™s conduct, and the specific public benefit identified in the public benefit corporationā€™s certificate of incorporation. See ā€œRisk Factorsā€”Risks Relating to Our Existence as a Public Benefit Corporationā€ and ā€œDescription of Capital Stockā€”Public Benefit Corporation Status.ā€ The public benefit stated in our certificate of incorporation is to provide global access to flexible and affordable high-quality education that supports personal development, career advancement, and economic opportunity.

3 years ago by sgpl

I've really enjoyed taking courses on Coursera, some paid, but I've mostly audited stuff I've found interesting. Really hoping that they're able to find a way towards profitability and exist as a public company in the long run. Looking at the numbers it doesn't seem like it'll be that hard.

They definitely seemed to have benefitted from covid in terms of registered users which isn't a huge surprise. Registered users from 2019 to 2020 grew by 67%, averaging around 23-24% for the few prior years.

Revenue jumps at a similar rate from 2019 to 2020, from about $184m to 293m, 59% growth.

11,900 degree students at the end of 2020, with degree segment revenue doubling from $15m in 2019 to $30m in 2020.

Some stats from the filing:

    year     users     revenue
    2020 - 77m users / $293m
    2019 - 46m users / $184m
    2018 - 37m users / $141m
    2017 - 30m users / $95m
25+ degrees offered in the price range: $9k to $45k
3 years ago by fny

The jump from 2019 to 2020 is enormous compared to their typical growth rate of around 20%. It'll be exciting to see if they can sustain that post COVID.

3 years ago by bschne

Coursera has definitely aggregated some great content, but the evaluations on most of the courses if you go for the certificate are ridiculous ā€” it works well for auto-graded programming assignments, but so much of the other stuff is peer-graded with lots of spammy submissions, so it's barely more meaningful than e.g. a microsoft certification.

Does anyone have some experiences with their degree programmes? Curious to hear if these are more promising...

3 years ago by ghaff

Based on my experience in a couple courses a while back, the programming auto-graders were pretty good. Not perfect, your code could presumably be a total tire fire but so long as it produced the right answer it was OK--which is admittedly a good part of the battle.

But, yeah, every peer-reviewed assignment and use of discussion board was awful. This isn't a university where everyone is more or less on at least roughly the same footing with respect to language, educational level, and commitment. At least company certs have to maintain some quality floor if they're going to have some value for employers and therefore of interest to would-be employees. As soon as they become viewed as diploma mill trash they're done.

3 years ago by chris11

In their defense, I went to a large state university, and some classes used automated grading as part of the assignment grade. One class was basically just one large group project, a large portion of my grade there was based on peer feedback. The most detailed code review I got was at an internship. But I do agree, I'd say in-person and online degrees should both be higher quality than a MOOC.

3 years ago by latencyloser

I'm enrolled in CU Boulder's MSEE program that's administered through Coursera. It's decent, definitely not as good as in person instruction (for me at least), but is probably a good deal for people who are ok being largely self-taught/directed and only need some light help from TAs if necessary. The content seems pretty good and up-to-date so far as I can tell. The price competitiveness and flexibility is ultimately what led me to give it a shot. I'm also doing it to complement an existing career, not bet my future on it, so the downsides for me are somewhat negligible vs someone with no work experience who might be doing the program. So take that as you will...

The peer reviews are definitely better in the degree program, but there's always a few people not even trying, of course. Nothing that's really impacted my own work.

3 years ago by the_only_law

I looked at that program, but I was very cautious. Itā€™s an open program, which means you donā€™t even have have to have an undergrad at all, albeit you do need to have an understanding of the prerequisites. While personally, I find this and the price point absolutely amazing, I have to wonder what that means for the value of the credential obtained. On paper itā€™s basically paying for a degree and an MS-EE at that. From engineers Iā€™ve talked to, they donā€™t even trust accredited online programs.

3 years ago by latencyloser

CU Boulder advertises the resulting degree as indistinguishable from their on-campus program from a records perspective (you're even invited to the graduation ceremony afaik). How much truth there will be to this, I've yet to see.

3 years ago by geomark

Agree on the peer reviewing in non-degree courses. I never got spammy-looking reviews, but I did get ridiculous reviews where one reviewer would grade high, another low and a third make no effort and just say "pass". It was clear that many had no clue what they were talking about or made zero effort. No way I would settle for that in a paid course.

3 years ago by nonameiguess

I'd be inclined to trust the degree programs, but can't speak from personal experience. There are reputable universities putting their names on the line and giving out degrees. They're also cheaper than in-person degrees but way more expensive than the specialization certificates. There is clearly effort there and I'm sure you get real TAs grading your work and giving feedback, not peers, and the classmates are people who qualified to get into a MS program, not literally anyone who clicked a sign up button. UIUC and Penn aren't going to give you a MS if you didn't earn it.

3 years ago by hellbannedguy

I guess this is the time to make the big money. So much moola you can buy out your neighbors homes, and live like a king.

The wealthy boys have so much money they donā€™t know where it park it. Ten year interest rate is up, celebrities are now guru SPAC wizards, hedge fund guys are acting like immature teens in order to manipulate stocks on Reddit.

Every time Iā€™ve seen this exuberance; the Retail investor is left out to dry badly bloody, and completely broke.

I sure hope Warren getā€™s her rich boy tax passed. In my neighborhood the wealthy canā€™t buy enough junk off Amazon, and at the same time complain over the number of homeless camps popping up.

3 years ago by rohitb91

People have the money to take an exclusive trip around the moon but not help the homeless they step over on the way to the ship

such is life

3 years ago by EvilEy3

We live one life, some people have other priorities than you do.

3 years ago by blockyhead

Why does it end with the retail investor as a loser.

For example the neighbors whose homes are being bought probably make good money.

And if you are convinced it is a bad time for retail investors, don't invest.

What alternative do you propose? Government regulations on what everybody is allowed to own? Granted, they could stop printing money.

3 years ago by darepublic

My experience with Coursera was very positive at first. I took the popular Andrew Ng machine learning course. Subsequent visits have been less positive as the site tried to monetize.. offering mostly meaningless certificates and intruding to authenticate you while taking quizzes (even though I didn't care about the certificate)

3 years ago by xtracto

To think that i took the original ml-course Ng) and ai-course (Norvig) years ago. Great courses.

Currently I find Udacity model better than Coursera: I can get a course and take it in my own time without having to stick to a schedule. Also the fact that I pay for what I consume. I personally dont like subscription model for these things you may use once or twice every yesr

3 years ago by azangru

> Subsequent visits have been less positive as the site tried to monetize..

Yeah, I remember Dan Ariely's course on behavioral economics, and ā€” my favorite ā€” Yuval Harari's course on the human history from the early, pre-paid-certificate days of Coursera. That was fun! I have a feeling that as the site became more commercial it has also become less fun.

3 years ago by granzymes

  FY Ended December 31, in millions except percentage

                 |  2019  |  2020  |  YoY  
  ---------------|--------|--------|-------
  revenue        | $184   | $294   | 60%   
  gross profit   | $95    | $155   | 63%   
  op ex          | $143   | $221   | 55%   
  net (loss)     | $(47)  | $(67)  | (43)%  
  (loss) ex SBC  | $(31)  | $(50)  | (61)%  
  free cash flow | $(31)  | $(27)  | 15%   
 
  total users    | 46     | 77     | 67%   
  net retention  | 106%   | 114%   | --
3 years ago by dasudasu

What do they spend all that op ex on?

3 years ago by granzymes

I didn't include the breakdown for the sake of brevity (and also because with only 3 categories it is quite nebulous) but here you go.

  In thousands, except percentage

                             |  2019   |  2020    | YoY
  ---------------------------|---------|----------|-----
  research and development   | $56,364 | $76,784  | 36%
  sales and marketing        | $57,042 | $107,249 | 88%
  general and administrative | $29,810 | $37,215  | 25%
3 years ago by CuriousNinja

Wow, didn't expect them to spend so much money on marketing. Given that they are now registered as a public benefit corporation wouldn't this money be better spent as "scholarships" or something for their courses for students who can't afford the fees. I would assume that if they are actually providing a worthwhile public service, then word of mouth should bring in enough users rather than having to spend most of their opex on marketing.

3 years ago by prepend

Rent, marketing, affiliates, IP, etc

3 years ago by undefined
[deleted]
3 years ago by f430

Price to earnings ratio is at an all time high, once the credit bubble bursts, so will the investors appetite for such companies.

3 years ago by whitepaint

You have absolutely no clue what will happen or when.

3 years ago by f430

tell me. please why a company that loses 40 cents for every dollar they spend should have double digit multiples. you have 1 hour to reply with a fully cited explanation justifying this level of exuberance in a low yield credit bubble driving up valuations while overall the industry has seen a net reduction in profitability.

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