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I left America for 3 years and traveled to every corner of the globe. Stayed on every continent. Visited my 60th country. I seriously contemplated living abroad long-term, but eventually the decision became clear: I would move back to the USA. The reason was simple: As an Indian American man, raised by parents who had not a dime to their name when they arrived, America was the only place that would truly accept me. In India, I’d always be seen as an outsider. I wasn’t Indian enough. In Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa, I would never be considered a local. Each country treated me extremely well (in part because I was American) and I’m grateful for the hospitality. But I could tell I’d be an outsider forever. An expat. America is one of the few places on earth that provides radical acceptance to outsiders, immigrants, and minorities. (Canada seems to as well). Combine that with insane economic opportunity, gorgeous natural beauty, and some of the best food in the world. I had to come back. I am so grateful for this country. Happy 4th of July!

Udemy will do $700M in revenue this year 🤯 Udemy for Business is on a $400M ARR 💥 Still can't believe we started that when I was like 21 years old. The internet is wild.

At Udemy, we were 3 first-time entrepreneurs trying to raise seed capital. We made every mistake in the book. We got 200+ no’s and wasted 12 months fundraising. We eventually pulled through, just barely. 😅 This thread shares our mistakes as lessons for founders. **Read On**

Introducing “Superpowers” - the underlying skills that help you succeed at anything I spent nearly 6 months building this list and almost wrote a book on the subject Instead, I’ve condensed that work into a pithy (and punchy) Twitter thread **Read On**

Duolingo is a fascinating study in consumer "education." The app is fairly useless for language learning* but is wildly popular. 88.4M Monthly Active Users 6.6M Paid Subscribers $530M in FY 2023 Revenue $93.7M in FY 2023 EBITDA The kicker? $8.4B market cap. 2x bigger than Udemy + Coursera combined. Shocking considering it is more edutainment than education.* Lessons: - Consumers often engage more with edutainment (competing with Candy Crush or TikTok) than education. There's a very weak correlation to effectiveness. (MasterClass is another example imho: low on learning, still very successful). - Duolingo still has a HUGE impact on language learning for millions of people because they are 1000x bigger. Even if they are 100x less effective than another language learning app, they can still provide 10x more value to the overall population. - Growth and EBITDA are significant better than Udemy/Coursera. The market loves profitable, fast-growing companies (why wouldn't they?) *Sorry, but its true. Duolingo is a fun game, but you can spend years on it and not be able to have a conversation in your language of choice.

Before Udemy could succeed, we had to solve a chicken and egg problem. These problems are a constant dilemma for founders. (ie. Funding is needed to scale but scale is needed for funding.) Here's how we bumbled to a solution that kicked off our $3B business. **Read On**

The dirty little secret of edtech: the biggest names don’t actually care if you learn anything. As co-founder of Udemy, it is something I reckon with every day… Duolingo - edtech’s only decacorn, worth $14B. Brilliant app, addictive product, and great for motivation. But let’s be honest: most users can’t hold a basic conversation in their chosen language. It’s a game, not an education. Masterclass - it’s called “edutainment” for a reason. Great brand and team. But not useful for serious learning. Udemy/Coursera opened access to millions, but video courses have a fatal flaw: they only work for the most motivated. 4-10% completion rates! I still get DMs about their positive impact, but still average person doesn’t view them as mainstream solutions to education. Kajabi/Teachable nailed creator monetization. But many (not all) creators don’t prioritize outcomes — just sales. Too many $5,000 “get rich quick” courses with spammy marketing. There are gems, of course, but still not enough quality for mainstream acceptance. Then there’s University of Phoenix, the worst offender. It proved you could tap federal student loans, deliver poor outcomes, and keep billions in revenue. Ironically, the best education models — coding bootcamps like App Academy, BloomTech, General Assembly, Galvanize — actually drove real outcomes. But they didn’t quite reach scale. In large part due to unfair (and immoral, imho) practices by the higher education cartel. Here’s the thing: everyone in this space starts with good intentions. I know the teams at Duolingo, Udemy, and others. They care. But the incentives of Edtech 1.0 pushed everyone toward engagement and monetization instead of real learning. Public investors eventually caught on. Consumer growth stalled, B2B slowed, and valuations dropped. Coursera/Udemy are each ~$700M (!!) in annual revenue, but trade at 1.5-2.5x multiples (!!). It is a hard time in edtech. We need Edtech 2.0. The next generation needs to deliver real learning outcomes AND high engagement. There’s a number of companies trying - of course I believe Maven is one of them. To build multiple $10B+ companies in education, we need to care deeply about whether people actually learn. American competitiveness is literally reliant on rebuilding our education system. AI is about to trigger the largest upskilling need in modern history. The opportunity is massive — and this time, we can get it right. It may not seem like it, but I’m optimistic. Out from the ashes of Edtech 1.0 will rise Edtech 2.0. The new generation is going to deliver value, and make people believe again.

Some personal news... We're engaged!

At Udemy, we gave equity to one of our competitors’ CEO after their company closed. He pointed out a few pitfalls that we avoided & later bought his first house via money made on Udemy stock. Now, he’s a good friend & presents opps to me I wouldn’t have otherwise. Karma FTW.

Prediction: Over the next decade there will be a revenge of the generalist. Generalists will be rewarded as organizations shrink and employees are asked to do more with less. AI will accelerate this trend as specialized tasks become more and more automated.

Time management boils down to just one skill: saying no.

The hardest part in starting a $100m business: picking the right idea to work on. Pick wrong and you’ll spend years working away with little to no results. Pick right and you'll have a much better chance to succeed. Here’s how I’ve decided what ideas to work on…

Duolingo is a fascinating study in consumer "education." The app is fairly useless for language learning* but is wildly popular. 88.4M Monthly Active Users 6.6M Paid Subscribers $530M in FY 2023 Revenue $93.7M in FY 2023 EBITDA The kicker? $8.4B market cap. 2x bigger than Udemy + Coursera combined. Shocking considering it is more edutainment than education.* Lessons: - Consumers often engage more with edutainment (competing with Candy Crush or TikTok) than education. There's a very weak correlation to effectiveness. (MasterClass is another example imho: low on learning, still very successful). - Duolingo still has a HUGE impact on language learning for millions of people because they are 1000x bigger. Even if they are 100x less effective than another language learning app, they can still provide 10x more value to the overall population. - Growth and EBITDA are significant better than Udemy/Coursera. The market loves profitable, fast-growing companies (why wouldn't they?) *Sorry, but its true. Duolingo is a fun game, but you can spend years on it and not be able to have a conversation in your language of choice.

The dirty little secret of edtech: the biggest names don’t actually care if you learn anything. As co-founder of Udemy, it is something I reckon with every day… Duolingo - edtech’s only decacorn, worth $14B. Brilliant app, addictive product, and great for motivation. But let’s be honest: most users can’t hold a basic conversation in their chosen language. It’s a game, not an education. Masterclass - it’s called “edutainment” for a reason. Great brand and team. But not useful for serious learning. Udemy/Coursera opened access to millions, but video courses have a fatal flaw: they only work for the most motivated. 4-10% completion rates! I still get DMs about their positive impact, but still average person doesn’t view them as mainstream solutions to education. Kajabi/Teachable nailed creator monetization. But many (not all) creators don’t prioritize outcomes — just sales. Too many $5,000 “get rich quick” courses with spammy marketing. There are gems, of course, but still not enough quality for mainstream acceptance. Then there’s University of Phoenix, the worst offender. It proved you could tap federal student loans, deliver poor outcomes, and keep billions in revenue. Ironically, the best education models — coding bootcamps like App Academy, BloomTech, General Assembly, Galvanize — actually drove real outcomes. But they didn’t quite reach scale. In large part due to unfair (and immoral, imho) practices by the higher education cartel. Here’s the thing: everyone in this space starts with good intentions. I know the teams at Duolingo, Udemy, and others. They care. But the incentives of Edtech 1.0 pushed everyone toward engagement and monetization instead of real learning. Public investors eventually caught on. Consumer growth stalled, B2B slowed, and valuations dropped. Coursera/Udemy are each ~$700M (!!) in annual revenue, but trade at 1.5-2.5x multiples (!!). It is a hard time in edtech. We need Edtech 2.0. The next generation needs to deliver real learning outcomes AND high engagement. There’s a number of companies trying - of course I believe Maven is one of them. To build multiple $10B+ companies in education, we need to care deeply about whether people actually learn. American competitiveness is literally reliant on rebuilding our education system. AI is about to trigger the largest upskilling need in modern history. The opportunity is massive — and this time, we can get it right. It may not seem like it, but I’m optimistic. Out from the ashes of Edtech 1.0 will rise Edtech 2.0. The new generation is going to deliver value, and make people believe again.

I left America for 3 years and traveled to every corner of the globe. Stayed on every continent. Visited my 60th country. I seriously contemplated living abroad long-term, but eventually the decision became clear: I would move back to the USA. The reason was simple: As an Indian American man, raised by parents who had not a dime to their name when they arrived, America was the only place that would truly accept me. In India, I’d always be seen as an outsider. I wasn’t Indian enough. In Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa, I would never be considered a local. Each country treated me extremely well (in part because I was American) and I’m grateful for the hospitality. But I could tell I’d be an outsider forever. An expat. America is one of the few places on earth that provides radical acceptance to outsiders, immigrants, and minorities. (Canada seems to as well). Combine that with insane economic opportunity, gorgeous natural beauty, and some of the best food in the world. I had to come back. I am so grateful for this country. Happy 4th of July!

I think Oakland is the Bay Area's best-kept secret. - Incredible weather - Amazing location - Diverse, kind people who aren't defined by their work - Fantastic food and drink - Green, lush parks - Eclectic, edgy, artsy culture I truly love this place!

Prediction: Over the next decade there will be a revenge of the generalist. Generalists will be rewarded as organizations shrink and employees are asked to do more with less. AI will accelerate this trend as specialized tasks become more and more automated.

Hot take: Almost everyone I know who has pets has mixed feelings about whether they would get them again. For the right situation, pets are incredible. But most people underestimate the financial and lifestyle costs.

Introducing “Superpowers” - the underlying skills that help you succeed at anything I spent nearly 6 months building this list and almost wrote a book on the subject Instead, I’ve condensed that work into a pithy (and punchy) Twitter thread **Read On**

Some personal news... We're engaged!

💥 Big News! 💥 Maven is launching over 100+ new courses today to help you accelerate your career. Over the last year, almost 10k professionals from Google, Nasa, McKinsey and Tesla have learned career-boosting skills on Maven. Why are so many people taking courses on Maven?

Udemy will do $700M in revenue this year 🤯 Udemy for Business is on a $400M ARR 💥 Still can't believe we started that when I was like 21 years old. The internet is wild.

An extremely smart recruiter told me yesterday that startups time-to-offer should be 3 days. 🤯 That's time from first comms with a candidate to making an offer. What is time-to-offer at your company?

I’ve never done this before but… I'm offering three full scholarships for courses in Maven’s Build with AI collection. Courses taught directly by AI experts at GitHub, OpenAI, Google, Hugging Face & more – for free. Some of our top courses: • Level Up From Software Engineer