- On EdTech Newsletter
- Posts
- Friday Follow Up
Friday Follow Up
Coursera confirms our reporting, Cal State exemplifies financial challenges, and AI regulatory efforts reset (a bit)
Phil Hill
January 31, 2025
Was this forwarded to you by a friend? Sign up, and get your own copy of the news that matters sent to your inbox every week. Sign up for the On EdTech newsletter. Interested in additional analysis? Try with our 30-day free trial and Upgrade to the On EdTech+ newsletter.
This year we’re exploring improvements to our Online Education Across the Atlantic podcast. We abandoned efforts to share exclusively through On EdTech+ and instead broadened the platforms to include YouTube - we now have three video podcasts available. In the latest one, Neil, Morgan, and I each share three predictions for 2025 in the world of EdTech. You can see the entire podcast here on YouTube, and you can find Online Across the Atlantic on any of your favorite audio podcast players.
Coursera Told You So
In early November, I described Coursera’s unreported content strategy change for premium subscribers. The gist was that Coursera was planning to de-emphasize its Degrees business (OPM contracts with universities) and instead increase the emphasis on generating its own content for Enterprise and Consumer markets.
What I believe we are seeing now is Coursera becoming its own source for online courses in order to accelerate the pace of content development, particularly around generative AI. I also believe this is not just a matter of paying to have partners build content faster, it ties into a broader strategy for Coursera to develop content. And this is already happening if you look at Coursera’s catalog.
This week, Coursera announced a CEO transition, with Jeff Maggioncalda stepping down and outsider Greg Hart taking over [emphasis added].
Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board Andrew Ng said, “Greg is an exceptional and proven leader with over 25 years of experience in leading technology-driven businesses across multiple industries. At Amazon, he led the development and launch of Alexa, an early, innovative and much-loved consumer AI product, and scaled Prime Video globally. Greg has a track record in creating consumer demand, driving growth, and improving operational performance at scale. Following an extensive and thoughtful succession planning process, the Board is confident that Greg is the right leader to deliver Coursera’s next chapter of growth and advance our mission to transform lives through learning.”
During yesterday’s earnings call, Coursera came clean with the changes described above. Even though the Degrees business increased 14% in 2024, the future emphasis is changing to Enterprise sales like Coursera for Campus.
