Edtech Insiders
Edtech Insiders
Week in Edtech 9/25/2024: OpenAI’s Raises $6.5B, Google’s $120M AI Education Fund, Salesforce’s $23M for AI Skills, Duolingo’s AI Surge, Udemy Layoffs, AI-Powered Celebrity Learning, Prof Jim’s $1.5M Funding, and More! Feat. Jason Palmer of TOGETHER!
Join hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell as they explore the latest in education technology, AI developments, and key edtech funding moves.
✨ Episode Highlights:
[00:05:12] 👩🏫 OpenAI raises $6.5B and launches OpenAI Academy
[00:09:05] 📚 Google’s $120M AI Education Fund and NotebookLM tools
[00:15:03] 🦜 Duolingo’s AI strategy and record stock prices
[00:22:05] 📉 Udemy lays off hundreds and shifts to lower-cost regions
[00:25:40] 💰 Prof Jim raises $1.5M to expand AI-generated video content
[00:29:13] 🤖 AI-generated celebrity videos teaching math and science
[00:37:16] 💼 David Banks resigns as NYC Schools Chancellor
[00:45:11] 💸 TEAMology raises $1.2M for mental health; Hello Wonder raises $2.1M for safe browsing
Plus special guest:
[00:52:00] 🎙️ Jason Palmer, Former Democratic Presidential Candidate & Co-Founder of TOGETHER!, on education reform, AI, and the future of learning.
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🎉 Presenting Sponsor:
This season of Edtech Insiders is once again brought to you by Tuck Advisors, the M&A firm for Education Entrepreneurs. Founded by serial entrepreneurs with over 25 years of experience founding, investing in, and selling companies, Tuck believes you deserve M&A advisors who work just as hard as you do.
[00:00:00] Alex Sarlin: That's interesting that, you know, you see OpenAI doing this very startup y, I mean, startup on a massive level, but like, very startup y style, like, Okay, we're making money, we've got traction, we've got product market fit, let's do our next round, it's gonna be even bigger, and this is massive. And then you see Google as the sort of incumbent.
Big corporation saying, well, we have all these arms. We're going to put Gemini in our pixel phones. We're going to do all sorts of new things with YouTube. We're going to do all sorts of new things in your Gmail and your docs. Gemini is going to be everywhere. We've talked about it a little bit before, but it's getting clearer and clearer that these are sort of yeah.
It's going to be the two biggest players.
Welcome to edtech insiders, the top podcast covering the education technology industry and funding rounds to impact AI developments across early childhood, K 12, higher ed and work. You'll find it all here at
[00:01:17] Ben Kornell: edtech insiders. Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter and also our event calendar and to go deeper, check out edtech insiders where you can get premium content.
Access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events and back channel insights from Alex and Ben. Hope you enjoyed today's pod.
[00:01:41] Alex Sarlin: Today, we're talking to one of the most intriguing and interesting people in ed tech, Jason Palmer. Jason Palmer is a former democratic presidential candidate and co founder of. Together, that's TOGETHER, all caps with an exclamation point, which is a youth empowerment platform for causes, companies, and campaigns.
TOGETHER supports cutting edge, common sense solutions and the people who champion them in a bipartisan way. Before his presidential run, Palmer served in executive and leadership positions at Microsoft, Kaplan Education, the Gates Foundation, and Impact Investor New Markets Venture Partners. Known as a leader in the conscious capitalism movement, Jason served as a board member to a dozen successful double bottom line companies that have positively impacted over 75 million students and workers and collectively grown to billions of dollars in value.
As a serial entrepreneur, Palmer founded and grew three investor backed technology and services companies and served as a turnaround leader for three others. He holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Virginia and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. Palmer is a proud resident of Baltimore, Maryland, and a devoted father.
And forgive us, the sound quality in this particular episode is a little iffy. Jason joined us from a rooftop in New York. It is a great conversation. Hopefully everything will be audible.
[00:03:08] Ben Kornell: Hello EdTech Insider listeners. It's Ben and Alex, and we are back with another week in EdTech. As always, before we jump into the headlines, let's jump into what's going on with the pod, Alex.
[00:03:21] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. So we just put out two really cool episodes. One is with the founders of Think Human TV. They're one of the tools competition winners that are doing really interesting emotional intelligence training, as well as your interview with Jennifer Holland Google and this coming week, we're coming out with the Talhavivi interview.
Talhavivi does research and development and business development at ASCD plus ISTE, and then, you know, a whole bunch of interesting interviews coming out over the next month or so coming up. We're talking to the CEO of Varsity Tutors, Nerdy, the CEO of Seesaw. All sorts of incredibly interesting folks coming up on the pod.
So keep your ears open and keep subscribing. What about events, Ben?
[00:04:05] Ben Kornell: Well, we had an amazing event in San Francisco. It was actually Salesforce's dream for us week. So downtown San Francisco was insane. And yet we had over 200 people turn out for our happy hour. It was right next to the Salesforce tower. We had beer bottle, brewery, serving up drinks.
And it was just, Oh, you know, it was incredibly energizing experience. Given all the ups and downs in our space, there is something so powerful when our community comes together. And then of course, we're so excited to see all of our friends at the New York ed tech week. We just released a newsletter that really covers our guide to ed tech week.
And this one is going to be really, really fun. There's kind of a locus point at civic call. So instead of traveling all around New York, as in years past, it really has a density of focus. There's a number of sessions, parties, gatherings, and formal and informal that we're just excited to see everybody. So make sure you sign up to be an ed tech insiders plus member.
So you've got access to our exclusive events.
[00:05:12] Alex Sarlin: And there was one panel that stood out to me. It was it's Philip Cutler from paper. It's Jamie Farrell and Steven Jewell from Epic and by Jews and trilogy. Really interesting. But I forget who's the fourth person on that panel again.
[00:05:24] Ben Kornell: That would be me. Thanks so much, Alex.
I'm facilitating that conversation and it's going to be fascinating. I mean, If you want to talk about the three biggest names in ed tech that have had mercurial rise and falls ups and downs, it's these three companies, paper by Jews and to you. And so I think there's a ton of lessons learned and I think.
What's incredible is that these leaders are super humble, super frank, like ready to kind of talk about, you know, the journey that they've been on. And I think it will be super exciting and also insightful. So please show out that I believe it's at 11 a. m. On the Tuesday. So come check it out. We want to pack the room with the ed tech insiders family.
[00:06:08] Alex Sarlin: Uh, at the end of this episode, we have a great guest, a very, very intriguing ed tech legend from new markets, venture partners, and recent presidential candidate on the democratic ticket in the primary Jason Palmer. So check that out at the end of the episode. He has a lot to say, as always.
[00:06:28] Ben Kornell: Well, before we go much further, we really need to cover the world of AI.
It has been a staccato news week in terms of headline after headline, bombshell after bombshell. Alex, we've seen some pretty major news. What are you paying attention to?
[00:06:43] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, so there's the macro and the micro, I think when it comes to some of these big tech companies. So let's start with OpenAI. The macro is that OpenAI is raising a absolutely absurdly large round of funding right now, six billion plus dollars, and they're raising it from some of the other Biggest tech companies in the world.
So they're looking at Microsoft, who's been a, you know, who's backed AI for a long time and has been sort of, you know, they have a large association for a long time at Microsoft was sort of the safe Harbor for Sam Altman when things hit the fan, you know, a year ago, but they're also looking at NVIDIA, the fastest growing tech company and, and, you know, Has flirted with being the biggest company in the world and apple, which continues to be basically the biggest company in the world.
So you're talking about 2 trillion cap companies as investors into open AI. They're raising this massive round and, you know, setting the valuation of open AI at 150 billion. That's pre money, right? And. Who knows what that will do, but it will give them the type of money that, you know, very few companies in the history of the world, tech or not, have had to play with.
So we all have to keep our eye on that. That's the macro. The micro, a couple of interesting things we saw OpenAI do this week, they launched OpenAI Academy, which is a little bit of a sort of combination of some education and some um, Credits a little bit of similar to what we've seen Amazon do in the past or Cisco do in the past where they sort of offer developer credits for people who want to learn and then use open AI in interesting ways, specifically for low and middle income countries.
So that's interesting. And there's so much innovation. That's possible in this space. I'm really excited to see what comes out of that. And then finally, one that's a little bit personal to me, and I'd love to hear your take on all these Ben, but my former boss at Coursera, Leah Belsky, who was, you know, really one of the key executives in Coursera's rise over the last few years, but.
Left recently was just hired as the first general manager of education at open AI. We've talked to a couple of people from open AI on the pod and in various ways in the past, this hopefully we will be getting the inside scoop. Leah is incredibly nice, very smart, very professional. I'm excited for her.
This is quite a gig and I'd also love to get her on the pod. So I'm excited about that too. Ben, what do you think about this giant round or these sort of smaller press releases?
[00:09:05] Ben Kornell: Yeah. Well, first on the giant round, the kind of question is like, what is the exit value that you have to believe in to get a return on your investment?
And it's essentially in the trillions of dollars. It is essentially saying that open AI is actually the most valuable company in the world today. And what's super challenging about that is Microsoft has a ton of control over Open AI is value. There's, you know, it's a capped profit structure. Open AI is, so they've clearly, you know, evolved from a nonprofit to a for profit.
And so it's very complex in how the kind of stock flows to the investors. And I don't know that anyone publicly has full transparency into that, but from employees, what you know is you get a base salary and then you get profit participation units or PPUs. One, I think that's funny. PPUs just sounds kind of like middle school y laugh snicker, but also the PPUs are based on the valuation in the market.
So it almost is like they've IPO'd and have liquidity. Because you're participating in the profit, but therein lies also an irony because it's clearly not profitable. It's burning the most cash of any startup in the history of humankind. And yet these kinds of new rounds essentially allow the equity to be priced up and then allow the employees to get cash grants vested over four years.
So I think what we're seeing is. A brand new technology that is not clear that the market leader wins all it's actually, we're seeing a lot of fast following advantage and yet opening eyes revenue, you can't argue with the, you know, they're pulling in billions of dollars in revenue already after essentially launching chat GPT.
Less than three years ago. And so, you know, it is probably the most successful from a revenue standpoint, startup of all time. And then you've got essentially an innovation in company structure. So it's very hard to value, you know, this investment from an investor standpoint and from an employee standpoint, you've got to love it because you're not going to get locked into some like wait till IPO, kind of like the people at Stripe.
You know, it's been almost two decades of being locked up on their equity and they've had to be really creative about creating liquidity. So that's the big picture is like open AI is going for it. And they're going for a big, these institutional investors are not just betting on open AI itself, but betting on.
The fact that open AI will basically be integrated into all the major systems of the world. We're talking like us federal government systems. We're talking like departments of defense across the world, right? This is not a consumer at TPT that this is. On the Leah Belsky side, I think that's for our audience.
This is the most exciting look, uh, bringing in the chief revenue officer of Coursera and, you know, has the open the argument and OPM like debate rage. It was like, who's going to win? Do you or Coursera? And what's the strategy? The debate is over. Like Coursera has won and Coursera has figured out how to do corporate and how to do higher ed, not just direct to consumer.
And that's why they've won. Open AI is building an adult corporate learning engine. There's not a K 12 first mentality here. It's all adult learning, upskilling. Leah is a super good choice for this role. And with Sia, who's friend of the pod, on the team. And Lane, who's doing their public affairs, you've got to like powerful trio of women crushing it at open a high.
And basically making open AI the default for all adult learning. So I think that it's a clear strategy. It's now all on the table and it's telling you ed tech may have been a rounding error for big tech platforms in the past. Learning is now a seminal use case, and these companies are putting their full power and effort behind it.
[00:13:31] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, it's a great point. It's interesting to see Apple and Microsoft and arguably NVIDIA also line up behind OpenAI, or at least, you know, put money into that. We've seen Amazon really put a lot of money into Anthropic as their sort of horse in the race. And now a lot of these big tech companies looking at opening.
I exactly as you say, Ben, I mean, the bet here is that open AI becomes the, the infrastructure, the AI infrastructure for most use cases of AI, most personal computers, most phones, and then you have on the other side of that, you know, anthropic and Amazon. And of course, Google sort of standing alone, saying, Okay, we have been doing AI for a long time.
We have had AI built into our search algorithms. We've had AI built into YouTube. We just talked to the head of YouTube for education, Katie Kurtz, who's amazing. And we've had AI experts from the beginning. I mean, a lot of the most cutting edge research about AI, including the transformer technology that created this entire revolution came out of Google.
Then they bought DeepMind. They have so much expertise here. And they know that it is an existential threat to the search engine world, basically to the world in which search engines are how we find information. They get that. So they're sort of building their own ship and doing all sorts of things. And it's interesting to see Microsoft and Apple line up on one side of this with open AI and Google on another.
And then maybe Amazon and Tropic. That's how I, you know, when I look at My mental model of how these guys are all fighting. That's what it's going to be. So we saw some interesting announcements from Google. I've been playing with Google notebook LM this week a lot, and it is pretty astounding.
[00:15:03] Ben Kornell: It's the best.
I am like such a fan. I'm really enjoying it.
[00:15:07] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. Anybody who hasn't tried notebook LM should definitely go out and try it. It is. Quite incredible. Actually, at New York EdTech Week, they're having Steven Johnson, author I really love and respect, who is now is a sort of a Google Labs person, do some really interesting hands on work with Google Notebook LM.
I definitely will recommend that session because LM is super powerful, very well integrated into Drive. It can pull anything from websites. You can sort of give it this huge list of resources and then Make your own chat bot, certainly, but even also make your own notes in different formats. It's a really nice way to organize information.
So they're leaning there and they've announced two giant funds this week, 120 million fund for global AI education. That's going through places like AI, EDU, Alex Katrin, who I know, you know, well, ISTE, we've talked about code path and they've given 25 million to nonprofits for our students, teachers, and AI.
There may be some overlap between those two announcements, but basically, you know, We saw OpenAI start OpenAI Academy 1, 000, 000 investment, Google's already at the 120, 000, 000 investment and that matches Google's strategy for the last few years of really throwing large amounts of money to sort of free education around the world to make sure that, you know, Everybody, the whole population of the U.
S. But often other countries as well is sort of on board with this kind of technology. They know how to use it. They know how to make it. They know how to use it to get jobs and keep jobs and navigate the sort of career transition in the world that we think is going to happen. The sort of fourth industrial revolution, as they call it.
So that's interesting that you know, you see open a I doing this very startup. I mean, start up on a massive level, but like Yeah. Very startup style, like, okay, we're making money. We've got traction. We got product market fit. Let's do our next round. It's going to be even bigger. And this is massive. And then you see Google as the sort of incumbent big corporation saying, well, we have all these arms.
We're going to put Gemini in our pixel phones. We're going to do all sorts of new things with YouTube. We're going to do all sorts of new things in your Gmail and your docs. Gemini is going to be everywhere. We've talked about it a little bit before, but it's getting clearer and clearer that these are sort of.
Going to be the two biggest players with Anthropic as a sort of a very interesting dark horse. Do you see it that way, Ben? Is that just my sort of model for it? How do you see the Google open AI sort of war shaping up?
[00:17:23] Ben Kornell: Yeah, I think Google has an advantage in that they already have distribution. So Google's AI in everything makes it harder to look at it as an individual line item.
Google's AI is earning X. Google's AI is learning why it's actually making all of their surfaces and tools better. And we have an interview coming up, you know, around YouTube and YouTube learning. People forget like YouTube is the largest learning platform. It's a subset of the Google edu system, but the ability to unleash that with both like tailored learning experiences, but also leverage the AI for advertising as a revenue model.
Is this fundamentally different than what the revenue models are or could be for an open AI? So open AI has always balanced this challenge of Google, like, I mean, an Apple, like consumer play with their chat GPT product, which is still doing well. And so has a very like dedicated user base, but then they also have the enterprise strategy, which is also a very similar Apple ish approach.
Like, we are the highest quality. We are the latest. We are the best. It's like tech forward. Google, on the other hand, you know, their models, their products, are really not far behind what OpenAI is doing. And if you even look at more detailed levels, some of the Google Labs stuff is surpassing what OpenAI can do.
You know, OpenAI launched Sora, the video generator. You know, when we interviewed Sam, It had just come out note that you can still not access SORA right now. They still have not fully released that as a product. Whereas through Google apps, you can do video image generation, audio generation through notebook LM.
We're able to make instant podcasts from a PDF. I mean, it's so interesting around how Google has really. Leaned into a utility play,
[00:19:25] Alex Sarlin: which
[00:19:26] Ben Kornell: I think we all believe that's where it converges that it no longer becomes, you know, AI forward, it's actually AI is in everything. And they're just going about it in a different way.
Now, just to round out the point, is there enough room in the market for two major players? Yes. Is there room for five major players? Yes, because we have five big tech players today. They're all just staking out territory to remain the incumbent five. So they don't want to be the Hewlett Packards where they kind of had the sunrise and sunset.
And their way of doing this is, you know, Google has. Their own initiative, and then the others have proxies. The most interesting player here might be meta, which we're not hearing a lot from with the open source model. But one of the things that we're seeing in the press is these big, splashy launches.
And then in the open source community, everyone figures out what was done. And they just build open source models that are super fast and falling. So as the market matures, the real question is when the dust settles, Where will the leverage be in the ecosystem that allows for people to extract maximum payment?
And it's not clear that AI will be the same as cloud or the same as other things that have lock in, it might actually be a commodity that enables the rest of the stack, whatever else you're selling. And in that sense, Google is super well positioned.
[00:20:58] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, really fantastic analysis there. And I think that.
The utility play, as you call it, I think, is a really interesting way to look at what Google's doing. They're like, how do we take the AI power that we suddenly now have and sort of inject it in intelligent ways into all these different systems in a way that people can really feel and use? And it's obviously landing in different ways in different places.
But I talk about this now every week, so I'll keep this really short. But, you know, it was Google that announced that they have real time. Translation and they're basically trying to build it into, you know, the phones and build it into the Google ecosystem. And I just, I think, you know, when we actually see that actually happening in real life and actually suddenly are able to, you know, access any media, any user generated content, any education.
From any speaker of any language, I think that's going to be world changing. And I think that's more likely to come from Google than elsewhere, but, you know, we'll see, it's such a cool time, but let's talk a little bit about edtech. There's a few, I mean, obviously it's all about edtech, but let's talk, talk about some of the edtech specific companies and sort of what they've been doing this week, you're down to go through a little around the world.
[00:22:05] Ben Kornell: Let's do it.
[00:22:05] Alex Sarlin: So, you know, Duolingo has continued to be sort of the bell of the ball in the market. Their stock hit record highs this month at over 250 a share, almost 270, a lot of which is coming from rapid growth, consistently great earnings. And there's an interesting article about, you know, how much Louis Vanan is just continues to be all in on AI.
Duolingo did something interesting. If you look back when we first talked about their take on AI compared to like a conmigo. Duolingo basically created an AI layer on top of Duolingo that was paid. You say, if you want to use Duolingo to practice your conversations and do all the things that are going to require AI and API calls, great.
We would love you to do that. We're going to build great things, but there's going to be an additional payment layer on top of that. And at least from these profits, it feels like that bet is paying off right now. It's just, you know, continues to be setting records. It's really exciting. On the other hand, we saw Udemy, an ed tech company that's been around since I believe like 2011 or 12, it's becoming one of the more stayed, you know, been around for quite a while, user generated marketplace for online courses, lay off.
About 20 percent of their workforce this week and say that they're going to rehire many of them in quote lower cost places around the world. You know, you to me is right in the heart of SF so you can sort of see different edtech models as you say about Hewlett Packard, you know, ebbing and flowing coming and going in this particular moment.
We talked a lot last week about the brisk teaching round. We saw a prof Jim. We've had prof Jim's founders on the podcast a couple times. They do really interesting work basically converting Content into educational video content automatically through AI creating avatars, creating slideshows, creating sound effects, creating graphics all in one, they got a funding round this week, which is interesting.
And I think, you know, you've mentioned been that there seems to be a little bit of a sort of smaller second wave of funding here. And I want to hear you talk about that. Next, but I just want to do one more quick one on the other side. Another big player. We, um, Pearson is doing some interesting, they're also taking a little bit of a Google like strategy, trying to put AI into a lot of their suite of tools in a meaningful way, you know, trying to do high utility for their students.
We interviewed Chris Hess, the head of AI product at Pearson a while back, and they just announced a whole bunch of new AI powered tools. They're also doing an event with Ethan Mollick. It's actually, I think, competing with New York EdTech Week. It's an online webinar. I believe it's in the week of mid October, you know, October 9th, something like that.
We want to keep our eye on that, even though, of course, we're going to be at New York EdTech Week and all in on it. That's, I think there's going to be some interesting things happening in that webinar. So, I recommend that anybody who's not in New York during that time, you know, check that out as well.
But, Ben, tell us about the second wave or any reaction you have to any of those stories. You have Duolingo, Udemy. Prof Jim and Pearson.
[00:24:54] Ben Kornell: The big picture here is that, you know, we're going through a recalibration of where AI sits in this space. And so these big rounds, these splashy, visionary, you know, I'd kind of call it phase one AI bets.
Are now shifting to, we're in phase two of AI, which shows that there's some smaller rounds, smaller investments. And there's also some pragmatism around restructuring companies that have a solid value proposition to fully take advantage of the cost saving elements of AI. You know, when you talk about cost savings of AI, there's one layer, which is.
I am using AI to produce content or to create an output. Another layer is actually that I'm able to offshore or outsource more things to less sophisticated developers and coders because I can use AI to uplevel them or I can use AI to audit the quality of their work So while I think most people focus on direct production of AI And there's rightful criticism around, okay, what is the quality output there?
I think what you're seeing is like solid developers with AI tools are able to produce far more in terms of output. They're able to be audited for quality far easier. You don't need to have like A TPG, I think it's, what is it called? T-P-G-T-P-N. I get confused with my acronyms, but there's tpms technical process managers who make sure everyone's building to the same standard across time.
You really actually have these layers of AI that are unlocking these micro possibilities. And then, you know, I think the third thing is that it's all with this idea of, okay, what will the market bear and what can people pay for? And so Prof. Jim, who's a friend of the pod, we're very excited about the work they're doing.
I think it's actually a great sign that their round is in the more modest range. They have a developing team in India. They have a go to market team in the U. S. I think a lot of companies are going to look like this going forward. It kind of dovetails with my original article on micro companies. I think this.
We're in this era of reconstructing what the company looks like. You know, I don't want to get too overstated, but you know, AI in subtle ways is actually bending how we even staff our organizations going forward.
[00:27:27] Alex Sarlin: I think Prof Jim actually just moved its headquarters to Cincinnati, I believe, which is also, you know, you say the headquartered in the US, but they're actually, you know, doing some interesting things for for cost saving and for different moves even within that.
And I agree, I think that micro company world is still alive and well, even with the funding rounds being smaller, or actually, I would say maybe especially with the funding rounds being smaller, companies can still make, you know, serious product, they reach a serious scale with even fewer people. And not have to also not necessarily have to be, you know, right next to Sand Hill Road to make it happen, which is also, I think, an advantage as well.
One other tool, this is sort of a wacky story, but I think it's perhaps a harbinger of things to come. There's an article this week about a tool called unlock learning. I had not heard of it until recently, but they basically, they make social media videos that are educational. They explain complex topics, but they use.
Celebrity deep fakes to do so. So you can learn from Eminem or Ariana Grande or Obama or Jenna Ortega or all these things. And, you know, it's one of these things where as soon as you hear this idea, you're like, of course that exists. Is that good or bad? It seems a little horrible. At the same time, if you know that your teenagers are spending their time on social media, you'd much rather them learn something, you know, from a celebrity than be following that celebrities, you know, music videos.
And instead of doing their math homework, I don't know what to make of this. But it's an interesting moment where deep fakes are sort of coming right into the ed tech world. This company has over 570, 000 employees. Followers for their, I believe it's their Instagram account. What do you make of that? Is this, is this, is this one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse or is this kind of exciting?
[00:29:13] Ben Kornell: You know, I think it's exciting. I think, you know, time will tell whether it's apocalyptic or whether it's, uh, this is the unlock. This is one of those where we just have to let all these ships play out and like, see how the landscape, how it takes shape, look overall, you know, Some of these bets are going to work and that's, what's really exciting.
And, you know, the article that Sam Altman published around AGI is coming in five years, like this tells you that. We are still in early innings, like, we might be in the second inning. Of a nine inning game here that really helps us understand where this is all playing out. What do you think?
[00:29:57] Alex Sarlin: I mean, my first reaction to something like this is, Oh Lord, even more celebrity culture, even more social media, like, Oh my God.
And then when I sort of think about it one more time, I think, well, look, a lot of my personal career in ed tech and what gets me most excited about ed tech. Is the idea of bringing education to students in a format and a context that they actually care about, that they actually is palatable and engaging and interesting and sort of not, you know, and getting away from the school versus everything you'd rather be doing than school paradigm.
And I don't know, speaking of that sort of AGI model, it's like, I imagine a world in a few years, whether or not we have true artificial general intelligence or not, where a student can say, look, I have to learn this stuff for a variety of reasons. I have to learn this stuff or I want to learn this stuff, but let's start with a half do I have to learn this stuff.
How can I learn this in a way that is minimally, you know, unpleasant for me, like, I don't like reading textbooks. I don't particularly like doing, you know, paper worksheets. Like, tell me how I can learn this. And I have a feeling that if you had an AGI answer that, it would probably look a whole lot like this.
It would probably look a whole lot like Barack Obama or Kim Kardashian or whoever your favorite celebrity is, Teaching it to you on your phone, like in real time, so I can't hate on it because I think it's the extension of all the things that I've been working towards a lot of my career, you know, gamified learning, video based learning, bringing learning.
We're just talking
[00:31:28] Ben Kornell: about all these platforms being, you know, YouTube and TikTok are some of the largest learning platforms already. So this to me seems like a lean in and embrace it moment. And by the way, if you don't like it, then come up with an alternative strategy that demonstrates engagement and that works.
And so I just, I'm excited for the bets to be made. I just think we're in a spot where, you know, playing it conservative right now doesn't do our learners justice because we know what the current playbook produces and it's not equitable and it's not preparing kids for the future. You have to contrast this kind of story with what's going on in K 12.
And I think a big headline that may not have reached everybody's radar is that the chancellor of New York City Public Schools has announced that he's stepping down at the end of the year. This follows a wave of corruption allegations towards the mayor. And it turns out that David Banks and his brother are implicated, not necessarily accused, but somewhat involved in the scandal around improper expenses and so on.
This is a really big challenge because. Just as we talked about with all here in LA USD, anytime we're trying to move things forward and be innovative, you get a scandalous story like this and it sets things back and you know, you're from New York, you've got insight into that, you know, where do you think this thing plays out and what do you think are the implications?
[00:32:58] Alex Sarlin: This made me sad because David Banks was such a hero in the congressional hearings a few months ago when, you know, the Congress sort of went after higher ed and then made an attempt to go after some large school districts and sort of tell them why they're doing everything wrong and make them look bad and David Banks was like the most, he's just the strongest Defender of public education.
He was the strongest defender of the work that was happening. So I was such a fan of that, at least side of, of his work, which is a small percentage of his work. This Eric Adams scandal is taking down people left and right. They've had huge resignations. The chief of police resigned. A commissioner of police already resigned.
Now we have the school kid Chancellor resign. This, I think, is gonna go down, as you know, just one of many historical New York. You know, corruption stories. I don't know if David Banks himself is involved. I'm not accusing him of anything, but the fact that this entire suite of executives are, uh, government leaders are sort of all caught up in this and all sort of hitting the ropes at the same time is just sad.
And I mean, what it makes me think of is just how much these huge movements in education and technology that sometimes just hinge on the behavior or decisions of people. Individual people. We've talked about all the work positive and negative that Alberto Cavallo has done in LA. We've talked about people like Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman and how the decisions they make are massive.
Elon Musk makes decisions that have huge impacts on people's lives. And it happens both in the government and in education. And in tech, this feels like, I don't know. I mean, I don't know who's going to replace him. I don't know what they'll change about New York. New York has not been doing very well with learning loss recovery.
I don't, it has, you know, has not quite led the way as a district, but I think this is probably, I guess I would chalk this up more to a government. Scandal story than an education story is, I guess what I'd say. And I just hope that, you know, as the dust settles, people are still thinking really seriously about how to support the largest school district in the country.
[00:35:00] Ben Kornell: Yeah, I mean, I would just say that on that same point, it makes government lose. The public confidence. And we've been seeing a drum beat of that with regards to education. So it just, it adds to a overall, you know, halo of distrust there. And at the same time, we're also seeing government leaders stepping in more forcefully and more actively around.
Issues like social media. So governor Gavin Newsom just launched a new policy aimed at targeting social media, and it has to do with, you know, kids and teens it's California bill to limit addictive social media feeds. And the implications aren't necessarily of this bill for schools. It's basically.
Instead of having your feed being AI algorithmically primed to catch your attention, it's more of a time horizon so that everything is in order of when it happened. But this follows a big push around cell phone bans in schools. And so what you see is government pushing in to a space to try to protect kids from social media to try to make schools like more focused on learning and less distracting and deal with mental health.
And at the same time, you have these. Controversies that implicitly raise questions around corruption and values. And I think that makes it a really tough place for folks to act. You know, my one comment on the, on the Newsom work is I think we're getting into a place where we have to be thoughtful and blue states around.
Government overreach, like, yes, any cell phones might sound so great, but there's actually software solutions that allow you to limit like social media access, but then still have the phone calling access because you could imagine like a school shooting happens. Everybody's got their cell phone banned or locked up in a pouch that is just going to be a total.
Political disaster in addition to being like incredibly sad and tragic in school, but we know That that shit happens. So I just think we're dealing with some really Strong political headwinds in the k 12 space
[00:37:16] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, it's also interesting that this is coming from California, you know, the home of all of these companies and except maybe TikTok.
This is not a, a sort of red state middle America pushback on the, you know, coastal elites taking over our kids, you know, brainwashing kids brains or whatever the narrative is there. This is coming from California itself. And who knows if this is going to create a whole domino effect of other places doing this, but there already has been a domino effect of people, you know, as you say, trying to get cell phones out of school and the fact that this is so nuanced.
I mean, I think the thing that interests me here is like, they're like, you can't send notifications to minors between during school hours or in the middle of the night, like that is a pretty specific. You know, feature to force companies to do, it's not like it's some kind of like, Hey, you just got to do this, you know, you decide and, and you figure out a way to make this better.
It's like, no, I'm going to tell you exactly your, you know, business rules that you have to live by. I haven't seen government do that in modern tech much for quite a long time. They do it with privacy, but very rarely with actual like product features, like when you can send notifications, I've never heard of a U S government certainly doing that in any context.
[00:38:27] Ben Kornell: Yeah. This is one of those where you kind of like can agree with the individual items, but when you step back and look at the, the implications of the whole thing, both in terms of the precedent it sets. That government can demand feature by feature for kids. Boy, I start to worry about what a, an authoritarian government would do with that power.
And then second, you worry about like the net effect of all of these micro policy decisions. How does it make companies serve or not serve? Underage students. And it basically creates this incentive for platforms not to know that a kid is under 18, even if they are. And so we know that that creates this kind of wild west adult playground of the internet that we're thrusting our kids into.
And it doesn't have to be that, you know, it's either all closed or all open. It can be in the middle, but we're just losing our capability for nuance in today's political environment. Well, speaking of nuance and political environment, the last topic in our K 12 beat is bellwether. Which released a really comprehensive set, a trio of reports about AI in education.
And what I thought was really refreshing about this is they break it down into kind of fundamental constructs of ethical AI and AI for good. They also look at specific use cases. For AI, where it can be effective and deployed in a way that is human powered and human augmenting, and it outlines risks and challenges.
I think, you know, as I read through the reports. There was nothing here that I said, Oh, my gosh, this is some new finding, but it's actually one of the best synthesis documents I've seen where it really paints the whole picture. And the summary is basically over the next 5 to 10 years, AI will be reshaping our world, and we need to be thinking proactively around how to shape reshape education to support that.
And it was super optimistic in tone in terms of actually, there's so many wins here for educator efficiency for doubling down on human, the human side of this, that it gave me a clearer sense of pathways that schools and districts could take. And while I read it with my EdTech Insiders hat on, I think where it resonated with me most was with my school board hat on.
So, really great work from the Bellwether team. You can check out on LinkedIn. We did a video summary that was kind of fun. This is, I think, an anchor set of documents that will be referred to in
[00:41:11] Alex Sarlin: years to come. Yeah. I haven't gotten a chance to dig into these as much as I'd like to, and I'm definitely going to.
There's a lot of, uh, Really rich stuff in here. And I think, you know, at a moment like this, when things change so fast and sort of the conversation is so muddy, it's incredibly valuable to try to sort of add clarity and add frameworks that people can actually agree on and make sense of, and because it's just such a, things change so quickly.
There's so many different and education is already so complex is already different groups is already different systems in place. There's different age kids is different subjects is different everything. And then I has all of these other nuances to it. So trying to put the two pieces together is just adds a lot of complexity.
And these are, I agree with you, some of the best ones I've seen without having looked at them too deeply. You know, they seem like some of the best reports. I've seen so far about how this all comes together. So we'll put those in the show notes for this episode. As always, you can also find them by Googling, you know, the bellwether, you know, AI and education reports.
Your video was, was fun, Ben. I feel like that's probably a good thing to do all the time. Maybe we should be doing, uh, these sort of synopses of each of our episodes with, uh, some, you know, virtual hosts coming out of HeyJen or Synthesia. Could be fun, or maybe one of us. So the final thing I just want to bring up today, there are a couple of other funding rounds that caught my attention this week.
One is a company called Hello Wonder, which is basically a privacy and cybersecurity company. It's a safe internet browser designed for preteens. I think it dovetails pretty nicely with the sort of regulatory environment where we're rapidly entering, like you just mentioned, Ben, with all the states trying to create laws to protect students from the internet world and from their own apps.
So I think that's, you know, they seem to be right in the right place at the right time. They're trying to sort of help students understand, you know, what they should and shouldn't and could and couldn't be doing on the internet. Another one that's worth mentioning, we've seen a lot of movement in the mental health space over the last few years, as we've seen these crises in schools, teamology raised 1.
2 million to basically help schools have more insight into their students mental health through a variety of. Tools and dashboards and ways to sort of monitor and pulse check the school, which is a very important thing. There are a whole crop of edtech companies that are focusing on this problem right now, and that's important because it's a big problem.
There are a few more stories that we just wanted to make sure we're covered in this week in edtech. First, we wanted to make sure to talk about Physics Walla, which raised a 210 billion. Million dollar funding round. They are rapidly becoming one of the very, very biggest, most successful ed techs in India, especially in the wake of by Jews sort of losing that crown.
Congratulations to them. And we will be covering this further in future weeks, but that's a very big ed tech round for this day and age. We also wanted to update related to the David Banks story at this point, Eric Adams, the mayor of New York has also received federal indictment. He's been indicted federally.
This is maybe mostly of interest to people in the New York region, but I think it's relevant to education in that David Banks really seems to have been swept up in an entire sort of drag net of the Adams administration, which we already knew some about, but that is officially sort of gone to the top.
That is. Cutting edge news here. We've also learned that Mira Murati from open AI has stepping down from her role. She's one of the long time C suite leaders there. Who's I believe she's their CTO and has been really core to their growth for a while. So that's just yet another sign of open AI has changed along with there are rumors swirling now that open AI is a formally seeking to change from a nonprofit to a for profit.
So you can sort of see the open AI trajectory. And combined with all the OpenAI news we covered this week around Leobelski and the OpenAI Academy and the OpenAI education events that are coming, it's going to be really interesting to see how all of these elements come together.
[00:45:11] Ben Kornell: Well, that wraps up our Week in EdTech episode.
We're excited to have our guest join us here in a second. All right, everybody, we have a special guest who really needs no introduction at this point. The only other person to win elector votes for the Democratic National Presidential nomination. Jason Palmer, also long time ed tech investor and friend of ed tech insiders.
So excited to have you here with us today. Jason Palmer.
[00:45:41] Jason Palmer: And Alex, thanks so much for having me. It's great to be back.
[00:45:44] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. You've been on a lot of adventures since we've last talked to New Markets Ventures does incredible work has been really thinking about. The entire school to work ladder, but you've really zoomed out and thought about all sorts of different things you want to contribute to the world.
Tell us about what's been going on in your life and what you're doing with together.
[00:46:02] Jason Palmer: Sure. Sure. Well, I'll start maybe back at the beginning to some sense about last October, November timeframe. I noticed that the election was going to be Donald Trump versus Joe Biden. Most likely. Two older folks, and education wasn't going to be part of the discussion at all, and nor was like an optimistic, positive vision of the future.
And so I asked a number of my CEOs, I said, you know, what would happen if someone like me got in the race? And first, of course, they thought, you must be kidding. That's crazy. That's what a lot of people said. But as time went by and people realized, well, nobody's going to be in this race, like, maybe you could actually, like, make a difference.
Maybe there's some way that the election could change and other younger candidates could get in. And so, honestly, I've been on, like, I'm going to call it Jason's one year of politics. I don't know if there'll ever be another year. Of politics, but, you know, competed in 16 states and territories, you know, got my, if I'm allowed to say my ass kicked in a lot of places around the country, learn politics to some degree, got lucky and won an American Samoa.
There was actually some strategy around that. If you want to ask about that and now what I'm doing with together, we pivoted the presidential campaign back in May. To try to get 18 young people elected to congress More infusion of young people. It's a purple organization. My co founder is a republican who served in the bush administration And so it's eight democrats eight republicans two independents All running in purple districts that are kind of off the beaten path You could say they're underdogs or relatively unknown people like myself We first endorse them, although now some of them are getting endorsed by places like Emily's List, no labels, independent Veterans of America.
Like they're getting recognized. And you know, I did something similar to this in 2018 trying to get women elected to Congress. 16 of 20 women that I kind of publicly announced I was got elected. So I'm hopeful that maybe, wow, 12 to 14 will get elected to Congress and that'll be the end of my one year of politic.
[00:48:11] Ben Kornell: That's wonderful. And as soon as I saw your announcement, I thought, this is brilliant. And I donated to your campaign because, well, one, I think that it was not only that Biden was going to win the nomination. It wasn't that education as an issue, wasn't rising to the surface. There were no issues. There was no voice on that side of the aisle about what matters and what's important to America.
And I think you were quite prescient in what you were running on. And if you look at Kamala, And the energy that she's sparked and some of the kind of very practical policies she's endorsed, many of them are echoes of your campaign. So I hope, you know, I made a post at one point, you know, many people in politics say it's like, win at all costs or you're a loser.
And I think for so many of our. Positions like this where the political engine is going one way or the other Just even throwing your voice into the middle of the mix can have pretty surprising outcomes. And, you know, I'm on my local school board, these kinds of things also inspire other people like your 18 leaders to go for it and take the plunge.
So kudos on that. Can you tell us a little bit about, so this idea of together and being bipartisan, that seems so out of the kind of norm in politics today. Have people been pushing back on that? Have people been embracing it? And I'm sure also you're needing to get donors and people to support it. And people are so polarized.
How are you navigating
[00:49:55] Jason Palmer: that? That is a great question. And I'll give you the honest truth. So when I was running for president, one of the first people I talked to, you're supposed to talk to other people who've run for president and I talked to Andrew Yang early in the process. I was really lucky to meet him at an Aspen festival in the past.
And then when I announced I was running. My phone lit up and it said Andrew Yang and I've never talked to him before, but somehow he figured out my number and I took the call and I asked him, you know, what are some advice you would give me? And one of his biggest piece of advice is, Jason, you know, there's like a 0.
001 percent chance you're going to win. Like figure out what you're going to do next now before the end of the campaign so you can go right into it and you'll be ready for it. And that was really a brilliant suggestion, I think, because we started to invent the concept of gather in December and January timeframe.
We started researching the candidates to see who we could endorse even before their primaries. And the reason why it's bipartisan is the polarization is terrible right now. Like it's, it's hard to even get people to admit on camera, you know, that's a really good point that you, from the other side just gave, and I want to, you know, compliment that and then try to add to it.
And this is, you know, the number one thing you learn in collaboration is when you hear a good idea of the other person, you kind of, you know, give it feedback that it's a good idea and then build on that idea. Yes. And basically, I'm a yes and kind of guy. And so now it's your second part like that. We're getting a lot of interest in it.
It's hard. So 90 percent of people that are donors to the democratic party are like, Jason, I just want to get to your democratic candidates. And I said, okay, great. Here's the list. Go donate directly to them. And 90 percent of the Republican folks are like, I just want to donate to your Republican people.
It's a very polarized year. But we knew that going in that there's only 10 percent of people on either party. And then all these independents in the middle who usually don't donate and usually don't even have like a voice for them. That are actually the ones that are supporting us. So it's sort of never Trumpers on one side and the Republican party and on the Democratic side, I would say it's conscious capitalism or pro capitalism Democrats, and like you were saying, Ben, I'm excited to see Kamala immediately getting behind small businesses as an early part of her campaign.
You know, I am not, you know, you're simple progressive. I'm like a progressive libertarian, if such a thing exists. And I actually think that's the way the Democratic Party should go. And I think the country as a whole should go towards more smart people in the middle, working together, solve these problems.
It's completely not okay that it takes like 20 years to get immigration reformed, or 10 years to get the Higher Education Act reformed. Actually, it's more years than both of those. Those are underestimated. So we can do better for America.
[00:52:44] Alex Sarlin: Tell us about what your education platform looks like. You're somebody who has been in this space for a long time, knows so many different aspects of how the higher ed system works, how the K 12 system works, how the career readiness is broken.
You've thought about this from so many different angles. What's your goal for how education should be reformed in the U. S.?
[00:53:02] Jason Palmer: I love that question because I'm going to be, I'm going to admit kind of an embarrassing thing here, which is that there are education policies on my website. It talks about, you know, 25 percent more for teachers, like more teacher pay is a big component of my plan for K 12.
It talks about directing 10 percent of the higher education funding to the short course credential programs, basically making those more part of the mainstream system because there are so many more of these credentials that you can earn in less than a year that right away get you boosted up to the new collar economy or sometimes people call it the no collar economy.
Technology economy. So there are little, you know, pinpoints of some of the great ideas that we all know needs to happen in education, but it was easier for me to write a 10 page white paper about how to reform immigration than it was for me to write a 10 page white paper about how to reform education.
I've tried to write it. I have three versions of it. I could not publish any of them. I was too embarrassed to, or I felt like, Oh, you know, these people are going to be against me because. It's a little bit pro school choice, but school choice in a particular way. Or it's a little bit too pro technology, and I knew that it would be not, you know, enough about whole child and early childhood and things like that.
In fact, that is one of the ones that did get on the website, was much more funding to encourage all states to adopt early childhood
[00:54:28] Alex Sarlin: and additional
[00:54:28] Jason Palmer: child care funding for three and four year olds. But to be honest with you, My education policy is a little bit incomplete for those of us who really know education, and it's because I could never get that 10 page white paper done.
And I'll also throw in there that I'm doing a main stage panel at EdTech Week on October 8th with three people who served in the Department of Ed and Department of Labor, where I'm going to present some more of those ideas and say like, is this actually possible? It never got out into the campaign and then have them critique it and build upon it.
And maybe we can invent a new ed tech or education policy agenda right there on the stage with the audience.
[00:55:08] Alex Sarlin: I love that. We'll be there for that for sure.
[00:55:10] Ben Kornell: So let's talk a little bit about ed tech. You have been a long time investor and also your returns year over year have always been, you know, pace setting in our space.
And now you've had this year of like, kind of stepping away. I know that many of the same messages and many of the same themes that you've invested behind have been themes of your campaign, but you have this benefit of perspective. And at the same time, we're dealing with some tectonic shifts. In our space, one being AI, but you know, others being funding shortfalls and cuts and kind of a backlash against tech and dealing with the impact of social media and mental health.
There's a confluence of factors that often feel like headwinds. What gives you optimism in the ed tech space? What are the areas that you're looking at where you're feeling, you know, there's a real opportunity or excitement about, and what advice would you have to our founder communities?
[00:56:09] Jason Palmer: Absolutely.
Well, first I have to give a shout out to my colleagues at new markets, venture partners, who were referring to a reason why we've had top quartile returns for the last decade. A lot of that is Mark Grobick, Rob Dabb, Juan Zavala, before which he worked with Elizabeth Cho. Like, that's a team effort at NewMarkets.
In terms of the areas for growth and the headwinds, I have to be honest, this is, you know, I will probably write an article going into ASU GSB next year that'll be all about coping with the headwinds. They are very real. The federal government is regulating the OPM market into a different place and that's a strong headwind there, as evidenced by 2U going through kind of a package bankruptcy.
The funding flip that's going on in K 12 is a big deal for all those companies that have been serving K 12 in tutoring, in ed tech, in after school. That's not even At the end of it, there's more headwinds, but AI, I know it gets talked about too much. And usually I'm a little bit more skeptical about new innovations, but I do think AI is the future here, to be quite honest about it.
And I would encourage entrepreneurs that are out there. The first thing, whenever a new innovation comes, is everybody kind of rushes to get it in the classroom, like AI for the classroom, tutoring, teaching, like making the classroom better. Don't do that. Some people will. You won't listen to me. It's okay.
But the better thing is to work around the edges of education. And that means, like, AI for advising in higher ed or in K 12. AI to improve administrative functionality. For example, letting parents know when students are absent from school. Or analyzing big data sets to figure out That there are particular blockers for people in middle school math or, you know, elementary school literacy.
If you go straight in the classroom with the new innovation, you almost always get steamrolled because the classroom is the hardest thing to change in education. And it's really because the teachers own that classroom. The teachers are in charge of the classroom. Whereas the administrative part of the house in education, whether it's K 12 or higher ed or even workforce, that part of the house is all about improving efficiency.
the new technologies and they'll be, it'll be easier to sell, it'll be easier to implement, it'll be a little easier to track your improvements. So I would say steer towards the administrative side of the house. Now, like on the big public market side, that means companies like PowerSchool and Instructure are poised to do very well and should benefit from AI and companies that are more Of the classroom in the classroom are going to have difficulty figuring out how to use AI in their products and get that benefit because, you know, the teachers really need to be co creating that figure it out and all that said, if there's an education company that is really powered by teachers, they're really the first step.
Product developers, designers in some way, and that could be faculty or K 12. That company could really optimize AI for the classroom. But I don't have one that I can say right away is that
[00:59:23] Ben Kornell: company. So Jason, the other kind of element of your stepping back and going big picture is just understanding the role of big tech in our lives and in our space.
And many a platform has been crushed by a Google release or an open AI announcement. How do you think our relationship with Big tech needs to evolve both as an education sector, but also as families and institutions.
[00:59:53] Jason Palmer: Well, this is a great question because five years ago, I predicted that none of the big companies, the Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, would go big in education.
But in the next five years, I think all of them will go big in education. That might not be the next one year, it might be four or five years, but because AI can be so, so transformative in education, and they're all deeply involved in AI, and AI is one of the top three use cases, or education is the top three use cases for AI.
I think they're going to have to go big in this area. Now, does that mean they buy a company or they build a skunkworks and turn it into something either money generating or student outcome enhancing? I do think this is a big five years for the big five tech companies in education. Now, how do you avoid getting squashed by them?
Having worked at Microsoft before and also, you know, having connections into all the other ones through the relationships that I have, I have to choose my words carefully because I know a lot of people from those companies may be watching this. I think it's key for startups to try to do partnerships with them, and it's easier than ever.
Like, Amazon has a massive organization of people in AWS who are all about forming partnerships with ed tech companies and giving you credits to use AWS. Microsoft not far behind building out a big Azure partnership program. Google has a Google cloud program. Like all of them think of AI as a subset of cloud, uh, at some level.
And you should use those partnerships. A couple of our companies have gotten investments from the big players. They're not big investments for 250, 000, but that matters. That gets you kind of a strategic inside look at working with the companies. And it also helps you figure out how to make sure your roadmap doesn't accidentally.
Smack right into the airborne map and from having worked at Microsoft and seen acquisitions that a few of them have made, like Google acquired Workbench number of years ago, Amazon acquired, Oh my goodness, I can't remember the exact name, but something like 10 cents, 10 marks or something marks.
[01:02:10] Ben Kornell: Yeah, it was 10 marks, Andrew Joseph, and they had a great run and then they shut it down.
So like, this is one of those where big tech, if you're listening. If you're going to go for it, really go for it. Like don't limp in because I mean, what I will say is Google is the largest ed tech company in the world. And yet it's a rounding error for them. And now I agree with your proposal that actually learning is becoming potentially central for them.
I think for all the big tech platforms, though, we are likely to see that in adult learning first. And eventually over time with younger learners, because the learner agency and the buyer in adult learning, it's all uniform into one user and buyer. And there's this sense of pathways of like, I'm going to learn this thing and then I'm going to up level my career in a much shorter time to value.
But I think you're right. I think you're really right.
[01:03:05] Jason Palmer: Yeah. Well, and I double click on that. I think you're really right there. That like when EdTech took off in the early 2000s, it was for graduate higher education, and this time around, it'll often be workforce related, like these provincial programs that we were talking about, it'll actually be sort of HR and training programs that always have very minimalist budgets inside corporations, and it'll be The edges of higher ed, so not for undergraduate education.
It'll be all the things that surround that continuing professional studies, graduate program, short course, executive education. That's where this will really take off. And you will see the big players getting involved there. One thing that's always kind of confused me, or I don't know how to explain it.
Logic it out is that Google thinks of education as the premium universe. So they offer, you know, Google Classroom for free. You can, you know, it's all about selling Chromebooks. And when I was at Microsoft and we had a strong education practice, it was all about selling office into schools and the actual educational products were given out for free.
And so all these companies still do think of the edX platform as free as opposed to fee. And I don't know what that means. Does that mean education and credentials will be free for everybody in 25 years? for these big companies? Maybe. I mean, look what happened to local journalism. I don't know. Maybe the same thing will happen to education, but I don't think so.
I think there's some other solution out there that I just haven't seen yet in the 10 to 25 year time frame. By the way, that's what happens when you kind of go up to that next page. Altitude and start thinking 10 to 25 years out, I wouldn't trust myself to invest in a company right now that has a five year payback period because I'm thinking more about what's going to happen in 10 to 25 years.
[01:05:00] Ben Kornell: This is also one of those moments where our own hype about the potential of 25 years from now actually tamps down the near term potential of what we can do around the edges. To, you know, drive and no one gets super excited about driving efficiency, but we've seen time and again, saving a teacher time, saving a student time, saving a university professor time, saving money.
These are value propositions that work in our space. And you know, the big vision of how learning might transform. Is probably further off. I will just say on one anecdote. There is. I also think the idea that this innovation and education is going to be a leap forward here in the U. S. 1st is probably blind to the fact that actually developing world is where real leap forward use cases are likely to emerge because you're not competing against a brick and mortar fully staffed school.
Or a full university and the idea of AI replacing human educators here, just it doesn't work because there's a quality difference, but if you've got no educator and you're competing against the absence of learning, there's some real opportunities there. I'm curious because American Samoa is both part of the US, but is also, you know, in many ways under invested in and.
Probably not feeling like super included in the American landscape. As you got to know people in American Samoa, what kind of issues were they thinking about and caring about, especially when it relates to education?
[01:06:40] Jason Palmer: Yeah. And thank you also for pronouncing it correctly. Not everybody knows it's American Samoa.
So their issues are health care. Number one, they only have one hospital on the island, the main island, and it's not sufficient to cover the whole island. It's not staffed with as many people and they kind of connect for their education issue and that they only have a community college where people can get two year associates degrees on the island.
And so if you wanted to actually work at the hospital, you have to go to Hawaii or elsewhere to get. The rest of that bachelor's degree and that graduate level education, then you have to come back.
[01:07:16] Ben Kornell: And then you're competing against all the hospitals there and the higher paying jobs elsewhere. Yeah.
[01:07:22] Jason Palmer: Exactly. Once you've gone to Hawaii for four years, why, you know, you might just stay there. And a lot of people do actually. There's sort of a brain drain out of that country by people that do go to Hawaii to complete their education. So what they really need is additional resources to make it a full four year college on the main island.
They need to have a second hospital that actually is smaller, more like a community hospital on the other side of the island. And then I should mention climate change is a big issue for them as well. And that's actually one where all the students in high school, it could become a big part of their curriculum, and there could be huge volunteerism where students want to do something, and it could be a way to kind of let the whole rest of the United States know, look at how climate change is affecting these Pacific Islands, look what they're doing to try to actually You know, extend the longevity of their island, protect their beaches, et cetera.
One of the things I did during the campaign was a beach cleanup that was sponsored. They've got a huge turnout of students that wanted to help. And in fact, actually, I think if the, if the election had included students, I would have won even more overwhelmingly. Like were multiple schools that did zoom meetings with me that wanted to actually, you know, learn more about the presidential candidate that actually cared about the American Samoa.
It's so fascinating.
[01:08:37] Ben Kornell: And I just think there's so much we can learn from American Samoa, but also whenever you've got an ecosystem, that's somewhat of a closed ecosystem, like an Island, there's so much more incentive to get education. Right. Because it's at the root of all the economic opportunity. And you've got to have a collectivism on an Island.
That's different than, you know, the market based individualism in other systems. Okay. Last question before we let you go, what about 2028? You going for a run? Are you going to do it? Are you throwing your hat in the ring?
[01:09:13] Jason Palmer: I used to think politicians that wouldn't answer that question were, were lying or, you know, of course they really know what's going to happen.
But the true answer is, I don't know, but I'll tell you that I'm working my butt off to try to get Kamala Harris elected. I've endorsed her. And if Kamala wins in 2024, of course, I will support Kamala in 2028. So the answer would be no. So we're all
[01:09:36] Ben Kornell: hoping you don't run.
[01:09:40] Jason Palmer: That's right. That's right. I mean, that means we've achieved our mission.
doesn't win, which I don't want to think about, you know, I promised I'm going to wait two years before I decide, let's see what happens. It's quite possible that, you know, I'll end up doing something else that's in the conscious capitalism movement, or I'll keep investing in education and just love what I'm doing.
I, you know, a lot of people know this, but I want to say it explicitly. I love my job at New I love investing in companies. You know, this isn't a situation where I ran for president because I don't love what I do. It's because I wanted to devote this year of service to my country and try to get a younger candidate, and a candidate who is focused on a more optimistic future, and really, to be quite honest, Kamala embodies that in spades.
She was the first candidate I donated to in 2019, in the last election. I don't know why I didn't realize I should have been kind of campaigning on behalf of Pamela the whole time, but it's super obvious now that that's the right thing to do all the way through.
[01:10:38] Ben Kornell: Well, if you do decide to run, we will have it covered here on ed tech insiders.
Thanks so much for joining us. Jason Palmer, a gift to both ed tech, but also our country. Thanks so much for joining us today. so
[01:10:52] Jason Palmer: much, Ben and Alex. I really appreciate the
[01:10:54] Ben Kornell: time. Bye bye. Thank you all so much for listening. We are so grateful for the community that continues to show up and support our work.
And if things happen in ed tech, you are going to hear about it here on ed tech insiders. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening
[01:11:10] Alex Sarlin: to this episode of ed tech insiders. If you liked the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the ed tech community. For those who want even more ed tech insider, subscribe to the free ed tech insiders newsletter on substack.
