Udacity Restructures Operations, Lays Off 20 Percent of Its Workforce (techcrunch.com)

Udacity, the $1 billion online education startup, has laid off about 20 percent of its workforce and is restructuring its operations as the company's co-founder Sebastian Thrun seeks to bring costs in line with revenue without curbing growth, TechCrunch has learned. From the report: The objective is to do more than simply keep the company afloat, Thrun told TechCrunch in a phone interview. Instead, Thrun says these measures will allow Udacity from a money-losing operation to a "break-even or profitable company by next quarter and then moving forward." The 75 employees, including a handful of people in leadership positions, were laid off earlier today as part of a broader plan to restructure operations at Udacity. The startup now employs 300 full-time equivalent employees. It also employs about 60 contractors.

Udacity, which specializes in "nanodegrees" on a range of technical subjects that include AI, deep learning, digital marketing, VR and computer vision, has been struggling for months now, due in part to runaway costs and other inefficiencies. The company grew in 2017, with revenue increasing 100 percent year-over-year thanks to some popular programs like its self-driving car and deep learning nanodegrees, and the culmination of a previous turnaround plan architected by former CMO Shernaz Daver. New programming was added in 2018, but the volume slowed. Those degrees that were added lacked the popularity of some of its other degrees. Meanwhile, costs expanded and their employee ranks swelled.

Comments

Models and Comparisons of Education Sites

[turp182]

Udemy

* Buy a class, own forever with no other fees (forever = Udemy exists).
* Learn on demand.
* Tons of course across all learning (I do drawing and writing courses with my kids, Unity, piano, and more advanced drawing/art for myself). This is a major selling point. They have the tech courses as well (data mining, etc.)
* $10 gets most courses (always on sale)

PluralSight

* Monthly fees for complete access ($35 USD/month for personal).
* Corporate approved (my company provides access).
* Tech oriented (wide range of offerings, but for adults).
* Learn on demand.

Udacity (first heard of them today)

* I can't tell the fee structure or the fees as they require signup first (no thank you).
* Tech and business stuff only.
* Time structured, not on demand. This is a massive detriment in my opinion. Deal killer.
* What's a nanodegree again? (Udacity made that word up)

Conclusions

Udacity is too narrowly focused and I'm not clear what the benefits of a nanodegree are. I can demonstrate knowledge on a topic, I don't need a made up degree.

Udemy wins it from my experience (best instructor interaction and very good course structure, better than Pluarsight which I have had access to for years).

Udemy also has the best fee structure/prices.

Udemy FTW. I've bought about 50 courses from them.

Re:Models and Comparisons of Education Sites

[Anonymous Coward]

Udemy and Udacity are satisfying two different niches. Nothing on Udemy is accredited, for example, and won't be recognized by other universities. If that's not important to you, fair enough.

Way back in the before times, around 2012, there was an explosion of MOOCs (massively open online courses) which saw the birth of Udacity, Coursera, and EdX. The idea was to put the university experience online. That means something more than just "watch a video and perform the exercises" but instead to develop cohorts who are on similar learning schedules as well as access to the professor and teaching staff.

I've enjoyed my MOOC experiences since I've been able to take Stanford and Harvard classes and have had some nice discussions with lecturers in those schools but as with all things, YMMV.

On the other hand, do you want to stay tiny?

[raymorris]

Your comment sounds like something I would have written ten years ago. What you say is true. There is also the other side of the same coin.

I've started a few businesses. One in particular had a product well ahead its time, the best product in a billion dollar market. The product technology was five years ahead of the competition. My modus operandi was always to grow organically without debt, re-investing profit. I also offered a very good value price point, meaning there was little money for marketing or growth.
Other companies who took on a little debt were able to catch up on technology, while getting far more market share. Those companies dominate that market, earning many times the debt, while my company slowly withered away. Being slow to grow cost me literally millions of dollars. Higher prices and a little debt probably would have been a very good idea.

If I start another company* I may very well focus more on growth, including taking on a little debt -after- proving the business model. I'm very wary of personal debt, but it was probably a mistake to not take out debt equal to the previous three months profit, at least, as long as the company continued to grow.

Again not disagreeing with you, just saying that while a lot of debt can be bad for a business, so can no debt, in a new market or a growing company. Next time I'll save "no debt" for my personal finances.

* I'm thinking here about starting a -company- as opposed to "owning my job". When I retire I might have an LLC or S-corp through which I offer consulting services or something, where the "company" is me. In that case I wouldn't do debt. If I intend to build a company with 50 or more employees, some debt or equity financing is probably a good idea in order to go from nothing to a company in a reasonable time. I won't have another company with two employees - it's not worth the legal and tax hassles of being an "employer" unless you have five or more employees.