Dive Brief:
- In what Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun calls "the biggest shift in the history of the company," he plans to charge money for classes and focus more on vocational learning.
- Thrun tells Fast Company that he had "aspired to give people a profound education — to teach them something substantial ... But the data was at odds with this idea."
- He says as low completion rates for Udacity's online courses became known, he realized he didn't have the product he wanted.
Dive Insight:
In the interview, Thrun talks about the disappointing results of Udacity's collaboration with San Jose State University: "We were initially torn between collaborating with universities and working outside the world of college. ... These were students from difficult neighborhoods, without good access to computers, and with all kinds of challenges in their lives. ... It's a group for which this medium is not a good fit."