> So you guys literally milked ideas and and code in the guise of teaching the students only to spin up another business. I loved the whole MOOC idea until it was ambushed and hijacked by people running all manner of fluffy positions.

As someone enrolled in the course, I don't think this is a very fair judgement. The TAs genuiunely seem there to help. I'm actually happy that Oliver decided to do this and wouldn't mind if more did it, more employment opportunities!

> The whole system is now bent on profiteering with marketing staff fabricating fancy outcomes and guarantees to lure people to sign up for the paid version of the course.

Oh, you mean like traditional universities? $2400 doesn't look so bad when you compare it to grad school somewhere that would teach this stuff.

Not at all! The open source self-driving car project is still open sourc and hasn't been commercialized in any way. The spinout involves no student-written code. Hope that helps.

Most likely they were just passionate about self-driving cars then, and are passionate about self-driving cars now. It doesn't mean the two were connected.