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A comment on Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management. Parent comment

Re:Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management by Alex3917 on Saturday February 11, 2012 @08:07PM (#3580712)
I think this says more about entrepreneurs in the education space than it does about the program. For whatever reason this space seems to consistently attract shady and/or underqualified people. I think the reason is that education is an area where you can't really contribute anything of value unless you are well versed in the science. Because of this it's really easy to snow virtually everyone, from investors and the media to school administrators and teachers. So you consistently see lots of ideas that have zero chance of producing good results that still get lots of funding and even some initial traction.
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Re:Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management by yummyfajitas on Saturday February 11, 2012 @09:29PM (#3580914)
I think the reason is that education is an area where you can't really contribute anything of value unless you are well versed in the science.

As far as I'm aware, the #1 education startup was created by someone who was poorly versed in the "science" of education.

He seems to be improving things with science now, but that's a fairly recent thing.

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Re:Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management by Alex3917 on Saturday February 11, 2012 @09:59PM (#3580970)
"As far as I'm aware, the #1 education startup was created by someone who was poorly versed in the 'science' of education."

If you're talking about Khan Academy, they're a non-profit not a startup.

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Re:Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management by yummyfajitas on Saturday February 11, 2012 @11:07PM (#3581072)
I don't see how that changes things, unless you believe "underqualification" only matters for people with a profit motive.
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Re:Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management by Alex3917 on Saturday February 11, 2012 @11:23PM (#3581086)
The difference is that Khan would be underqualified if he were trying to do something innovative, but he's not. He's just making a bridge technology, a collection of mostly mediocre content that's designed to be moderately useful until something better comes along. There's no way a for-profit could get funded if this were their goal, at least not if they were upfront about it. Plus even if it's not the greatest site ever, at least it serves a purpose and he's not actively trying to scam people.
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Re:Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management by yummyfajitas on Saturday February 11, 2012 @11:46PM (#3581124)
The lectures are fairly standard, the exercise scheduling system he's attempting to build is not. While I've criticized him for not being ambitious enough (Khan often stresses he doesn't want to replace teachers), he is building far more than just video lectures.

Also, he had several funding offers from VC's, so your assertion about what VC's might fund is incorrect.

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Re:Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management by ladon86 on Sunday February 12, 2012 @12:38PM (#3582358)
John Resig and Craig Silverstein didn't join Khan Academy to generate "mostly mediocre", "moderately useful" content until something better comes along.

I think it's important, especially with startups, to look to the future rather than to sit around judging the present.

In the beginning, Microsoft were making a limited Altair BASIC that only appealed to a handful of hardcore geeks, but later they had a computer in every office and home. You don't get there if you try to solve the world in step 1.

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Re:Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management by BenSS on Saturday February 11, 2012 @09:08PM (#3580862)
I've admittedly seen a lot of 'why' type companies in the education space, but I think it's more the lack of familiarity than an intent to snow people. At KinderTown we do have actual teachers working for us, and even though I've been reading a ton on education topics myself there's an amazing amount of things to learn. It's a much harder space than it looks like at first.
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Re:Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management by biggitybones on Saturday February 11, 2012 @08:57PM (#3580833)
I think that's a pretty broad and unfair generalization about entrepreneurs in the education space. It's not exactly a common skillset to be well versed in the science of education and technology, so I won't back down from the unqualified statement. That being said, I've yet to meet these "shady" characters you claim are attracted to the space.
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Re:Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management by Drbble on Sunday February 12, 2012 @01:26PM (#3582499)
The shadiness comes in whenever a product is sold to government or generally when the person authorizing the payment isn't spending their "own" money, and when it is hard to measure the delivered value of the product. This is common for education and other government-contract work, and also happens in the private sector (for example, corporate bulk IT services shopping)
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