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Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B

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Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B

#71

Post by Crusoe123 »

subrat_rout wrote: post #40

I am one of the first cohort of Udacity to complete Front End Web Developer Nanodegree. However, when I applied for a developer job(something called Udacity Experience Program) on their career site, few weeks after I got an email describing I am not a good fit for the role. I have been looking for an entry level developer job for last couple of months. During job interviews when I mention regarding the Certification…

Do you have other finished projects in your portfolio? Or is the Nanodegree the only thing you have?

If it's the latter then I am not surprised, since you can't really get a job based on just one finished course, it's best to showcase what you've learned by building stuff and putting it on github or alike.

Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B

#72

Post by rdlecler1 »

judk wrote: post #42
rdlecler1 wrote: post #38

No they raised $105M in preferred shares with 1x or more liquidity preferences. The common stock is worth no more than the value of a way out of the money penny option that is only excercised in the case of a liquidity event. Meaning the real valuation of the company is maybe two or three hundred million. Of course founders don't tell employees that because they can get talent for pennies on the dollar this way.

How do you get to 300M? Is is possible that someone like University of Phoenix might offer $1B for the company? If so, might it be accepted? If so, how much are shares worth? At my old job, whenever investors bought in they offers to buy out employee shares at the stated valuation.

Yes possible. It's possible my $2 lottery ticket will also be worth $100m but until it is, it is still worth only $2 or maybe even less. Until then the value of each share class is not the same and so it would be a mathematical mistake to calculate valuation as the sum of all shares multiplied by the highest price paid for the most senior share class.

Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B

#73

Post by ghaff »

mikekchar wrote: post #39
ghaff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these kind of valuations were based on company training budgets, I'd be happily convinced. I haven't heard that argument being made but maybe it's the basis.

Not that I want to defend a billion dollar valuation from a private company with no liquidity... But the sector is one that is arguably incredibly lucrative. Last year I was reading lots of CVs as we were trying to hire people. The number of people who have Coursera courses on their CV is amazing. And to be honest, it works (on me, anyway ;-) ). It communicates the idea that they have initiative and that they value i…

Fair enough. One of the key questions with these MOOCs (using the term broadly) is the degree to which their certifications elicit a positive reaction from a recruiter or a hiring manage. (And, of course, how effective they are, on an hourly basis, teaching material relative to other methods. Although I expect the answer to this depends upon the person and how much structure they prefer.)

Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B

#74

Post by mattlutze »

ghaff wrote: post #3

Mind. Boggles. "Nanodegrees"? "now recognized by some of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies, including Google and Salesforce"? What does that even mean? And this is a company that has essentially "pivoted" to being a sort of vocational training in the CS space. There may be a business model there but it doesn't seem like anything particularly unique or deserving of out-sized evaluations.

I would be surprised to hear B2B sales of their underlying platform isn't a big part of the current or expected business. Most universities have or need a way to build compressed or distance courses. Most of their home-grown platforms are probably substandard compared to Udacity or EdX or something else like that.

Similarly for non-traditional education, custom-tuned and branded platforms for companies, non-profits, public agencies and the like. Helping build packages of courses and hosting self-developed content for internal development programs (lots of engineering firms have a learning component in career progression, for example).

It feels like there should be a huge market something that does all this ^^ simply, provides useful reporting and basic information analysis, and for a good price.

Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B

#75

Post by bigtunacan »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #63
el_benhameen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who wants to use perhaps one or two--but certainly not all-- of these services, I'm curious which of these services you've found most valuable. I'm asking generally, though I'm mostly interested in compsci/dev topics, if that's helpful.

"mostly interested in compsci/dev topics" Assuming you are looking for primarily video content: - Go deep into some recent-ish tech stack, e.g. React/Flux: Udemy - Learn foundational stuff, like math: Coursera - iOS: Bitfountain if you can afford it. Otherwise Udacity or Udemy. - Android: Udacity - Frequently need access to 'how do I do this thing that I know should take only 10 mins in app Y?' help: Lynda - ELI5: Co…

Bitfountain also has a great Android class set, which for the life of me I don't understand why it's not listed on their main page, but you can directly access it here.

https://fedora.bitfountain.io/courses/android

It's normally $149 for lifetime access, but they runs sales on it as low as $49.

Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B

#76

Post by bigtunacan »

MIKarlsen wrote: post #64
el_benhameen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who wants to use perhaps one or two--but certainly not all-- of these services, I'm curious which of these services you've found most valuable. I'm asking generally, though I'm mostly interested in compsci/dev topics, if that's helpful.

Udemy has some crazy discount almost 90 % of the time... I'm constantly getting 75-95 % discounts on my courses. So that might be a factor as well.

This is so true. I almost never pay "normal price" for classes on Udemy and always buy them on a discount. This is true of a lot of the other networks to.

I also subscribe to the BGR Store mailing list which sends out notifications of discounted classes across a wide range of MOOC offerings. It's a bit tedious to wade through the emails, but it's worth it to keep track of the discounts available.

Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B

#77

Post by bigtunacan »

eterm wrote: post #70
MIKarlsen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Udemy has some crazy discount almost 90 % of the time... I'm constantly getting 75-95 % discounts on my courses. So that might be a factor as well.

This actually led to a really good course author having an issue with them over this. (Alan Richardson who hosted a very good technical testing course and a good selenium/webdriver course). I believe he still has those courses but he intially opted out of their discount program. A course he sold for $200 would have been sold for far less which undermined his own brand but also didn't give him a fair shot at earning f…

I think Pluralsight has consistently higher quality classes than Udemy, but that Udemy also has some great classes. You have to spend a bit more time looking at reviews before you buy on Udemy. Also you end up having to accept the fact that sometimes you will end up buying a course that isn't worthwhile.

As an example of a non technical class; The Secrets to Drawing on Udemy is Amazing. I am a (bad) hobby artist in my spare time and this class has done more to help me with my drawing skills than any other book or class I've tried in the past; my kids have been going through it too and they absolutely love it.

https://www.udemy.com/the-secrets-to-drawing/#/

This is two of the benefits of Udemy over Pluralsight

1) On Pluralsight I would never see this class (well not currently anyway) because it doesn't fall within their accepted domain of classes.

2) I paid the $30 one time for this class and I can go back and review whenever I want and let my kids go back and use it a year later and not have to pay another subscription fee.

Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B

#78

Post by nicholjs »

bigtunacan wrote: post #75
rahimnathwani wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"mostly interested in compsci/dev topics" Assuming you are looking for primarily video content: - Go deep into some recent-ish tech stack, e.g. React/Flux: Udemy - Learn foundational stuff, like math: Coursera - iOS: Bitfountain if you can afford it. Otherwise Udacity or Udemy. - Android: Udacity - Frequently need access to 'how do I do this thing that I know should take only 10 mins in app Y?' help: Lynda - ELI5: Co…

Bitfountain also has a great Android class set, which for the life of me I don't understand why it's not listed on their main page, but you can directly access it here. https://fedora.bitfountain.io/courses/android It's normally $149 for lifetime access, but they runs sales on it as low as $49.

we put a lot of effort into the android course but realized online education is lacking depth. you can take intro courses in 20 different subjects on lynda, udemy, udacity and treehouse. we want to be the place to learn everything there is to know about building iOS apps.

Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B

#79

Post by bigtunacan »

nicholjs wrote: post #78
bigtunacan wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitfountain also has a great Android class set, which for the life of me I don't understand why it's not listed on their main page, but you can directly access it here. https://fedora.bitfountain.io/courses/android It's normally $149 for lifetime access, but they runs sales on it as low as $49.

we put a lot of effort into the android course but realized online education is lacking depth. you can take intro courses in 20 different subjects on lynda, udemy, udacity and treehouse. we want to be the place to learn everything there is to know about building iOS apps.

You're doing great stuff on the iOS front so keep up the good work. The Android classes are high quality though as well; it's sad to see that you aren't continuing that track. I would love to see an Android online training equivalent of CommonsWare; and Udacity isn't that.

Re: Udacity Raises $105M Series D, Bringing Valuation to $1B

#80

Post by rahimnathwani »

eterm wrote: post #70
MIKarlsen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Udemy has some crazy discount almost 90 % of the time... I'm constantly getting 75-95 % discounts on my courses. So that might be a factor as well.

This actually led to a really good course author having an issue with them over this. (Alan Richardson who hosted a very good technical testing course and a good selenium/webdriver course). I believe he still has those courses but he intially opted out of their discount program. A course he sold for $200 would have been sold for far less which undermined his own brand but also didn't give him a fair shot at earning f…

"One benefit of the udemy over the pluralsight model is that years later I still have access to the course and can revisit it"

This assumes that Udemy still exists at that time. The Udemy mobile apps allow offline caching, but the Udemy site does not allow you to download videos to store them permanently on your computer. An open source tool to help users do this themselves was served a DMCA notice: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2015-08-12-Udemy....

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