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Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

khanacademy.org

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Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#51

Post by elamje »

dmayle wrote: post #27

(Replying to a trollish comment, but don't want to push it to the top). There was a comment about the salary that CEO Sal Khan takes, with is over $800,0000 per year. I think Khan Academy is fantastic, and was going to donate until I saw this figure (verified). I think that it's entirely inappropriate to extract that much from the donations.

The year is 2050, Khan Academy has raised 2 billion in funding, restructured as a for-profit corporation, and has vendor lock-in with nearly every school and child in the world. Khan academy charges a minimum of $800/yr/student. The CEO takes home $56 million a year. Which do you prefer, 800k, or 50 mil? Do we really want to a world where a brilliant mind, Sal Khan, is not rewarded at all for leaving his hedge fund career to make YouTube videos for next to nothing for many months, if not years? On top of that, he likely had a very real opportunity to turn Khan academy into a huge company, but instead went the non hockey stick, nonprofit route. Being a part of a successful non profit doesn’t mean you need to dip into your employees and your own salary to pay bills. Some of this might just be publicity to show that Khan academy is growing rapidly with remote learning.

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#52

Post by dirtydroog »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #3

I quite enjoyed khan academy when it was just Khan doing lectures. They were terrific. I can't imagine, though, that servers should account for any sizable amount of overall expense. Is this really an issue for them? The linked page didn't seem to talk about it.

Why do you say that? In my company our cloud bill is the largest expense after salaries. We're constantly watching those costs as they can get out of control quite quickly

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#55

Post by tasogare »

Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #35
thoraway329 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I know and it does disgust me. I wasn't talking about IT staff and regular employees. The CEO founded the "company", does he really need to incentivise himself with a near million dollars a year? I thought NPOs were created by people who want to change the world, but with this salary it seriously skews my perception of his true intentions.

But why not talk about the IT staff? You want their site to run to well right? You want some decent site reliability engineers right? Well you might find some that will do the job for less then they can earn for the same role in the for-profit world, you are still going to have to pay a decent wage for their skill and let’s be honest here so they can continue to live in a comfort they have become accustomed too. The…

Then let's talk about the IT staff. What is their salary? How many of them the "non-profits" could hire if their CEO had a more decent salary?

The organizations we are speaking about are very loud to beg for money yet they spend a large part of it on overpaying a few execs. This is very different from companies that earn their money without asking the public for money.

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#56

Post by kharak »

dmayle wrote: post #45
kharak wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, truly terrible that non-profit organisations serving the common good should provide high salaries. Founder and employees should just go into banking, because those guys absolutely deserve their high pay. Imagine, just imagine a society, where doing non-profit could be a valid career option without a disadvantage in the income department. The horror.

It's not about paying a salary. I've worked in non-profits before, all of the employees themselves are taking pay cuts to work for the greater good. He's asking people to give up their money in order to provide this service. A salary half that size provides an extravagant lifestyle, what he's taking is exorbitant.

What CEO's and many other people in for-profit industries are getting, is also quit exorbitant. But that's generally accepted.

Why do some people go nuts if they see non-profits demanding high pay? Khan Academy has done something unique, helpful and truly excellent, but how dare Salman Khan wanting a cut similar to for-profits. (If it is similar, properly still less).

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#57

Post by cerberusss »

arzel wrote: post #43

Ahh.. Khan Academy.. the usefulness this site provided throughout my middle and high school education. Quite frankly, it literally saved my ass. I've gone ahead and donated $1K.

Wow, that's very, very generous of you!

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#58

Post by mschuster91 »

ipsum2 wrote: post #34
the_pwner224 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 1m/yr is nothing compared to the impact KA has. It's no longer just a site with videos; it is a huge e-learning platform that is widely used and integrated in schools across the world. Being the CEO of KA must be a lot of work and I think most people would agree is worthy of that level of compensation. Or to put it another way: the government is also a nonprofit organization, but it needs good workers to fulfill…

No one gets in the government gets paid $800k, the highest paid salary is the president, at $400k.

Add to that the extra income from illegal such as bribes or the income Trump's orgs like his hotels do, to the legal avenues after the term such as book deals, speaker fees, corporate board memberships, lobbyism deals... the president nominally gets 400k but in reality way, way more than that.

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#59

Post by red2awn »

luckylion wrote: post #49
monkin wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that it's entirely inappropriate to extract that much from the donations. You know, that Stallman lived for years out of donations? And no one was opposite of that. It also worked for WikiMedia etc. It's great business model but people need to stop looking on non-profits like that next corporation. They require far more work and I think leaders of such projects should be compensated well. :)

To be fair, there's a difference between getting a salary from donations and getting 40x the average income from donations.

But the value he provides to the world is (in my opinion) more than 40x the average person.

Re: Khan Academy requests for donations as their servers are at 250% normal load

#60

Post by WanderPanda »

dmayle wrote: post #47
amachefe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not the one trolling? So will the figure be less of it's he is doing the same work for a company?

Jimmy Wales takes $0. I know they're not in the same situation, but even half that salary provides an extravagant lifestyle. I don't think he should be poor, I just think that if he's asking people to give up their money to pay him to do what he's doing, than he should be more frugal with the money he's asking for

He may ask for the money, you may consider his salary and decide not to donate and everybody goes his way. The comments here smell like there is a lot of acute jealousy floating around...
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