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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

#161
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.

Looks like most people here think the salary is reasonable. I'd be curious to see the reaction if he were making 8m / year instead of 800k. At what point would it seem like "too much"?

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

#163

Salman Khan takes $800k/yr from Khan Academy donations for himself, maybe he should donate.

Far less than many charity heads, I think it's completely fair with what he's created and how little he made in the early years from it. Do you work for a charity/donate all of your time by the way?

I'm not asking for donations.

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

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.thecrimson.com/column/plain-truth/article/2020/3... > After your stint at Teach for America, a two-year post-undergraduate teaching program, you decided to leave the academic world behind and work in New York City. Where are you most likely to be employed? Goldman Sachs.

Offered without comment, I'm not sure what this link to an opinion column is supposed to mean. The quote is a hypothetical example. It seems that T4A is more of a temporary diversion program than a recruitment program anyway. Harvard students, who in a just universe would all become wealthy investment bankers, are encouraged to teach in urban schools for a couple of years. This despite the fact that their Economics a…

> This despite the fact that their Economics and Philosophy concentration probably included very little on pedagogy.

This is irrelevant since the effects of a degree in education on measures of student learning is not reliably distinguishable from zero. Training in pedagogy either doesn’t matter at all or matters very, very little.

> This despite the nearly universal (although not necessarily justified) opinion among teachers and administrators that first-year teachers are pretty much useless.

That’s a bit harsh but the only reliable correlate of teacher quality I’m aware of is years of experience up to six years. First years probably aren’t “pretty much useless” but you’d prefer more seasoned instructors.

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

#165
I was hoping to find more info on the "250% nominal load" mentioned in the title. However, I didn't see anything about load on the linked page, just a generic looking donation page.

I'm a bit biased, because I focus on CPU efficiency for a major CDN, but I'd be super curious what exactly is at 250%? Network bandwidth? CPU? IOPS? Are there big hammers that they can use to get things back under control without adding servers, like reducing bitrate, or turning off "fancy" features?

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

#167
post #149

Salman Khan takes $800k/yr from Khan Academy donations for himself, maybe he should donate.

He spent a decade of nights-and-weekends effort on making kids better at math and science, taking what I understand to be startup level risks in the beginning. How much do you think he should make? Mr. Rogers was paid more than $800k/year if you adjust for inflation[1][2]. [1] https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/actors... [2] https://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=1...

If he thinks other people should donate a whole bunch of money, shouldn't he donate a whole bunch of money if he has it? Maybe he already does this, I don't know. If he took a lower salary he would effectively be doing this -- in a publicly verifiable way. It's a matter of "skin in the game".

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

#168
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.

Just donated. This is one of the good sites on the web. Please lets keep this one going.

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

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far less than many charity heads, I think it's completely fair with what he's created and how little he made in the early years from it. Do you work for a charity/donate all of your time by the way?

I'm not asking for donations.

That's because no-one would donate to you, because you haven't done anything worthwhile. Sal Khan has.
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