Both Coursera and Udemy started 2025 with new CEOs. Greg Hart took over at Coursera in February. Hugo Sarrazin started at Udemy in March. Less than a month into the job, both CEOs were in conversations to sell their companies. On April 8, Hart and Sarrazin met for the first time at ASU+GSV. The rest, as they say, is history. In my 5,000-word analysis of Coursera’s acquisition of Udemy, I called the deal rushed. Two new CEOs, both less than a year into the job, merging two public companies. I w

Frustrated with handling unpaid customer support for a platform with 8.6 million paying subscribers, Duolingo’s Reddit community takes dramatic action against the $16.2 billion language learning company

In 2027, Duolingo is shutting down Duolingo for Schools, its free classroom tool that helped teachers track student progress and assign lessons. Coursera did the same thing last year, ending free course audits. It seemed sudden, but the signs were there. Class Central tracked the Duolingo for Schools shutdown too. And this time, the signs were all across social media platforms. Why the Shutdown? Duolingo for Schools was launched in 2015. Within a week, more than 10,000 teachers and 25,000 stud