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.

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 improving themselves. These are traits that I want in people that I work with. Personally, I hate organized forms of education (and I spent 5 years teaching English as a foreign language in a high school!) Point me a text book, or blog posts or whatever and I will work through it at my own pace and in the order that I prefer. But I have to admit that it's pretty hard for me to put anything on my CV. The Coursera certificates (and I suppose these "nanodegrees" -- I haven't looked into this and know nothing about it) have a lot of value in that sense. From my experience hiring, I think it's certainly worth a few hundred dollars to have things like that on your CV. If it catches on (as it appears to be doing), then the bar will be raised and you will have to spend more to stand out. There is definite opportunity.