6 ms·

Another round of layoffs in only a few months, things are not looking good for the company. Udacity cut 125 employees in November 2018 [1], just five months ago

Another round of layoffs in only a few months, things are not looking good for the company. Udacity cut 125 employees in November 2018 [1], just five months ago. Just before that 25 people were cut around August/September 2018 [2]. 1. https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/28/udacity-cuts-125-employees-as-part-of-global-restructuring-plan/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/28/udacity-cuts-125-employee... 2. https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/28/online-education-unicorn-udacity-has-quietly-laid-off-5-of-staff-at-least-25-people-since-august/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/28/online-education-unicorn-u...

veryworried 8y ago
Are we witnessing the end of Udacity?
- thomasmeeks 8y ago
  Yeah, I think so. The players in the industry that went after enterprises are doing well, the players that stuck to selling mostly to individual customers are having a rough go of it. Udacity definitely had some big enterprise deals with their specific nanodegrees, but it never looked like they became an enterprise sales company from the outside. I believe most marketing departments (along with people trying to make a name for themselves) have massively cranked up the amount of free content they pump out in the last few years. It is making it terribly difficult to become big in the education space while selling to the masses. Enterprises, on the other hand, _really_ want to lower their salary expenditures through training and will happily throw money at a company like Pluralsight to train up new employees. For what its worth, I think they're correct that training can drive down payroll costs. But the company I worked for was acquired by Pluralsight, so there's some bias.
  - christudor 8y ago
    Something else that makes the B2C market difficult is the fact that the sign of a great educational video is one that you only need to watch once.
    - povertyworld 8y ago
      The point of Udacity is the projects, not the videos. You can skip all the videos, and just go straight to the projects if you want.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      Well, yeah, but there's always another video you can watch. The problem is more the overall devaluing of content prices by consumers generally. Especially absent much in the way of certification value for most people, that places a real ceiling on how much you can charge. I might pay something in the neighborhood of book pricing for an online course (or I may take one of the numerous free alternatives). But I'm unlikely to pay triple digits and I certainly won't pay thousands of dollars.
  - nkozyra 8y ago
    > The players in the industry that went after enterprises are doing well, the players that stuck to selling mostly to individual customers are having a rough go of it. Keep in mind they had a deal with Georgia Tech's OMSCS, but something went awry there too.
    - cgearhart 7y ago
      The ink wasn’t even dry on the OMSCS deal when Udacity did their “pivot” to Nanodegrees. They lived up to the letter of the agreement with GT—in fact Udacity is still the classroom platform for OMSCS classes—but they went in a completely different direction as a company with a product that effectively competes with OMSCS. It’s not hard to see why: GT said recently that through 5 years of operation the OMSCS has made $14M for the school. That’s wonderful from their perspective, but that’s a total disaster for a VC-funded unicorn company.
- grosswait 8y ago
  Not sure, but this sounds promising "Last year, Udacity generated about $90 million in revenue. Even as Udacity slashes costs and headcount, it’s trying to expand its enterprise business, which has had recent success. Udacity now has contracts with 60 enterprise customers, including AT&T and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Airbus and Audi recently signed on, as well."
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Anecdotally, a fair number of companies seem to be tapping various providers that were originally mostly B2C as a way to bulk up company or technology-specific online training libraries with a catalog that addresses both more general skills and personal development. I don't know what this looks like as a business but I can imagine it's easier to sell a relatively modest number of business subscriptions than it is to beat the bushes for a lot of retail $10-50 courses.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
KerryJones 8y ago
I have several friends who used to work there -- there has been 3 other rounds of layoffs in the last few years (not including the ones you mentioned).

veryworried 8y ago

Are we witnessing the end of Udacity?

thomasmeeks 8y ago
Yeah, I think so. The players in the industry that went after enterprises are doing well, the players that stuck to selling mostly to individual customers are having a rough go of it. Udacity definitely had some big enterprise deals with their specific nanodegrees, but it never looked like they became an enterprise sales company from the outside. I believe most marketing departments (along with people trying to make a name for themselves) have massively cranked up the amount of free content they pump out in the last few years. It is making it terribly difficult to become big in the education space while selling to the masses. Enterprises, on the other hand, _really_ want to lower their salary expenditures through training and will happily throw money at a company like Pluralsight to train up new employees. For what its worth, I think they're correct that training can drive down payroll costs. But the company I worked for was acquired by Pluralsight, so there's some bias.
- christudor 8y ago
  Something else that makes the B2C market difficult is the fact that the sign of a great educational video is one that you only need to watch once.
  - povertyworld 8y ago
    The point of Udacity is the projects, not the videos. You can skip all the videos, and just go straight to the projects if you want.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Well, yeah, but there's always another video you can watch. The problem is more the overall devaluing of content prices by consumers generally. Especially absent much in the way of certification value for most people, that places a real ceiling on how much you can charge. I might pay something in the neighborhood of book pricing for an online course (or I may take one of the numerous free alternatives). But I'm unlikely to pay triple digits and I certainly won't pay thousands of dollars.
- nkozyra 8y ago
  > The players in the industry that went after enterprises are doing well, the players that stuck to selling mostly to individual customers are having a rough go of it. Keep in mind they had a deal with Georgia Tech's OMSCS, but something went awry there too.
  - cgearhart 7y ago
    The ink wasn’t even dry on the OMSCS deal when Udacity did their “pivot” to Nanodegrees. They lived up to the letter of the agreement with GT—in fact Udacity is still the classroom platform for OMSCS classes—but they went in a completely different direction as a company with a product that effectively competes with OMSCS. It’s not hard to see why: GT said recently that through 5 years of operation the OMSCS has made $14M for the school. That’s wonderful from their perspective, but that’s a total disaster for a VC-funded unicorn company.
grosswait 8y ago
Not sure, but this sounds promising "Last year, Udacity generated about $90 million in revenue. Even as Udacity slashes costs and headcount, it’s trying to expand its enterprise business, which has had recent success. Udacity now has contracts with 60 enterprise customers, including AT&T and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Airbus and Audi recently signed on, as well."
- ghaff 7y ago
  Anecdotally, a fair number of companies seem to be tapping various providers that were originally mostly B2C as a way to bulk up company or technology-specific online training libraries with a catalog that addresses both more general skills and personal development. I don't know what this looks like as a business but I can imagine it's easier to sell a relatively modest number of business subscriptions than it is to beat the bushes for a lot of retail $10-50 courses.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

KerryJones 8y ago

I have several friends who used to work there -- there has been 3 other rounds of layoffs in the last few years (not including the ones you mentioned).