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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 amo

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.

warent 7y ago
It's a nonprofit organization. I'm not that educated on the topic but I think that means it's possible to find a breakdown of their expenses somewhere.
- bjterry 7y ago
  You can find their 2018 IRS filing here: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/261544963/201912279349301826/full https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/261... I've never read one before, but it looks like their IT spend was $5m of $49m total expenses on page 10. I think it's very plausible that a sudden unanticipated increase in IT costs could cause a cash crunch.
  - jka 7y ago
    Thanks for linking to this. A unique string to find this line item in the linked filing is "Information technology" This was their second-largest functional expense area for 2018, behind "Other salaries and wages". Although I'm not an accountant it also seemed noteworthy to me that their "Revenue less expenses" was negative for 2018 (not overwhelmingly in relation to their assets, but still by a sizable amount). I'm not really qualified to comment on what that means, but naively it does seem to imply to me that they can continue to benefit from donations and external funding.
- innocenat 7y ago
  It was actually linked on the donation page: https://khanacademyannualreport.org/financial-information/ https://khanacademyannualreport.org/financial-information/
kiba 7y ago
Khan Academy isn't just composed of only youtube lectures, but a sophisticated platform for doing math problems, computer programming education, and so forth.
dirtydroog 7y ago
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
djohnston 7y ago
i think the platform has evolved quite a bit over the past 5 years
derision 7y ago
Cloud bills can be massively, especially for a company that has a ton of outgoing bandwidth
dangoor 7y ago
It's our biggest expense after salaries, as noted elsewhere in the thread.

warent 7y ago

It's a nonprofit organization. I'm not that educated on the topic but I think that means it's possible to find a breakdown of their expenses somewhere.

bjterry 7y ago
You can find their 2018 IRS filing here: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/261544963/201912279349301826/full https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/261... I've never read one before, but it looks like their IT spend was $5m of $49m total expenses on page 10. I think it's very plausible that a sudden unanticipated increase in IT costs could cause a cash crunch.
- jka 7y ago
  Thanks for linking to this. A unique string to find this line item in the linked filing is "Information technology" This was their second-largest functional expense area for 2018, behind "Other salaries and wages". Although I'm not an accountant it also seemed noteworthy to me that their "Revenue less expenses" was negative for 2018 (not overwhelmingly in relation to their assets, but still by a sizable amount). I'm not really qualified to comment on what that means, but naively it does seem to imply to me that they can continue to benefit from donations and external funding.
innocenat 7y ago
It was actually linked on the donation page: https://khanacademyannualreport.org/financial-information/ https://khanacademyannualreport.org/financial-information/

kiba 7y ago

Khan Academy isn't just composed of only youtube lectures, but a sophisticated platform for doing math problems, computer programming education, and so forth.

dirtydroog 7y ago

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

djohnston 7y ago

i think the platform has evolved quite a bit over the past 5 years

derision 7y ago

Cloud bills can be massively, especially for a company that has a ton of outgoing bandwidth

dangoor 7y ago

It's our biggest expense after salaries, as noted elsewhere in the thread.