In 2012, Sebastain Thrun, co-founder of Udacity, declared “In 50 years, there will be only 10 institutions in the world delivering higher education.”
If this is to come true, it seems clear that Udacity isn’t going to be one of them, not just because they’re shedding employees, but because Udacity continues to “pivot” away from education and towards corporate training, helping companies “upscale their talent” in Thrun’s parlance.
“MOOC” does not appear once in the news of the layoffs. The Udacity nanodegree job guarantee program is currently on hold, perhaps never to return.
So MOOCs aren’t going to kill higher education institutions. This disruption isn’t to be.
You know what else isn’t being disrupted? Independent bookstores.
In fact small bookstores are “booming.”
Sometimes, change requires a few more years, or decades.