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was incredibly stressful and we were digging into our savings about five or six thousand dollars a month and you know, but my male ego was trying to shelter my family from it. So I was putting on a strong face to my friends and family and you can imagine my mother who you know, when I told her I'd quit my job. You know, I store my her first word was what
From NPR it's how I built this a show about innovators entrepreneurs idealists and the stories behind the movements they goat.
I'm guy rosin on the show today have a random decision to help a cousin with her math homework. Let's Sal Khan to build Khan Academy a free online teaching platform with nearly 30 million users a month.
So most of the products and services we've talked about on the show have been Innovative or disruptive in some way but some of them and you've heard me say this before have fundamentally changed the way we live. I mean lift Air B&B Starbucks Shopify Wayfarer, these brands have transformed the way that many of us shop and travel and work but every now and then a
Comes along that seems to want to do something even more ambitious even more transformative like remember Pat Brown. He found it impossible foods to create meat out of plants meat. So me like that, even the most die-hard carnivores would want to eat it pat wants to put a stop to meet production period because of the damage it's doing to the planet and essentially and I don't think I'm overstating this he set out from
today one to change the world, but still Pat Brown stands to make a lot of money from his company same with most of the founders who've been on the show and I don't think any of them are motivated primarily to make money, but it is part of the story. They make a product or offer a service sell it to you and me and they also get rich perfectly fine. But what about someone who makes a product or offers a service that is equally transformational.
Maybe even more so but makes it 100% free to do that. You have to make personal sacrifices starting by earning a lot less money,
which is just
part of what makes Sal Khan. So incredibly remarkable over the past 12 years. He's built Khan Academy into a Powerhouse a massive online learning platform that offers free tutorials to anyone anywhere and from the very
Beginning Sal decided his Academy would be a nonprofit that it should never be tempted to compromise on its values. But before he launched Khan Academy, Sal didn't anticipate any of this. He was just trying to help a younger cousin with her sixth grade math lessons at the time. He was working for a hedge fund. But from those early days of doing one-on-one tutorials, Sal gradually built a platform that offers hundreds of classes in
Dozens of languages nearly 30 million people use Khan Academy every month to learn math science the Arts even SAT prep all for free and Khan Academy has inspired the launch of many other online learning platforms, but many of them are for-profit operations that charge money, but we'll get to all that in a moment first. Let's back up just a little bit Sal Khan grew up in Metairie, Louisiana his mom.
Was from India and his dad was from Bangladesh and the marriage ended when Sal was pretty
young my parents, you know had issues. And so they separated when I was probably about 18 months old 2 years old and then I had really never seen my father again. I saw him once for an evening when I was 13, and then he passed away the next year. So it was really my mother who raised us as a single mother.
Wow, was there a community of South Asian families in Metairie when you were growing up?
Yeah, my you know when my parents separated we actually lived with my young uncle's at the time they were in their 20s. And so they all were kind of like Father figures and almost like older siblings to me as well. And in a lot of ways they were not your stereotypical, you know, just come to the u.s. Study, you know get a job.
Save money kind of prudent immigrant story. They were they were much more embracing of New Orleans culture and I would say they're the most new orleanian South Asians, you will ever find in your life. I had a very colorful childhood, you know late night parties people singing and dancing, you know for me it felt like a remember my third birthday that my uncle's got a belly dancer. I still remember Habiba, you know, so it was definitely a different type of childhood, but it was in some ways a really rich
One
so, what did your mom do for a living
the first job that I remember her having she she was the the person who takes the change out of the vending machine at the at the local hospital Ashley the hospital where I was born and she took me to work a couple times because she didn't have childcare and I thought at the time I remember, you know watching her do that. I think it was like the coolest job on Earth because he you have to ski that you can open up the vending machine and like quarters just pour out of it. So she did that for a little bit.
Then essentially was a cashier at a series of convenience stores is kind of doing you know, one minimum wage job after another and then I was in high school. She had remarried her and my stepdad at the time we're able to kind of Cobble together to get a small convenience store in Metairie
in your book you write Louisiana was as close to South Asia as the United States could get it spicy food humidity giant cockroaches and acre.
Corrupt government, which is both funny. But somewhat true, I guess right. I mean you grew up at a time when like David Duke was the like the representative in the state legislature.
Yeah the part of Metairie where but we had our store. It was called Seminole convenience store on Seminole Avenue, and it's called a part of Metairie called Bucktown that was kind of the heart of David Dukes base. So to speak I remember, you know, right outside of our our store across the street was the
Largest David Duke for president cited I've ever seen and so it was a you know, the folks who lived in the neighborhood who were frankly, you know, super David Duke supporters, you know, and in some ways it was lucky. This was pre 9/11. They didn't really know what to make of of my family at the time. You know, we've had a few conversations. I remember with people the store where they openly told us that they were trying to decide whether we were white or the N word to you know, we were confusing them, but you
No growing up. I was you know, the only Brown kid and in the classroom, but I never felt in school at all. Like folks were in any way biased or racist against me. If anything I have to give the the school system to Jefferson Parish School System a lot of credit, you know, I think a lot of what I am today is because they gave me opportunities there were teachers that believed in me. I had a really good friend Circle. So so I have no, you know, I don't feel like it was a a
Childhood
cell was your mom. Did she have very strict expectations for you. I mean she had come from India to the United States made a lot of sacrifices. Did she sort of you know, which you say you have to be an engineer doctor lawyer. Like what was there any kind of talk like that at home when you were a kid,
you know, my mother definitely did instill some really strong values or you know, just seeing her.
Great. My mom is a very courageous person and you know, we were the only family that in our friend Circle where you know, we were kind of not well off or at least not middle class, but I think that was helpful too because the family friends we had many of them were the stereo typical doctors and engineers and you know, you obviously can see where you live and you see where those kids live and you can see kind of our financial insecurity. I still remember I must have been eight or nine years old at Kmart and I was being a brat.
I really wanted to be you know by this hot wheel set and I was throwing a tantrum in the Kmart and I remember that was the first time that my mom kind of just kind of broke down a little bit says don't you realize we have no money and you know, one of my uncle's they had a they had a food store in a really rough neighborhood in New Orleans. He got shot, you know people, you know, we thought he was going to die. I think I was about 8 years old at the time. It was just a kind of I don't want that life. I'd rather have the life of my others.
South Asian friends who are whose parents are, you know who are professionals.
So I'm trying to figure out where you're framing comes from the way you frame. Your childhood is pretty remarkable because I think you can also I mean, I mean somebody with the same experience could say actually was really hard, you know, we were financially insecure. My uncle's had a convenience store. My mom did it was not safe. They were robberies. We were you know,
The only brown skin people in our neighborhood there was racism. I mean the way you frame your childhood is totally different from the way. I think a lot of people would frame it and I wonder would you attribute that to I mean, where does that come
from?
Well, you know, I generally think it was a it was a rich and colorful childhood and there was definitely hard aspects of it. But I think everyone has their their own flavor of hardships. And for the most part, I think whatever hardships are constraints we had helped grow me and and he done and it gives you a perspective on life and and I wouldn't describe my childhood as idyllic by any stretch of the imagination, but I would write I would I would describe it as colorful and and Rich and
And it definitely I had experiences that you know, a lot of kids didn't have which I think we're actually in hindsight quite incredible.
Yeah, when I read that when you're in high school you were in a heavy metal band or death metal band or and which one which one was it? Is that true?
Yes, I was a lead singer, but you know singing is as being very generous to what I was doing was more yelling or growling
you were the lead Growler of the death metal band. I
was the lead growler.
Of a death metal band there is a band called original name and I cringe when I say these things now it was malignancy, but then we had to change our name because there was abandoned Florida called malignancy. And so anyway, it was you know, it was me and three other guys.
All right, you were in this band and but sounds like school was pretty easy for you that you're doing pretty
well. Yeah, I was a kid that kind of did just whatever I needed to do to.
To get a decent grade and it was about 9th or 10th grade that I started getting really serious about studies and I remember in 10th Grade that kind of lived this double life where I was on kind of the Academic Teams and quiz bowl and Science Olympiad and I was chosen to be on representing Louisiana National academic games and it was the same weekend as our first Big Gig as a death metal band. And so I had this kind of path but I had this choice that I had to pick
this is mrs.
Lignin sees first
main. Yeah, we had an opportunity to open up for paralysis, which is a big deal and
malignancy opens for
paralysis. Yeah, it's definitely and you know, some of my the people were in my band they were starting to get into trouble some of them started doing some drugs, you know, getting getting a little bit into I would call a scary crowd and and that frankly skit, you know, I had my I had my quiz bowl and academic games friends and then and then
I had some of my other friends who were their life was getting really tough and they were starting to I would say get into trouble and that that scared me
ha so when it came time to apply to college where you encouraged to aim pretty high like like to a prestigious school.
Yeah. I give a lot of credit to my sister. You know, she was always that little ahead of me and I looked at the school that she was applying for when she was graduating from high school. I was in Middle School or freshman at the time and she was applying to places like Brown University.
And I was like fire have you looked at the tuition at Brown University? There's no way we're gonna be able for that and she's like no there's something called financial aid and you can get loans and and all of this and she ended up going to Brown and that completely opened up my mind of what's possible and to give my mom Fair Credit. She definitely, you know, I think South Asian culture Indian culture, whatever you want to call it, you know, there is this very you could call it positive or negative peer pressure of like oh, so what are your kids doing? So once those kids going to med school what someone's kid got it has a
The perfect GPA is value torian is your kid only the salutatorian so she kind of would often tell us stuff like, you know, you should be valedictorian just like through hien through Gene was this kid we knew who is 10 years older who had I think by the time he was 18, he had a PhD from Tulane. So, you know, it's I think he now has two phds in an MD. He's it's a so, I remember there's a lot I heard a lot about foodie.
So I guess your mom was pretty happy because you wound up going to MIT and when you got there was this is so exciting.
It was for me.
Me, you know when I got there I was it did feel like heaven on so many levels for me, you know, it was the first environment that I had been in that really are like, you know, you shouldn't be ashamed if you're getting excited in organic chemistry class her I still remember one of my friends to render who I actually met in the organic chemistry class. Like I literally saw him getting excited about what was being talked about. He was having a pifan he's as we were talking about like the aldol reaction and it's the closest thing to Hogwarts.
In the real world where you know science is Magic and you can walk down, you know that the main hallway and MIT is called the infinite Corridor and you just seeing you know people with like that. Some of them are a little bit unusual and there affect and all this but they all have these magical superpowers and there's professors who are inventing things and Building Things and this is right in the late 90s where the internet computer science was was starting to become very relevant to broader to society as a whole so it's a mighty
He was and I think continues to be an incredibly exciting place
you graduated MIT with a master's degree. You'd like doubled tripled up on classes. And I guess I'm just more insanely productive and and got a degree in computer science. What did you do after you graduate it?
Well, I remember my senior year. This was about November of my senior year. I talked to a friend who was a year older and he had just gotten a
But Oracle and I was kind of nosy as like well, how much are they paying you and yeah, and he said $100,000 and for me at the time I was like what mind was blown my mind was blown. My mom was making $16,000 a year. I had about 25,000 dollars in debt which at the time felt like all the money in the world. So I was getting stressed about it and I was and I literally remember thinking like it would be irresponsible for me not to try to make that type of money pay off my debt help out my family and just get a little bit more financial.
Security so I remember that's when I went to an advisor and saying I think I need to finish the Masters this year and they all thought I was a little bit crazy but it happened and actually end up working at org. It's my first job. Wow. So you you
move to Silicon Valley to work to California to work for Oracle. I guess.
Yeah. I moved out to the Bay Area and you get to you know about a year into my tenure there. It's 1999 now, we're at the peak of the.com bubble.
All I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine who was on an H-1B visa from India. And and he said Sal why are you here as like I was a piece really good. He's like I'm here because I have to come I have to get my immigration but like you're a citizen like if I were you I'd be do I'd be starting a company right now. Yes is the late 90s. And so yeah, I ended up joining a start-up it was a start-up to it was going to democratize venture capital is called me VC where the the idea was.
You know, you had all these IPOs that were popping. So a lot of people were trying to get into the Venture Capital Market, but it obviously was hard for people to get into it. Yeah, so these two Bankers from Robertson Stephens at the time they had come up with a structure that could be a publicly-traded venture capital fund. And and so that was the start up and was going to have a tech aspect of it where people could see the Investments, etc. Etc. So that was what I was supposed to build and did
build huh. It's a great idea but still hasn't been democratized to this day. What happened to the star?
You know while the NASDAQ was roaring was doing quite well it grew to 40 employees. It raised its first fund which I think was a several hundred million dollars, but then you know, I still remember that day and I believe it was spring of 2000 when the NASDAQ collapse and you know, and with that I saw the other side of the startup world where you know every week we'd have to lay off a few folks and it was incredibly incredibly painful and political and strategic.
Restful and that was around the time that I was like, yeah, maybe I should take shelter someplace. Yeah, so I started looking up applications for business school.
So you decide to leave Silicon Valley and the startup world for at least the time being and go to business school. You went to back to Massachusetts to Harvard Business School. Yeah. And what was the what was the idea was your idea? Like, all right, I'll do this and then I'll go back into the startup world or I'll go into finance and get a stable job and you know, make a stable good income. Like did you have a sense of what you want to do?
I mean if I'm really honest I was lonely. I was out in Silicon Valley. I mean the male-female ratio in Silicon Valley back then was horrendous. I also felt traumatized to a large degree by my startup experience because it was it was so painful and political and and and I actually told myself that I didn't I didn't have the fortitude to be an entrepreneur that that it is. It's just it's just so emotionally taxing. Let me go to business school and you know, maybe broaden my
Maybe a little bit so people just don't perceive me as The Tech Guy or the Quant guy and it was while I was in business school. I started taking Finance classes and started seeing that. Wow. There's a real Beauty to finance that it has its quantitative aspect but it also has a huge psychological and historical aspect to it that I loved and I remember taking a capital markets class and that was probably the math heaviest class offered in business Cola and and the professor's name is George.
Taco I remember going to him after class one day I was like, I really like this class and he's like, yeah, you really have a knack for Capital markets and things like this. I was like, well, what should I do with this? Like what kind of career is this for? He's like I think you should go work at a hedge fund and I said wow, that sounds great. What's a hedge fund and he explained, you know, it's like a mutual fund but there's a lot more flexibility in how you invest the money. You can get into exotic things. You can short you can buy and sell options and I talked to some friends who are neither who had worked at hedge funds or her were going to work in hedge funds.
Said so what's the pay like, you know, is it good and they kind of looked at me like are you crazy? It's like it's about as good as it gets.
So so I guess you decided to do exactly that to get a job at a hedge fund. Was it easy to land one?
Well, I got probably know, you know, you know my application got rejected hundreds of times and my resume did not look like a hedge fund resume. I went I was getting people in Tech who wanted me to be a product manager or something like that, but
At that time I had there was a girl. I had a crush on from MIT. She was now in med school in New York. And so I was also like I need to work in New York. And so I was I literally went through the directory of any hedge fund in New York. And I was I was getting one rejection after another and then eventually there was this guy Dan wool a based in in Boston who was apparently kind of getting his hedge fund off the ground and Dan at the time was 32 years old. I
33 years old and I interviewed with him and he hired me and he later told me he hired me because I didn't have a background in finance. He liked that. I seemed to be kind of a out-of-the-box type of personality and you know, it was it's one of these ironies that I had been Fallen back into essentially a start-up because it was me and Dan and you were looking for office space and making sure that the office was dog-friendly because he had this large dog that we had to we had to accommodate.
And so yeah that that was my first job in finance.
How'd it go had? How did you do?
You know, I gotta say, you know, it's it was it was a fascinating job because what we would do is we would screen the market for things that looked just intriguing and we would try to understand that business and the best way to understand that business was trying to get the management team on the phone to explain their business to us. Yeah, and and so it was intellectually I was a kid in a candy shop because I was able to
Am is kind of like being a journalist you're able to really dive deeply into these and and my job was actually to be kind of a hyper learner because you know, the first half of the calls I would always say like it was a little bit of like gee whiz. So how does this work? How do Logistics work and all that and then the second half of the call, I would I would turn up the novel little bit and I was like what you know what you're saying doesn't make sense and and push and push the management teams a little bit harder,
huh? And I mean why you're doing all this you're also sort of starting what would become Khan Academy I mean,
Are working there in Boston and I guess is around 2004 like the story I guess that I've heard is that your sister's daughter has like having trouble with math it is that is that sort of the story?
It was a cousin. It was a year. I was a year out of business school had just gotten married to the to Umama might be the person that I was trying to move to New York for and and the wedding was in New Jersey, which is where my wife grew up but then family was visiting from New Orleans and they had caught they wanted to visit a Boston during 4th.
July and so I was showing them around town and just came out of conversation that my 12 year old cousin Nadia her mother knows with Auntie was telling me that she was having trouble in math and she's like Salas. There's anything you can do. I know you know, you're more knowledgeable about these types of things. And so I I talk to Nadia and Nadia said that he was having trouble she took a placement test at the end of 6th grade had a lot of unit conversion in it. She felt that she just couldn't understand unit conversion. And so I told Nadia is like I'm a hundred percent sure. You're capable of learning.
Unit conversion. How about when you go back to New Orleans? I'm happy to tutor you remotely and she was up for it. And so that's that was August of 2004 when I started tutoring Nadia.
All right, so remotely sounds fine today like in the era of zoom and slack and stuff. But how did you do that in 2004? Was it over the phone?
Yeah, it was over the phone and we use Yahoo. Instant Messenger to type messages or to type questions.
And Yahoo! Instant messenger at the time had this feature called Yahoo! Doodle where you can actually with your mouth scribbled something and someone on the other side could see what you scribbled and you can imagine writing math equations with a mouse was pretty painful. And so I got myself and I got nausea a like a I think was $60 pen tablet so that you could write but was on a little little part of your instant messenger window, but that's still enough that you could write things like 3x is equal to 6.
You know, what does x equal so that's that's how we did it
and this is just something you're doing at night and go kind of after work.
Yeah, we I was doing it every day about 30 minutes and getting on the phone and after a frankly a few weeks Navia. The first few weeks was just deprogramming her own lack of self-esteem. But then after she got through that she started believe that she was capable of learning unit conversion actually came quite easily to her. Then she got caught up with her class. You came a little ahead of her class at that point. I became what I
Tiger cousin called up her school. I say, you know, I really think Nadia Ramon should be able to retake that placement test from last year. They said who are you it said I'm her cousin and you know surprisingly they let her retake that placement test and the same Nadia who is only a few months ago put into a remedial class was now put into an advanced math class and I was hooked.
Wow. And what was the secret I mean with me. How did you get her from a remedial class room?
Advanced class in a matter of months.
I would love to believe that I'm some type of super tutor something but I think the reality is there's actually a lot of research to back this up that if if you do have one on one tutoring and that tutor is able to identify what your gaps are and fill in those gaps, especially in subjects like mathematics that most kids can actually probably all kids could be accelerated dramatically and that's all that was happening with Navi. I mean there was some of it was just a motivational she had almost given up on herself. So
To just re motivate her a little bit and I think a little bit of the secret, you know, this might sound a little bit of like a once again a tiger cousin or tiger parent thing to do but when you get when you allow a student to get a little ahead of their class two things happen one when they see it in class, they're like, oh I've seen this before so they it builds a little bit of cushion and also builds confidence. There's just, you know, once you start to realize that you can actually get a little ahead of your class. You're like, oh, maybe this is my thing. Maybe I'm a math
person.
And I guess like the word gets out in the fan round the family in Louisiana and other relatives like hey, can you help my kid or can you help me it? Is that sort of what happened?
Yeah, I mean puts the exactly as you described word spread that free tutoring was going on before, you know, and I was getting requests from from from family members all over the country and by by 2006 I was tutoring on
Given day anywhere between 5 and 15 cousins family friends are
around even day
on a giving it you how to cook. They would all get on the speakerphone together that would right answer questions they had and you know, I want one thing I saw with my cousin's the way that math is often taught and especially learned is it's like these fragmented concept that you have to memorize formulas and patterns and things like that and what the thing that really served me well growing up is that if you just Ponder the math a little bit it all connects, it all makes intuitive sense. It's all just a
way of thinking and so I was really trying to do what I could to support them all
and meantime you were still working at a hedge fund right?
I was and I have to give extra credit to Dan because in the early days when I was working for wool Capital dance startup hedge fund. It was just me and him I had bought Into The Stereotype that you have to work 80 hours a week to make it in finance. So I was ready to do that. And I remember this about a month or two into the starting my job Dan's
Why are you still here? Why aren't you going home has a goal node, and I'm ready to you know, I'm going to look for more investment ideas. He's like no no go home as I call guys like, okay, I'll go home and I'll look for investment ideas. He's like no Sal you're not going to help anybody by just you know, having the appearance of motion. It's not about just turning yourself in tying yourself out because then you're just more likely to make bad decisions. Our whole goal is to avoid bad decisions. And the best way to do that is when you're at work, you know have your game face on have your game energy but to do that
Going to have to have other things in your life. You should read interesting books, you know recharge and actually that recharging is going to keep your mind open and keep you creative and not fall into the group think that a lot of people do and so Dan kind of forced me to have a life and that's what gave me the space in in my life to offer to nausea. Say yeah, you know after markets closed. I'm actually pretty free to work with you.
So you're doing this tutoring these kids and it's over the phone.
And this is like around 2006 and somebody suggest that you make videos and you put it on YouTube is that did that happen around that
time? Actually, even before the videos happened in around late 2005, you know this background in software and in the back of my mind, I have always been fascinated by Ken software play a role in improving human potential and when I was in college almost every job I did was
Some way related to education or how Tech and education could be useful. Remember I worked for the some Spanish professors to help teach people Spanish than the the next summer. I worked on some software to help kids with attention deficit disorder learn math, and I created this little thing called math Planet so my brain was there throughout for a long time. And so when I started working with my cousin's I was like, wow, you know, it's hard for me to find good practice problems for them on the Internet. Let me write some software for them that could generate.
Actus problems and that then can give them hints and solutions and immediate feedback and that could give me as their tutor data on how they're performing and how long things are taking them and I wrote it as a hobby. And that was that was the first Khan Academy. I you know, I set it up as a website
and and you just it was not very expensive presumably you just kind of did it yourself and offered it to these kids.
Yeah, and I remember, you know, a lot of my friends was like well, is this a business also not a
This I'm not a start-up guy. I'll never do that. Again. This is this this is my family project. That was my way of frankly protecting it emotionally. And yeah, I was at a dinner party and my friend his name is Julie Julie Rems on give him full credit. He's like, well, this is cool Sal but how he's killing your actual lessons and I said, you're right Azula, it's hard to do with 10 cousins. What I was originally doing with just Nadia and her brothers and he says, why don't you record some of your lessons is videos and upload them onto YouTube for your family and I immediately you know,
No, my technologists I'd say. Oh that's such a low Tech solution and then I'd vocalized him as like no that's like YouTube is for cats playing piano. It's for dogs on skateboard. It's not for Learning and right. I went home that weekend and I think I probably had explained least common multiple to a cousin for like the eighth time and it's like maybe Zoo, he's got a point. Maybe I should make a video on least common multiples for my cousins. And and then it was just a how do I make the video are you know back in 2006 cell phones were
Particularly good. I didn't have a video camera. And and I you do Google search your as though there's something called screen capture software. And so I downloaded some, you know, free screen capture software and I started just essentially recording some of my digital scribbles using my pen tablet, you know you but you can hear my voice over while I'm talking. Yeah, and it was there were done very extemporaneously, you know, I've there from my cousins and I started uploading them onto YouTube and telling them watch this at your own time and pace and then we can we can dig deeper when we get on the phone and
and wow after about a month asking for feedback and they they famously told me they like me better on YouTube than in person. Well it really yes. They just really liked having an on-demand version of their cousin that they could watch as much as they want. There was no shame and reviewing a concept that they should have learned in fourth grade and I started to realize, you know this cut this type of thing, especially math, and I was doing math and I started doing some physics and chemistry and biology as well. It's pretty Evergreen content if once you have a good explanation,
Nation of adding fractions with unlike denominators pretty much everyone in the world could use it and you don't really have to refresh it unless you figure out a better way of explaining adding fractions with unlike unlike denominators. I mean, I'm
trying to figure out how you were thinking about this because I mean clearly you were motivated to help your relatives and and these kids in your extended family and friends of friends, but I have to think that a part of you was like, maybe there's something bigger here.
Or were you just not even thinking that at all?
Oh, there was a fish or something my brain it oscillates between these like Mega delusional, you know, space operas science fiction ideas and like Sal you're being crazy focus on what you can do in the here and now and so the reason why I was always fascinated by software technology in education is that it's not hard to imagine that if you make something that can increase human potential by 10%
Percent a hundred percent and if it's scales like technology can there's no reason why it can't affect all of all of humanity one day and you know, I was super inspired when I was young in seventh grade. I read I read the foundation series Isaac Asimov, and the protagonist is someone named Harry Selden who's kind of a new form of academic that's a combination of mathematics economics history psychology and he's able to predict large-scale historical movements and he sees through
Is science that the Galactic Empire is about to enter into a 10,000 year Dark Ages and he decides to do something about it. He can't stop it from happening, but he can shorten it to A Thousand Years and the way he does that is by taking the galaxies knowledge and putting it into a foundation at the periphery of the Galaxy and I remember when I was seventh grade and I read that I thought two things one. Why don't more people think on those scales like that. It feels so inspiring and epic to think on that.
Gail well beyond ourselves, you know, and when I went to the hedge fund world, I realize most people don't even think beyond the next earnings period much less much less generational or over centuries over thousands of years. And then the other aha from that book in seventh grade was like yeah Harry selden's right? Like the way to preserve civilization is really through knowledge it like that is what defines a civilization that is what defines human potential and so you know while I was working on this in 2006 and now 2007 and I started getting
thank you letters from folks around the world, you know people who are soldiers in Iraq saying I'm using your content while I'm while I'm in Iraq to prepare for college so I can go back to college people who dropped out of high school. I was like, maybe maybe this project could be like the foundation. It could be the thing that keeps us from going to Dark Ages or may be entering into a new age. Who knows.
Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm wondering when you started putting these videos that are on YouTube on the internet. Would you like wake up and see like 200 views and
600 views and next day like
yeah, that's that's pretty accurate. That's about what I
were you surprised we like what is going on who's watching
this? I was hoping that something like that would happen. I mean, you know when I put it on YouTube and it asks whether I want to make it public I was like, yeah, I guess it would be pretty cool if other people could could could benefit from this but then when you start getting, you know, not just the views, but for I would say the comments especially people like opening up on the YouTube message boards or opening up on you know, they'll they can do the private messaging on YouTube and they'll tell
Their life story and how that one video unlock their perspective. I'm like, oh my God, this is this is a for that person that video was a big deal and I didn't really have to do anything extra for that person. It's really inspiring and I just got more and more hooked
on it, huh? Meanwhile, I should mention. I mean you you're still with Dan at this point at the hedge fund and then I guess it's some point he decides to move the fund to California,
right?
Yeah, we had moved out to Silicon Valley dance wife had become a professor at Stanford which is why we had moved out here and so my wife was able to finish her fourth year at med school doing a bunch of rotations out here in the Bay Area. So we you know, and now that we were on the west coast, I was working from 5:00 a.m. Till about 2:00 in the afternoon. So before our first child was born I had a lot of time on my hands. So I was spending about you know, that four hours that has four to five hours at a spending after work. I was spending about half of it making
About half of it continuing to write code right that software that practice offer for my family that that other people were Now using and by 2007 2008 it was in the tens of thousands of people and by 2009 it was in the hundreds of thousands of people were using it on a regular basis.
At what point did you say to yourself? I think I want to do this. I think I want to do this full-time. I think I actually want to turn this into something.
There were many moments, you know, you could imagine in the investing world. You have your share of not-so-great days. You're like maybe this is not what I should do. Maybe I should be you know, this virtual tutor and then you're like, okay stop dreaming Sal, you know, look you got to pay off your debt pay off your mortgage, etc. Etc. So, you know, I had multiple cycles that over the years people in Silicon Valley. They do understand quitting your job, you know, some angel investor rights $100,000 check and you're Off to the Races. But yeah, I did incorporate it as a not-for-profit in 2008 to
Tip from the get-go. You said this is going to be a non-profit even before you decided to make this your full-time
job.
In my mind, it was almost in a it was initially an emotional thing to do which you know, I was getting these letters from folks saying how it helped them and that was such a precious thing people's trust in me that I never wanted them to even suspect that. I'm doing it for any other reason now, look there's a lot of for profits in many industries that do incredible things and even in education, there's for profits that do good things, you know, obviously, I was working at a hedge fund. I believe in capitalism. I
Even and in markets, but while I was at a hedge fund I saw how much capital structure and incentives can really Drive what an organization does and yeah, and the only organizations that really do stay true to some social bottom line over long periods of time are nonprofits the I did have some folks who are reaching out to me by 2008 saying hey our kids have been using your stuff. We think it's great. We think this is going to be the next big play in edtech. Yeah.
Can I write a check and we'll start this thing sure and it was tempting but then by the second conversation it was always like okay, we'll give this stuff for free hook people and then you have the freemium Contour sell it. Yeah, right and and that just felt a little queasy to me. So so but even when I set it up as a non-profit I said, you know, I'm not going to quit my day job. I have a great day job, you know this hedge fund thing. I can I can make a lot of money. What I can do as a non-profit is maybe get other volunteers.
Who want to help maybe if we get some philanthropy? Maybe I can help hire other people and maybe if you know if I could be on a trajectory like Dan was you know, Dan if he kept at it could have easily become, you know, the next Warren Warren Buffett, but you know, he decided to kind of pseudo retire at 40 to focus focus on his family when if he kept going he could have easily become a multi-billionaire. Wow, and I'm like, maybe I can retire early and be you know reasonably well off so that I could
I could do this at that point
that I mean that makes sense. So the plan was let me make the money I need to make and be financially secure and then I can devote my life to this thing and I'll worry about money.
Yeah, exactly,
right. So so what how did you decide to leave that relatively secure and stable or not stable, but you know this this path towards immense riches and jump into this full time.
What happened? What was the Catalyst?
You know, there's this guy Jeremiah Hennessy who's the founder of BJ's restaurants. He got my email address and and emailed me and I was like, oh this guy runs a large restaurant chain publicly traded. Yeah. It seems legitimate. I should talk to him and he's I started having like these therapy conversations with them almost like on a weekly basis and he would just keep calling me and say Sal your purpose in life is not to be a
Hedge fund investor. I'm sure you're good at it. But that's not your purpose in life. You don't realize the content you've made what it's done for my own family what it could do for the world. You need to be doing this and he's like, there's got to be some way that someone will fund this as a non-profit this you know, the impact on the world could be so huge and so when a legitimate person tells you that this is a legitimate thing to do you start saying maybe but then you go home you look at your, you know, my my son was born in February 2009 and I'm like, okay now I have another mouth to feed. We you know, we
We were renting a house, you know that the rented gone up because we had to move to a larger house. My mother-in-law had moved within with us as well. I'm like, there's no way I could do this right
now. You are not a millionaire.
I was not a millionaire. Yeah, and then by fall of 2009 there were several hundred thousand folks who are using the stuff. I was making on a regular basis. I got a call from the local Tech Museum. They have this annual award ceremony, which is a pretty high.
Profile thing called the tech Awards and they called the said you've been nominated one of three entities nominated to win. This year's Tech award and I was like, wow, you know and so I was getting that validation that like what people are starting to take notice of this thing and then CNN had called around the exact same time. I mean if everyone remembers the context of Market was falling apart and it turns out you know, I had made videos on not just on math and science actually had made videos explaining the stock market and videos explaining what mortgage-backed
Is where in credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations and I started getting media houses contacting me saying we are watching your explanations before reporting on the financial crisis. Wow, and we think they're the best explanations out there. And then I remember Rick Sanchez on CNN reached out to me says I want you to come onto my show for 20 minutes and explain the financial crisis to America. So I'm like wow, like people are paying attention. So that was like My First Signs
is from the universe that maybe this is what I should be doing
your wife. I think was not yet of doctor. She was still in residency, or maybe she
was a she was in fellowship at this
point when you said hey, I'm going to leave finance and do this was she nervous. I mean was she like sound like it's great. But I mean, we don't have enough cash or did she say okay do it but just for a short period of time
Yeah, it was a process. You don't look every marriage. There's I would call it moods or whether to the marriage and and you know, if I caught her at a bad moment if you like. I just got a weird look, but if I caught it a good moment, she'd be like no, you don't look like I you've been showing me these letters you've been getting they are incredible and it does seem like you're onto something but but but then let's look at our finances and we would look at it, you know our rent to rent a four-bedroom house out.
Here at the time it seemed like a lot. It was $4,000 a month. We were you know, she was making probably forty thousand dollars a year is a fellow. Yeah, my mother-in-law was living with us. We had a child. We were hoping to have more children our expenses were only going higher. So she saw that I was having trouble focusing on anything else. Yeah, you know that down payment we were saving we said like, okay, maybe we can dig into that for a little bit for you.
Here I also say that a couple of philanthropist had reached out and said we're interested in what you're doing. And so, you know, I was like, oh surely one of these people will fund it. So let
me let me and We're Off to the Races were Off to the Races million bucks and we're good to go. That's
exactly so I quit the job and then it doesn't work that way to work out that way.
All right, so you jump into this with both feet and did the money start to come in immediately. Did you start to get donors sending you checks?
Kind of, you know, those early those early funders who seemed promising, you know by conversation for five. I started getting. Well, this is really exciting, but it doesn't really fit in our portfolio. Our budgets are already allocated. And so you go several months into it. I did have this little donate button on my website and there were people starting to donate it was a mounting to a few hundred dollars every month if it was anyone listening and thank you for that. But but it we were digging into our savings about five or
Thousand dollars a month. So it was it was incredibly stressful and you know, but my male ego was trying to shelter my family from it. So I was putting on a strong face to my friends and family and you can imagine my mother who you know, when I told her I'd quit my job, you know, I still have her first word was what it literally and that and that and that tone because you know as we talked about, you know, I had now fallen into a really lucrative career and then to give that up.
Up and to do that for something that was like not something that she could tell her friends at the next Indian party. You know Not only was their monetary aspect to it. There was probably a shame aspects to this as well that that you know was was was
hard love. Love your mom. Yeah. No, right. I mean she came to the United States with nothing and really, you know, kind of was scraping by most of her career and her son goes to
And then Harvard Business School and now he's calling my mom and saying ya gonna do this nonprofit thing.
Yeah, that know what that no one has funded this nonprofit thing that no one is funded and I'm living off of savings. Would you like to see your grandson child that I really can't support it's not it's it's a you know, we'd go to Gatherings and you know, I remember what that one party and they kind of asked what what what I do for a living and I said, well, you know I used to do this.
But you know now I do this thing where I make math videos and I write the software as a non-profit and and they're asking all these questions. How is it funded? What's the model? I was like, I'm still working on that still figuring it out. And I remember when they were walking away. I mean, they literally said this like well, yeah, he's lucky that his wife is a physician, you know, and it's like this. It's like a punch to the gut of your like fragile male egos like no I can support my family to you you wait.
You wait.
When we
come back in just a moment how Sal gets his first big donation for Khan Academy and how he eventually winds up having a slightly surreal meeting with Bill Gates. Stay with us. I'm guy Roz and you're listening to how I built this NPR
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Hey, welcome back to how I built this from NPR. I'm guy Roz. So it's 2009 and Sal has just left his high paying job at a hedge fund to focus on Khan Academy full-time. And since it's just him no other coders no other teachers this new Venture is not costing him a lot of money. But what is costing him is the fact that he's no longer making any money,
you know, the first three months your euphoric
You know, you're super excited about your new lifestyle is this nonprofit do-gooder and all the fact I would say by month seven or eight I couldn't sleep. I am. I literally couldn't sleep. I excit I was yeah, I was getting anxious. I was waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweats. I was you know, I would I would look at my bank account over and over again and look at the you know, look at our expenses. I would run Financial models for my family. You know, my wife would say
What are you guys I got nothing, you know like it. I mean it's in hindsight. I was like I shouldn't have been so kept it just to myself but I wasn't I was in a really bad place mentally and and the stress and the anxiety was was was killing me.
Was there also that kind of maybe residual fear of like failing?
Yeah. I think there's you know, we talked a lot about childhood and you know not having a lot of resources growing up. I think I and I frankly still have a fear of being one.
Catastrophe away from financial hardship. Yeah, and you know what in 2009 I was like I made the catastrophe happen what guy and it wasn't like a hurricane or something that that's ruined our finances on a fire. It's like I quit a good job and like the type of job that I had is not easy to get these are highly sought after jobs. If I really had to I could probably go get a job, but what I be able to get as good of a job of
As what I had that that actually probably was was unlikely and you know, I would try to channel whatever nervous energy or anxiety. I had into the work. I was like, let me make more videos. Let me write let me make more content. Let me write more code and and hope that eventually someone will notice
I guess like sort of maybe it was a kind of a low point that you hit and it wealthy very wealthy person reach out to uses and or the wife of John doerr.
Billionaire venture capitalist kind of reached out to make a donation. What was the story?
So this is you know, I have this theory that benevolent aliens are are helping me. So that khanacademy can help prepare Humanity for First Contact and you know the and or coming into my life and then you know, what happened shortly afterwards was May of 2010 and you know, I was getting these donations off of PayPal and people donating 10 dollars.
$20 every now and then a $50 donation would come in that was pretty exciting. And then I saw a $10,000 fish in coming in. And so what came in through
the site just $10,000 just like that.
Yeah. It was I I mean just like I got a email notification from like PayPal that I could donation. It's coming I was like, oh this is gonna be a 50 I was like, oh it's a ten thousand and and then you know, I immediately did a Google search. I was like, oh wow like and or she's like a real philanthropist and
I immediately emailed her and I said thank you so much for this incredibly generous donation. This is the largest donation that Khan Academy has ever received. I have tried to project like I'm a real institution and if we were physical School you not have a building named after and and and immediately emails back and says, well, you know, I didn't realize that you weren't getting this kind of donations. I see that you're based in Mountain View, you know, I've been using your stuff.
My daughter's I've been using it even myself to understand the financial crisis and accounting and finance. If you have time, I would love to grab lunch with you and I was like, yeah, absolutely and so a week later maybe a few days later. We were in Downtown Palo Alto at an Indian buffet restaurant. She asks me over lunch. So what's your goal here? And I told her when I filled out the paperwork with the IRS to become a nonprofit that little part of the Forum was like
In colon and they give you a line and a half. I filled out a free world-class education for anyone anywhere and I swear she looked at me. She's like well, that's ambitious. How do you see yourself doing that and I told her I would be very clear. That's a mission. I don't think I'm just going to be able to check it off this weekend and then move on to healthcare or something, but II showed her she was already familiar with the content. I was making I showed her the exercise of software platform. I was making I said look videos are nice and I want to keep making videos.
I really enjoy that. I want to translate into the languages of the world. But the real learning happens when students are able to work on exercises get immediate feedback. Ideally teachers and parents can get dashboards to understand where their kids are and how to do more interventions. You know, I by this point been rejected by so many major foundations probably about 20 of them. So but in preparation for all of them had a binder of testimonials from around the world and it was literally several hundreds of pages thick and you know these letters so I showed it to her.
I showed her how the usage was growing exponentially and I think you know, I think this could eventually reach like all of humanity and she's like, well, you've made a lot of progress how I don't have one question. How are you supporting yourself? Yeah, and as proud of a way as possible. I said, I'm not and she kind of processes that
and cuz she's thinking you're a big shot you sure you're like doing TV interviews and
A hundred thousand people using this like,
right? Yeah. No, I mean I had been on CNN and I didn't realize there was actually there was a buzz about Khan Academy in Silicon Valley at the time that I didn't know about. No one from they weren't but I wasn't in the no I wasn't even the right circles to be experiencing the buzz. And so anyways, you know, she offered to pay the bill and I said, oh if you insist and and you know, 10 minutes later, I'm driving into my my driveway and I get a text message.
From an and it says you really need to be supporting yourself. I've just wired you $100,000. Wow. That was just you know, it's like one of those moments where you just like stare at the phone and you sit in your driveway for like the next half an hour. Wow, like, you know, holy crap.
I mean, I think I was I might have cried, you know, like it was that type of you because you know, all that stress that builds up over the months all of a sudden. It just gets released. You know, it's not that hundred thousand was all of a sudden going to like change everything forever, but it's like okay I can now pay my bills. We're not gonna have to dip into savings. You know, it made it gave a like I can do this for a few more months at least for a year at least or maybe even a little longer.
So so she
Fires you hundred thousand dollar check and I guess that same year 2010 the Aspen ideas Festival happens and Bill Gates is there and he's he's telling the audience that he uses this thing called Khan Academy. How did you find out about Bill Gates mentioning you at Aspen?
So I start getting text messages from an would you can imagine I now take very seriously, and she
There were four or five of them and we're kind of cryptic as text messages often are and and he said this is an writing. I'm at the Aspen ideas Festival main Pavilion Walter Isaacson interviewing Bill Gates Gates last five minutes talking about Khan Academy. Wow, and once guys just kind of stared I was like, what is she talking about and I start doing a web search for you know Aspen Gates Khan Academy after about 10 minutes. I actually found like the delayed
Recording of the interview and Walter Isaacson asks Bill Gates. What are you excited about right now? Yeah, you didn't even say that and he says, well there's this one guy. I think his name is Sal Khan and he's created this thing called Khan Academy. I've been using with my kids. I've been using it myself and it's really great. And and it was a good not only did was he using it? But he was he was eerily familiar with my story. He's like, yeah, this one guy his his wife. Let him quit his job.
He's making stuff for his cousin's. You know, it's just one of those moments where you're just like is this really
happening. Like what did you have any idea that Bill Gates was using this with his children?
I had no idea what at all I mean, it's it was it definitely gelled with some of the delusions that I've had over overtime, but it didn't and it's you know, I had no clue and you know, I remember that night. I went home. I immediately showed my wife the video.
When she got home from her fellowship and you know, we both kind of stared at each other a little bit and I was just like what do I do now? You know I could do I do. What do I do? I call him. How do I contact? Yeah, I'm sure he's not listed like it's not his kind of Bill Gate wasn't obvious and simultaneously a reporter from Fortune had reached out actually before this happen saying, oh, you know, there's this thing you're doing it's really interesting. We'd like to do a story about it.
It and so I was already talking to the reporter and that reporter calls and he's like did you know that Bill Gates uses Khan Academy as like I had no idea and then the reporter Robert Kaplan with Fortune. He says I'm going to call Bill up. I'm like, if you think you can call Bill up and do that and so he calls me like two days later. He's like Bill took my call. He I just interviewed Bill Gates about you and and it's like this really surreal thing because this person this obviously like a lifetime hero like, you know, you grew up in the computer.
Science reading about Bill Gates and and then the fortune article came out and I still had not met bill yet or even had any contact with them and the article said something like the title was Bill Gates his favorite teacher.
Wow,
you know and yeah the Press sometimes write these hyperbolic headlines to and I almost felt insecure. I was like am I his favorite teacher like did he say that are they misrepresenting? Like I felt serious imposter syndrome and then I got a call on my cell phone rings right when I'm in a rut record a video.
And I answer I say hello. And I hear this is Larry Cohen. I'm Bill Gates Chief of Staff. You might have heard that bill is a fan and I was like, yeah, I heard that and if you're if you're free over the next couple of weeks would love to fly you up to Seattle and learn more about what you're doing maybe ways we could work together and I was looking at my calendar for the month is completely blank. And so yeah, maybe next Wednesday, you know, I've got to cut my nails do some laundry. I'm happy to meet.
Happy happy to meet with Bill can make that work? So yeah, I flew up and and and and we had that meeting. What was that like it was a little bit awkward. It wasn't like an obvious like oh, you know, I love what you're doing. Tell me it was like oh so, you know, there's a little bit of a prop. I think Larry might have said oh so tell Bill what you're up to and then I just started into I had my I had my laminated slides that show - and with me love it you didn't bring a
laptop you brought lamb.
Mandated slides. I love
that. I mean there's an irony to it that you know, I'm obviously someone involved in technology kind of based on technology. I'm presenting to the creator of PowerPoint. So yeah, I went through it and and at the end, you know, he didn't give during the presentation a lot of feedback. So I just kind of kept going and it's one of those moments where you know, 20% of your brain is trying to do what it needs to do and then the other 80% of your brains saying you're talking to Bill Gates, that's Bill Gates. He's three feet away.
Mess this up Sal don't mess this up. You're about to mess up. Don't mess this up. And then when I was kind of done he kind of nods. He's like, yeah. No, this makes a ton of sense. This is great. This is great. And I'm like, oh my God this you know and that and then I got overconfident. I remember I threw out another ID. He's like now that doesn't make sense as oh, yeah, you're right.
Wow, but was there any like and here's a plan on how we could collaborate or was there any of that at all?
They asked they Bill said well, what would you do with more resources? And you know, I think this is a question. I have to answer really well and I said look, you know, it's just me and a closet right now with more resources, we could translate this to the languages of the world. We could build out the software platform. So more people can access it. We could build tools for teachers and you know I said,
I think we could were reaching hundreds of thousands. Now. I think we could reach a million Folks by the end of this year and it could be ten or a hundred million, you know by the end of the decade. This is what you need for that and you know, I said look if I could hire up about five six engineers and Educators and content folks. I think we'll be up and running so, you know fully loaded cost in Silicon Valley that would be a million million and a half dollars a year. And so they said yeah, we'll think about that that seems reasonable so and then a few
Two days later. They said yeah, that's they feel like they could do that. So I start talking to the Gates Foundation about about that that Grant and simultaneously folks from Google had reached out. Wow, you know Google had made this promise in 2008, which was a ten year anniversary of Google that it would donate 10 million dollars to five projects that had the potential to change the world and they determined that one of those projects has to be a project that has a chance to educate the world and they on
Own said we've done a lot of research and we think what you are doing has the best chance of helping to educate the world. Okay. Well, I'm glad you've been listening in on my delusions and by fall of 2010 a both the Google and the Gates Foundation each gave about two million dollars. So we had four million dollar initial funding for that first two years to hire up a team internationalize and start scaling Khan Academy.
Wow, what more than four million dollars? Yeah.
So now you've got to grow you've got to build you've got to get office space even a higher people. You've got a really turn this thing. That was just you into a thing. So, what did you do? I mean that's kind of overwhelming right? I mean, isn't it?
Yeah, it was I mean, I immediately call one of my closest friends shantanu Sinha. He was someone I first met actually in Louisiana, he beat me.
At a math competition in 10th Grade and then we were on the same team representing, Louisiana at National academic games. So that's how I got to know him. He ended up becoming my roommate freshman year at MIT. So, you know, we're pretty much like brothers and I I said hey shantanu I need help like I know this wasn't on your career path to start it to help me kind of get this thing off the ground, but like I need your help and I think it'll be fun and you know,
So he took a couple of days to think about it and he decided to take the plunge with me. And so he quit his McKinsey job and joined Khan Academy as a president and CEO of essentially help me turn into a real organization at the same time. There were these two Engineers. I mean, it's what's against really eerie. How these people came out of the woodwork these two Engineers that summer been Caymans and Jason Rose off. They had volunteered for Khan Academy and I just assumed they were some young kids were looking for some experience.
But when they were volunteering I'm like these guys are incredible. Like these are some of the best engineers and designers I've ever worked with in my life. Who are they and then I realize they're actually known figures they were like, you know, really well known engineers and designers and so they were shot in my next call who said hey, would you guys want to work full time for Khan Academy? I think we're going to get funding and they after a few months. We were able to convince them. They worked initially remotely from New York, but then they were able to move out to the Bay Area.
So as you began to grow and scale and hire more people, I'm assuming you kind of want it to professionalize it a little bit more and maybe kind of start to replace some of those early screen capture videos that they that you made into thousands of six and seven.
Yeah, you know the interesting there's a constant tension as an organization grows of how do you make sure you do what's right from a professionalisation point of view from a scaling from a managerial point of view. But how do you make sure that you're not just doing the things that everyone else does that ends up creating these large bureaucratic organizations that you know aren't always the most Innovative and how do you make sure you don't lose whatever Secret Sauce you had that made you a success initially and a lot of Khan Academy's.
I can say not-so-secret sauce. I believe was its eccentricity. It's quirkiness. It's informality coupled with its depth and intuition and desire to you know, show the Wonder in the universe and the Curiosity and so, you know, the last 10 years for me have just been how do I how do I balance that? You know, can I bring in other people who also compliment us, but we do not lose that entrepreneurial that creativity that Curiosity that eccentricity that
Working is that made Khan Academy what it is?
What is the I mean at that point you were still what you were offering the still make mainly math and finance was the ambition to to offer as much as you possibly could about could offer and as many subject areas as
possible. Yeah. I remember riding kind of these envisioning Doc's back in 2008-2009. I said, okay. We want to create a world where anyone on the planet has access.
To all the core academic learning they need from pre-k through the core of college across subjects and grades. It was part of the initial Vision that yeah one day we would try to figure out, you know, language arts Humanities etcetera etcetera because they're important early learning and then we'll just keep running experiments to see how they go and and you know, we're still on that Journey. Yeah,
I interviewed them the founders of head space which is different. Obviously. It's a for-profit company. It's a meditation.
But initially all the meditations were Andy Andy puddicombe if you're familiar with it,
I'm very I'm very familiar with it.
Right and initially all the videos were celkon. But Sal Khan is not scalable. You cannot make tens of thousands of videos. Was that clear to you pretty pretty soon after you started the funding started to come in that you needed to get other people to make videos to your standards.
Now, you know, we don't have a lot of folks making videos. I still make
A lot of them. I pretty much make all of the math and science video and we have a few other folks who are doing some history videos and some language arts videos. Yeah, and one of the reasons why we were we became a little sensitive of like not just Outsourcing it to 500 folks as we got a lot of feedback that you know education even when it's done in this kind of distance way or asynchronous. You have to really trust your teacher. You have to trust that they're going to get me to some place that I know is going to be insightful and there's going to be an aha moment.
That you're willing to invest in it and we've had moments where you know, there's a video for me a video from me and then there's video from someone else and it just even though they might be explaining that better than I could have. It could be dissonant for the student where they're feeling wait. I really got connected that my teacher now substitute showed up. So what we've been trying to balance that
it's amazing. I met David Coleman a couple years ago the head of the College Board and he talked about the partnership that they did with Khan Academy, where you
You offer free SAT prep, which is essentially really had a pretty big impact on the for-profit SAT prep industry because you're essentially offering this product and service for
free.
Yeah, you know it's I think all of these players are trying to do what they can in the context that they're doing it, but David Coleman reached out and it was really I think David's brainchild when he took over the College Board that you know, cause were the folks who administer the sat in the AP exams. It was the cop was a non-for-profit that came into existence to try to level the playing field that yeah a hundred years ago. The only kids who are getting into Ivy League schools where kids of Legacy kids who have school to the right schools.
Exactly. And the notion of the SAT is let's give a chance for the kid in Metairie, Louisiana to to compete with the kids from and / or Choate or Deerfield but over time as we know this whole industry this billion-dollar industry came up around what looked like creating a perceived and maybe actual Advantage for the for the you know, upper middle class or affluent and you know, David said look we've been secretly observing Khan Academy and what we really like about Khan Academy is
Y'all are about really learning the material. I had actually made some sat videos for nausea and my cousin's actually went through the SAT practice book and I did every problem in the book on video for my cousin's so that it was a 400 something problems and I was afraid that the college world was going to sue me because I didn't take their permission to like screen capture their problems. But Davis like I watched that and what I really liked about it is at no point. Did you say oh, this is how you guess you always said. Oh, this is a concept. You need to learn to be ready for college.
Age this is where you learn it. This is how you learn it. There's a little bit of test taking strategies. He's like that's what test prep should be. It should be something that genuinely makes you better generally makes you more prepared for college and how you perform the SAT just going to be a byproduct of that. Yeah. So he said how about we partner to create the world's best test prep that happens to be free and it made sense to me and over time. The relationship is involved where they actually pay us resources to create free test prep, which is
You know, that's that's the type of Revenue I love because it's it helps sustain us but it's free to the student.
Yeah.
This year the most challenging year for school aged kids for many decades and it's looking like this year probably will be remote mostly will be remote for many many. If not most kids in the United States. I have to imagine that you have seen a dramatic uptick in users usage this
year. Yeah. Yeah, we first caught wind and February this past February that you know,
Interesting was happening. We got a letter from a teacher in South Korea telling us that he was heavily dependent on Khan Academy is they had their their Nationwide school closures and that was the first I was like, wow a whole country's closing schools because of this covid thing that's that's wild and and a few weeks later. You know, we I live here in Santa Clara County, which is I think it was the first Community spread happened here and write a local private school had to shut down due to contact tracing. That's when it first dawned on us. It's like wow this this might hit the US.
Us which even then seem like science fiction in early March, but you know, it was one of those moments where you look left and you look right and you realize I think this is us because if schools have to shut down physically in the United States people are going to need something clearly online. It would have to cover multiple subjects and grades would have to have efficacy research behind. It would have to be trusted, you know, it should be accessible on mobile devices and computers everything. It was clear. We're going to we're going to have a big role to play. So we started, you know asking our engineering team to stress test the servers.
Sure, we can handle more server load and then the next week, you know, California was one of the first states to say that they were going to close and then by the end of this week pretty much most of the country and the world had shut down, you know, we normally see about pre covid-19 20 million students were coming per month and that increased to 30 million and then they were also spending 50% more time on the site and then you are registrations went through the roof. They those about 10x of normal on a daily basis and I think
Right now we're sitting at around a hundred and ten million registered users.
What is your what is your operating budget your annual operating budget?
Our annual operating budget now is in the high 50 Millions, which every time I say it gives me a cortisol Spike. Yeah, but about five million of our of our funding comes from a few hundred thousand people donating on average 20 30 dollars. So there's a lot of people donating because
hopefully during the Donate button on the site.
Yeah, I mean asking people for money is a very humbling thing to do. My Hope was always
let me show people how great this is. I have to become a little bit more explicit saying that I have a need but and then hopefully people would show up. Yeah,
I think last time I checked it's more than this now Khan Academy videos have been viewed like almost two billion times, which is just insane. I have to imagine sell over the last few years as the kind of Ed Tech sector has exploded right and lots of schools by the
These programs DreamBox and other for-profit programs that are available to help children with math and other language skills Etc. I mean, I'm sure people came to you and said Sal let's spin off a for-profit channel here. You've got something big here, you know, there's there's there, you know, and then you won't have to worry about raising money for for Khan Academy, you know, you can still do that. But let's let's do that. I mean that must have happened I must still
happen.
You know, yeah, we do often times, you know, sometimes I'll go to a potential philanthropist in the like well, I'd rather invest in donate something like that, you know a people I think there's some creative ideas that I would entertain they're like, well, you know Khan Academy's brand is so valuable. You know, what if we could take that brand and do it in this tangential space as you know, and and Khan Academy can have equity and maybe it can help build an endowment for you know, and I'm always open to ideas but what I always remind myself and look,
I'm not someone who has transcended, you know, material desires. I tried it but transcend material desires, but I'm you know, I haven't found then go to a friend who's you know done well with their IPO or something and they've got the new Tesla or think they're living in a you know, they're living slightly Upstream the the income gradient in our name, you know, and they're living a little higher up the hill but I remind myself one I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be able to do what I am doing and you know the way I think
About it is I've done my philanthropy in reverse order and it you know, I could have stayed in the hedge fund world and you know, maybe one day become a multi-millionaire or larger and then but then what would I have done with that Monday? You know, I'm not someone who wants that much, you know, I want to be able to you know have have a backyard be able to you know, support the family, you know, go on a vacation once or twice a year, right and and anything above that if I did become a billionaire, I frankly would have donated it to an effort like Khan Academy. So you might as well just cut out the middleman.
You know just time shift it and work on it. And and I do generally think that it has benefited the mission and the vision because once you know people hopefully are viewing it as an institution they do their truck they're rooting for it because they realize that it's not it doesn't have an ulterior motive.
You know, the the end of everybody I've had on the show over the past 40 years that you are most like as Jimmy Wales. Jimmy Wales has had an incredibly enormous influence on the world with Wikipedia, right?
Right had they done this as a for-profit. He could have been a multi-millionaire. His argument was it wouldn't have worked you had to make a non-profit. And by the way, he said look, I don't really care about having lots of money. I have a really interesting life. I get to meet really interesting people interesting people want to meet me I get to have get exposed to all these ideas that to me is worth more than any amount of money I could ever have and I that's really stuck with me because I think he's right. I think he's right.
I agree with I mean, you know, I like Jimmy Wales by virtue of this adventure. I've been on I get lenses into really interesting parts of the world which for the most part have made me more optimistic about the world, you know, I every now and then I'm you know, get invited to various conferences that you know where you know, very powerful people are talking about the problems of society and how to fix them. And when you when you when you get into these circles you realize most of these people are honestly just trying to help you might not agree.
Be with everyone etcetera Etc, but it's actually been very it's made me more optimistic about the world not less.
When you think about this just this incredible journey and and the amazing success of Khan Academy. How much do you think it has to do with you know your skill and how hard you worked and your intelligence and how much do you attribute it to luck?
It's all all of the above. I mean, it's you know, one person can call it luck. One person might call it benevolent aliens working in your favor to prepare Humanity for First Contact. But yeah, there's something you know that I I can't there's a lot that I can't take credit for I mean and and above and beyond luck. There's Cirque. I guess it's luck where I was born where I was born. I had the teachers I had had the Friendship supports that I had and then, you know fell into things at the right time and
But every now and then you see a door crack open you say I think there's something interesting on that other side of the door and you've got a Sprint through it. And and so I try not to overthink when when there are signs in my life that like that door is open. Don't don't don't make someone have to force you through the door like run through that door
Sal Khan founder of Khan Academy, by the way, if you Google his full name Salman Khan, you will find at least one other famous.
And who has exactly the same name that other Salman Khan is one of the most popular Bollywood actors in the world.
And actually I was in India five years ago. I had and I met him and I think it's just because you know people from the sub Connor like just get a kick out of things like that. Let's get this guy and that guy that can
sell cotton Sal Khan
together. Yeah. So there's there's some YouTube videos of us, you know having it getting Co interviewed. He's a big star and
he's like a big heart throb he's got major
heartthrob. Yeah. He's also very well known for his physique.
He's kind of the guy the guy that that that taught Bollywood that you know, Indians don't all have to look like software engineers
and thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcast. You can write to us at H IB T at npr.org. Our Twitter handles are at how I built this or at guy Roz are Instagram accounts are at guy dot Roz or at how I built this NPR our show is produced this week by Jay.
Anderson with music composed by routine Arab Louis. Thanks. Also to Julia Carney Candice limbed Eric Gales JC Howard Neva Grant and Jeff Rogers. I'm guy Roz and even listening to how I built this.
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