Dive Brief:
- New Coursera CEO and former Yale University President Richard Levin said in an interview with The Washington Post that the for-profit MOOC provider will be depending on venture capital “for quite a while,” and that “nobody’s breathing down our necks to start to turn a profit.”
- Levin also said he was attracted to the job by the potential of magnifying the reach of universities to millions of students worldwide.
- “A couple” of universities are covering their costs for the massive open online courses through shared revenue, Levin said, but he didn’t identify them.
Dive Insight:
Coursera, which is 2 years old, hired Levin in March, and it will be interesting to see how he moves the company into prosperity — and when. Levin emphasized to the Post that Coursera is a “facilitator,” not a university. But, he also said there will be “more give and take” between the company and schools to fill in “a few holes in our curriculum.” Coursera is expected to have 170 employees by the end of the year, up from the 60 employees it started 2014 with and its current workforce of 110 employees.