How Sal Khan Engineered Lifelong Learning | The Khan Academy Blueprint

Online learning is here, and your prestigious universities are over here. They're not in the same conversation. You know, I was satisfied with kind of the small wins. "Hey, my cousins find this valuable," and "Hey, people are emailing me. I'm getting a lot of satisfaction out of this." When you see someone do something great, tell them about it. Tell their bosses about it. Tell their family about it. A good number of really great teachers are getting handicapped by this micromanaging, teaching to the test. Not even 23 years old, I was back in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere crying. Not knowing what I was going to do with my life. And the genie says, "Well, I've been listening in to your regrets. You seem like a good person. I'm willing to give you a second chance if you are open to it." What Sal Khan has done is amazing.

He's an American teacher, entrepreneur, and former hedge fund analyst. He's the founder of the Khan Academy, a free online education platform. Forbes magazine featured him on their cover with the title, "One Trillion Dollar Opportunity." He's Salman Khan, and here is my take on his top 10 rules for success. Number 8 is my personal favorite, and I'm curious to find out which one you like the most.

You know, if I, and I used to be kind of quiet about this dream 'cause it seemed kind of like a crazy thing maybe, you know, even last year it would've seemed crazy for me to say what I'm about to say. But now I think there's a potential for, you know, right now online learning, no one takes it, they take it seriously. They think it has value, but they don't, Online learning is here and your prestigious universities are over here. They're not in the same conversation. I'm hoping Khan Academy can turn into an institution that, I don't want to say rivals, but it's talked in the same conversation as some of these things that have been around for hundreds of years.

In the places where you can learn.

In the places where you can learn at a very high level. So you can start at arithmetic, but you can go deep and it's a real learning experience. It's not something superficial. How did Ann Doerr and Bill Gates find out about you?

I think you must have—

there must have been some agency on your part that resulted in those two people popping up in your story. Yes, and especially about Bill Gates, about 40 people have taken credit for introducing him to— I haven't gotten— I thank them all. For Ann, it was her daughter was— I believe she was in middle school in Palo Alto at the time. And one of the other mothers had told Anne that my children are really getting a lot out of this Khan Academy thing. You should check it out. And then Anne checked it out, and she herself— because it's not just kind of academic math. There's stuff there about the financial crisis, about accounting, about kind of current events. And so she found herself spending like a full day on it. And so that's kind of what kind of inspired her to give the very generous donation that she did. Bill Gates, I mean, regardless of who introduced it, I heard someone at the foundation sent him an email, check this out. They knew that he's famous for reading a lot and liking online lectures and all of this. And they sent it to him. And the account that I heard is that he normally sends things back like, oh, I've already seen it, not a big deal, or whatever. Like he's a really fast information processor. But they didn't hear back from him. They sent him the link. They didn't hear back from him for like a day. And then he emails back. He says, I just spent the last day on Khan Academy. This is— which is once again a little bit— I still find that a bit of a stressful idea. But yeah, and that's what kind of catalyzed this whole thing. In terms of what I did to make that happen, I'd like— I can't say that I— I mean, what I did is I just kept going. I mean, throughout this thing, most people thought this was a fairly crazy project. And especially because there was nothing really novel about the idea. The idea of recording lectures and even exercises, putting it online, I mean, people were talking about this since radio. Oh, radio is going to be the killer app for education, or TV. Now with VCRs, it's on demand. Even exercises. Steve Jobs famously thought the PC was going to be the treadmill for the mind. So these weren't new ideas. But I think it was just I was satisfied with kind of the small wins. Hey, my cousins find this valuable. Hey, people are emailing me. I'm getting a lot of satisfaction out of this. And I kind of said, oh, one day when I have kids— I have kids now, but one day when I have kids, they could use these videos. How cool is that? And I think that's what kind of gave me the energy to just kind of keep going. And I think you'll hear in a lot of entrepreneurial stories, it's kind of just as long as what you're doing is kind of unkillable— and what I was doing was unkillable. It was a hobby for so long. Then at some point, it finds its moment, and if it's destined to have a moment. And then people discover it, and it just kind of hits a hockey stick like that. I want to highlight this is something that you can do in your own way tonight. You can validate others, empower others, increase the net happiness, the positivity in the world. I mean, it could be as simple as your family's going to have dinner tonight, and you go to a restaurant, and you see someone do something great. And too often, we kind of just sit back and say, oh, that was good. That was good service. Maybe you give an extra tip. You're at work, or you see a colleague who goes above and beyond, and you say, oh, that was pretty good. They did a nice thing. And what I hope, and this is something that I tell myself all the time, is don't just sit by and observe it. Recognize it. When you see someone do something great, tell them about it. Tell their bosses about it. Tell their family about it. And when you do that, all sorts of neat, exciting things are going to start percolating into the universe. Obviously, you're going to make that person's day. You're going to make their year. You might make their career. I've seen it happen before. You probably, in some way, will make their life. Even more, they're gonna start doing that ultra-positive thing more. The people around them are going to see the recognition they got for it, and they're going to start emulating it. And even though that wasn't your intent, you just wanted to highlight something good that's happening in the world, people will recognize that you are a source of positivity. And when you're a source of positivity, people will just naturally gravitate to you.

What is it you know, what is it you do that somehow makes learning more attractive, more interesting, more satisfying, and more productive?

I don't know that I definitely have the answer. I have guesses.

A guess for me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's, I started off making it for my cousins. I kind of didn't care. I was kind of like this liberated person. If someone had told me in 2004, I'm going to give you a couple million dollars, produce something that's going to reach millions of people and Bill Gates is going to watch it and all the rest, I probably would have produced something different. I probably would have gotten fancy lighting and put some makeup on and got some computer graphics and probably produced a lot of the education material that's already out there. These computer graphics, the next stage of photosynthesis is one of them. But I think the reality is that's what we all assume is good content, but when someone watches that, it's so dehumanizing. You kind of check out, you're like, that's not talking to me. And so when I made it, it was literally just me in a room. People could tell, it's just some dude, he's not getting paid, making it for his cousins. And so they can tell there's a human element to it. They can tell that, you know, a lot of times when people are trying to get people engaged into math, they try to distract them. They'll do like a rap song, or they'll play all this music, and I think people find that patronizing. They're like, "Look, don't distract me." If math is good, it should be able to stand up on its own. The traditional reform mindset towards education is, "Let's micromanage teachers more." Like, a good number of really great teachers are getting handicapped by this micromanaging, teaching to the test, whatever else, and forcing like, "On Tuesday, September 27th, you have to cover this, and you cannot question that, and you have to say it in these words, and you have no time to run your own project, and you have no time to think of your own curriculum or whatever you want to do." We genuinely feel like the teachers are getting liberated here. Do what you want on whatever day, and the students are going to do what they want on this day, and we're freeing tons of class time for you to do what I think you went into teaching to begin with. Like when I ran my little summer camp, and you know, I won't I claim to have 30 years of experience and all the rest, but what was fun for me was not having to give a lecture on least common multiple, not having to give a lecture on probability, to know that that was out of the way and getting to do this super fun simulation where the kids are trading pieces and all this. And I got to— I felt like I was able to express my creativity. I was able to go home and say, "What would be a really cool way to understand this concept intuitively?" And when I went to classroom, that's what we did, and I felt like it was a much richer experience. And so I, I, I, we genuinely feel and we genuinely hope that it's doing that for teachers, and the teachers in Los Altos have expressed that, that they love, that they feel liberated, they feel like they have data that they never had before. It's funny, the 5th grade teachers, they don't, they teach all the classes because they're in elementary school, and they feel handicapped in their other classes now because they are doing that, the lecture, they are doing the stuff that I would say is lower value than what they're doing in their math classes, which is the projects, which are the one-on-one interactions. And so they're actually asking us as quickly as possible, "When are the grammar videos coming? When are the grammar exercises coming so I can do more interesting things with that part of my day in class?" Keep things in perspective. I know we all say it, but it really— you just have to keep reinforcing it. You know, all of— everyone in this audience, you know, knock on wood, you're going to do just fine. You're going to have your 4-bedroom house. You're going to have your car with power windows. You'll be able to go to SeaWorld whenever you want to. And— but along that way, there are going to be ups and downs. And actually, those ups and downs tend to happen a lot when you go to transition points, when you're entering the workforce, you're entering some type of a new phase in your life. And you just always have to keep on the kind of the long-term game, the end game. And, you know, I'll tell you myself, I've gone through— some fairly dramatic ones right when I was out the gate. You know, when I was— this was 1998, I just graduated, I was a few months older than most of y'all, and some computer magazine had seen something I had done and they wrote this, you know, this neat profile about me. They called it "Future So Bright," and I saw that magazine, I was very proud of it, I was like, "Oh, look, I'm set," you know, "I have this career ahead of me, I'm already profiled in a magazine," And frankly, I got kind of into myself. And that's okay, you can enjoy your successes, but I really didn't have any perspective. And frankly, it was a dangerous thing to happen. And to really put things in perspective, and I'm happy it did happen, 2 months later I had kind of switched jobs and, you know, higher salary, I thought I was on the fast track, and I had a new boss, and on the first 3 days of work, He spent an hour just completely castigating me, essentially telling me that I was not worth his time, that I was incompetent as far as he was concerned. And so you can imagine, you know, like a lot of successful whole life, fancy degrees from fancy universities. 2 months ago I was profiled in a magazine, and then now all of a sudden, not even— almost not even 23 years old, I was back in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere crying. Not knowing what I was going to do with my life, convinced that it was all end of everything, that everything was for naught. And you know, so you get through them, you wake up in the morning, things look a little bit better. A week later, things look a little better. You start circulating your resume around. I did find another job 2 months later. And it's okay. And the one thing I want to stress, because you know, I've gone through ups and downs, and you only have one perspective for your own life, but I suspect many of y'all are going to have higher ups than I've had, and many of y'all are gonna have lower downs. And I worry about that sometimes. The ones of you who have higher ups, just keep them in perspective. And it's inevitable, some of you are gonna race ahead and be so successful that none of us can imagine it right now. But keep them in perspective. You know, when you enjoy the successes, but when your ego starts feeling a little bit large, keep in mind the sun will supernova one day, The galaxies will collide. We are these small little mammals on this small planet, or, you know, there's 100, 200 billion stars in the galaxy, in just our galaxy alone. And just have peace in the little success. And when you have a hard time, and you will, and those who go through painful periods, you might stumble and start your first few times out the gate, also keep in perspective that those stresses are— put them in perspective of the universe. They are small. They're going to be things that you'll be able to laugh about, talk about 10, 15 years from now, or hopefully 10, 15 days from then. And this idea of making your videos funny, or your lectures funny, where did that come from? And what are the funniest things you've invented there? Oh, I guess it was unintentional. I don't know. You know, maybe I have a little eccentricity that comes out every— You know, it was a blessing. Those first videos were for my cousins. So I didn't think anyone else was going to watch them. So, you know, there's some times where I'm making a video and someone calls and I just answer the phone, or, you know, my wife comes and I'm afraid that she sees that I'm making a video again because I was spending all of my time. But no, you know, I guess I have some quirks and it comes out every now and then. But tell us about some of the funny things you did on those videos. Oh, oh, I mean, you know, they're— I mean, I just make random comments, you know, wherever my— I think people enjoy that Wherever— I have a very open filter, so whatever's going on in my brain, I say. So sometimes I guess people find it entertaining. Imagine yourself in 50 years. You're in your early 70s. You're at the kind of the— you're near the end of your career and you— Hey, yeah, well, we're very good. We have a few models here if you have trouble visualizing that. But imagine at that stage, you're on your couch, 2062, and you've just finished watching the State of the Union holograph by President Kardashian. And you start to reflect on your life. You start to think of all of the successes you've had, career successes, family successes, the great memories that you've had. But then you also start to think about the things that you wish you had done a little bit different. Your regrets, and I could imagine what they might be. You'll wish you spent more time with your children. You wish that you had told your spouse that you love them more frequently. You'll wish that you had spent more time and told your parents how much you appreciated them before they passed away. And just while that's happening, a genie appears. And the genie says, well, I've been listening in to your regrets. You seem like a good person. I'm willing to give you a second chance if you are open to it. And so you say, sure. And the genie snaps his fingers and you blink your eyes. And when you open your eyes, you find yourself right there, right where you are right now, June 8th, 2012, in Killian Court. Some crazy guy is giving a commencement speech. And you say, oh my God, I'm in my 20-something fit, pain-free body again. I'm around my peers again. This genius was serious. I have a second chance. I can have all the successes, all of the adventures that I had the first time around, but now I can optimize things. Now when I see my classmates and I give them that hug at commencement, I can hug them a little bit harder. I can show them how much I care about them. Now that my parents are back, I can finally tell them how much I appreciate them. I can finally give them more hugs, more time. I can do everything better. I can laugh more. I can sing more, I can dance more, I can be more of a source of positivity for people around me and empower more people. One thing that I have kind of a unique vantage point at the Khan Academy is that we see all of these lifelong learners and how much it's changing their own views on life. And, you know, early on in 2008, I had a— when the financial crisis hit, I started making videos. You know, it was my background. I started making videos on the Federal Reserve and credit default swaps mortgage-backed securities. And I got a letter from a— I got all sorts of, you know, this was really helpful, I understand what's happening in the news. But I got one particularly powerful letter. It was a gentleman who worked at a, I will say, an unnamed investment bank. And he says, thank you for that video on mortgage-backed securities. I now know what I do for a living. I guess that's more of a scary story than a good one. But it goes to the extreme. It's not just something that's going to affect you in a practical way forward. Forward your career. You know, probably, we get all sorts of amazing letters and testimonials from people around the world, but still the one that resonates in my brain the most, and it really is this testament to lifelong learning, and it really is a testament that it goes beyond the practical, it goes beyond what you might make use of. I got a letter also in 2008, a terminal cancer patient, she had 2 months to live, and she said, and it blew my mind, I have, I've got 2 months. She said it in a shockingly positive tone. And she said, but my life's dream was to learn calculus, and Khan Academy's given that, and I look forward to spending the last 2 months of my life learning it. And when I saw that, it changed my own perspective. It made me excited to be a learner for as long as I have the privilege of being around.

What Sal Khan has done is amazing. He's taken all this material and broken them down into little 12-minute lectures. I use it myself to remind myself of things. I have children who like it. So I was super happy he came up and we got to talk about where does he go now, how can my foundation help him pursue this dream and connect it up with the other great things going on on the internet.

I want it to be a standalone virtual school where anyone in the world wants to learn anything can go there, start from the Basics, progress as far as they need to go, get feedback, get assessment, get practice, and eventually I want it to actually become the operating system for what goes on in the classroom where every student's allowed to work at their own pace and the teacher actually becomes more of a, of a mentor or a, of a coach.

So I see Sal Khan as a pioneer in an overall movement to use technology to let more and more people learn things, know where they stand, It's the start of a revolution.

All the videos are all free, openly accessible at www.khanacademy.org.

I think it's a huge contribution. Everybody should check it out.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because Badrul Hussain asked me to. So if there's a famous entrepreneur you want me to profile next, leave it in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know which of the top 10 rules had the biggest impact on you and why. Which one did you like the most? Which one resonated with you the most? Leave it in the comments and I will join in the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. Continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.