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People I (Mostly) Admire

22. Sal Khan: “If It Works for 15 Cousins, It Could Work for a Billion People.”

People I (Mostly) Admire

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Society & Culture

4.61.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2021

⏱️ 44 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Khan Academy grew out of Sal Khan’s online math tutorials for his extended family. It’s now a platform used by more than 115 million people in 190 countries. So what does Khan want to do next? How about reinventing in-school learning, too? Find out why Steve nearly moved to Silicon Valley to be part of Khan's latest venture.

Transcript

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0:00.0

When SailCon started posting a few free instructional videos on YouTube 15 years ago, I don't

0:10.1

think anyone could have imagined what Khan Academy would become.

0:13.8

More than 115 million registered users spread across 190 countries in 46 different languages.

0:20.0

And it's gone way beyond videos, now there are over 70,000 practice problems, quizzes

0:25.3

and articles, even state-of-the-art SAT prep.

0:28.6

All of it available completely free to students and parents.

0:34.7

Welcome to People I Mostly Admire, with Steve Levitt.

0:40.0

I spend much of my time these days working through my center at the University of Chicago

0:44.3

to try to change the world for the better, and I can't tell you how much we've struggled

0:48.5

and how little impact we've had relative to what I would have hoped for.

0:52.8

SailCon makes it look easy, but in reality it is incredibly hard, so today I have two

0:58.2

goals.

0:59.2

First, I want to get inside the head of SailCon to understand what the special sauces that

1:04.0

has made him so incredibly successful in this area, so I can do better myself.

1:08.3

Second, although he doesn't advertise it, I have the suspicion that SailCon's ambitions

1:13.3

go far beyond Khan Academy.

1:15.2

I think he has an even bolder plan in mind, a completely rethinking of how education

1:19.7

works.

1:20.7

I also have radical ideas for the future of education, and my pipe dream is that our visions

1:25.0

might align and there could be an opportunity for us to work together.

1:28.5

So let's see.

1:42.5

SailCon, what a treat it is to get to talk to you today.

...

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