Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 2: tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio. You might remember this Carol.
Speaker 2: A few months ago, Luis van On, the founder and
Speaker 2: CEO of Duelingo, he made some comments on a podcast
Speaker 2: that got a lot of attention. He basically said, ultimately,
Speaker 2: he's not sure if there's anything computers can't really teach you,
Speaker 2: and that you know, teachers might not go away because
Speaker 2: they need to provide childcare and take care of kids
Speaker 2: in schools.
Speaker 3: Do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that AI the way it's moving, that's going
Speaker 2: to be teaching kids. Look, take it with a grain
Speaker 2: of salt. Is kind of talking his book because he
Speaker 2: has the app dual Lingo that uses AI to teach
Speaker 2: people things. But right right, got a lot of attention,
Speaker 2: as you can imagine.
Speaker 1: Listen, If anything we learned in COVID though, the importance
Speaker 1: of you know, kids being around other kids, around teachers
Speaker 1: and people is socializing and socialization super super important.
Speaker 2: Here's what Hugo Sarahsen thinks about all this. He's CEO
Speaker 2: the online learning and teaching marketplace You to Me, the
Speaker 2: company says it as eighty one million learners around the world.
Speaker 2: It has had one hundred and twenty million course enrollments
Speaker 2: in the last year. The stockdown about fourteen and a
Speaker 2: half percent so far this year. It's got a market
Speaker 2: cap just north of a billion dollars. He joins us
Speaker 2: from Miami. Hugo, Welcome to the program. You guys are
Speaker 2: in the midst of this pivot from a learning platform
Speaker 2: to what you're calling a quote AI powered skills acceleration platform.
Speaker 3: What's the differences, It's pretty pretty profound. First of all,
Speaker 3: thank you for having me on the show. It's a
Speaker 3: pleasure to be here. You to me. In its original
Speaker 3: version ended up being the largest online platform on the
Speaker 3: B two C. On the B to B side, we have,
Speaker 3: as you said, on the learner eighty million plus, but
Speaker 3: on the enterprise side, seventeen thousand enterprise are depending on
Speaker 3: us to learn things from it to business skills, to
Speaker 3: communication to you know, how to collaborate, so pretty broad.
Speaker 3: At the same time, there's a limitation. This is a
Speaker 3: distribution play that allows you to take learning in a
Speaker 3: synchronous way. But with AI, we have the opportunity to
Speaker 3: change the game and I think we're making a pretty
Speaker 3: big pivot to continuous learning personalized learning. Let's say now
Speaker 3: you and I take the same class. You may know
Speaker 3: actually the first you know thirty percent, but we're going
Speaker 3: to run through the same class today. But with AI,
Speaker 3: I can learn and assess what you know and adapt
Speaker 3: the course in a way that you know focuses on
Speaker 3: the area where you need help. And then when you
Speaker 3: take the class, I can also notice what issue you're
Speaker 3: encountering and reinforce that through a lab through an AI
Speaker 3: roleplay another war. So it's a pretty fundamental pivot to
Speaker 3: the way we're going to deliver the reskilling of the
Speaker 3: workforce moving.
Speaker 1: Forward, Hugo, what are you learning from? I believe it's
Speaker 1: about seventeen thousand enterprise customers. I was looking at a
Speaker 1: recent press release from you guys that you have what
Speaker 1: do you learn from them? Because part of what you
Speaker 1: folks say is you are learning and you're taking in
Speaker 1: data from those enterprise customers and what are you learning
Speaker 1: and then what are you building on that knowledge?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're spending a lot of time learning from our
Speaker 3: customer our learning platform. We love to learn. I've been
Speaker 3: in the role six months. I've met more than four
Speaker 3: hundred executive so a lot of input. But if you
Speaker 3: turn to the specific, I think right now this moment,
Speaker 3: everybody's trying to determine what's the best way to embrace AI.
Speaker 3: We have on our platform five times more classes being taken.
Speaker 3: Every minute eight people enroll in AI classes, so we're
Speaker 3: seeing the demand for that. At the same time, we're
Speaker 3: seeing the need for adaptive skills, creative thinking, collaboration, communications.
Speaker 3: That's up forty percent. So we're seeing like this duality
Speaker 3: and I think it's very interesting to see that as
Speaker 3: much as the technical skills are important, you know, enterprises
Speaker 3: are looking for the human side and keep the human
Speaker 3: aspect of moving forward.
Speaker 2: How are your B to B sales right now? Carol
Speaker 2: mentioned some stats right there, but I'm curious about the
Speaker 2: environment that you see and what you're hearing from these
Speaker 2: customers and potential customers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so's it's so we're sixty percent global, so it's
Speaker 3: a mix of North American, Ama, Asia back. You know,
Speaker 3: we are obviously continuing to grow now at the rate
Speaker 3: that we were growing during the pandemic, where you know,
Speaker 3: there was a very big discontinuity, but we're seeing some
Speaker 3: robust growth. At the same time the uncertainty and the
Speaker 3: to me, you know, there's a lot of you know,
Speaker 3: wait and see. In some cases, people are investing in
Speaker 3: technology and then are realizing that just the technology is
Speaker 3: not enough, so there's a catch up in a rush
Speaker 3: to bring in the reskilling. So it's a bit of
Speaker 3: a you know, a mixed set of signals. But for
Speaker 3: our business, we're lucky because we have something that is
Speaker 3: going to be required. I mean, the World Economic Forum
Speaker 3: in the next five years and ninety two million people
Speaker 3: and developed countries will need to be reskilled for AI
Speaker 3: and really well positioned for that well.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting if I look at, you know, the
Speaker 1: FA function on the Bloomberg, which really you know, pulls
Speaker 1: up your balance sheet and just looking at revenue the
Speaker 1: mix between consumer and enterprise. You go back to twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen or twenty twenty, and it was largely consumer. But
Speaker 1: the shift has been kind of dramatic, right in terms
Speaker 1: of the percentage of revenues that is now enterprise. I
Speaker 1: think our data shows something like sixty three percent of
Speaker 1: what you guys do. That's the growth. That's the model
Speaker 1: going forward.
Speaker 3: It is, well, we're going to continue to be in
Speaker 3: the consumer space. I think we've been making a very
Speaker 3: profound shift towards the enterprise space. It is, you know,
Speaker 3: we've got the leading platform in the market today. In
Speaker 3: the consumer space, we do have a business that maybe
Speaker 3: in the last few years we haven't invested sufficiently, and
Speaker 3: then we're seeing some very interesting signals there too. I
Speaker 3: think right now, as you know the job markets, the
Speaker 3: new graduates are struggling to find jobs. They may not
Speaker 3: have been prepared for what this economy is requiring, and
Speaker 3: they turn to platforms like you to me to kind
Speaker 3: of you know, a bit of a finishing school. They're
Speaker 3: they're taking on a specific class to learn and they're
Speaker 3: building their portfolio of projects. So we're seeing a bit
Speaker 3: of a shift. But what we're going to do is
Speaker 3: we're going to try to capture that shift. Instead of
Speaker 3: vatrans actional course by course, we're now offering subscription and
Speaker 3: we're trying to be a place where you can continuously
Speaker 3: learn and evolve and set yourself career goals. And we're
Speaker 3: partnering with Indeed and other firms to facilitate that.
Speaker 2: Hey, you go just thirty seconds on this are using
Speaker 2: AI to design the courses and actually do that content.
Speaker 2: How do you do that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we internally, we have a learner team that
Speaker 3: focuses on how to use AI to personalize the experience.
Speaker 3: We have an instructor team that is finding ways to
Speaker 3: automate and streamline the process so that you can create
Speaker 3: a curriculum, you can create examples, you can generate images
Speaker 3: if that's what you need it. So we're making all
Speaker 3: of that super easy so that the instructor can spend
Speaker 3: their time where they're applaying their critical thinking. They're finding analogies,
Speaker 3: they're finding ways to engage the students in better way.
Speaker 1: All Right, we're going to leave it there. Hey, Hugo,
Speaker 1: thank you, really appreciate it. Have a good week again.
Speaker 1: Hugo Sarazin. He's chief executive officer of the online learning
Speaker 1: and teaching marketplace You to Me. Joining us from Miami,