Latest news with #GregHart
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
This CEO went from folding clothes at Nordstrom to being Jeff Bezos' right hand man—the billionaire told him to delegate to his employees more
Amazon's billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, instilled one lesson in his former worker. It was 1997 when Coursera's newest CEO, Greg Hart was a young new hire at Amazon. He climbed the ranks swiftly, becoming Bezos' right-hand man just 12 years later. Today, Hart still points to one lesson that's shaped his leadership philosophy: 'The fewer decisions that have to go to the CEO, the faster the organization will move,' Hart tells Fortune. During Greg Hart's monotonous college job of folding t-shirts and jeans at Nordstrom, he never imagined that one day he'd be right-hand man to one of the most notable CEOs in the world—or even be an executive himself. But after landing a job at Amazon in the late 1990s—when it was a bookstore-focused startup—Hart started his steep climb up the corporate ladder. In 2009, he had worked his way up to Jeff Bezos' technical advisor, a chief-of-staff-equivalent role internally known as 'the shadow.' Now, as a new CEO of Coursera, Hart is taking the lessons he learned sitting next to the now third-richest man in the world (with a net worth of $241 billion) to transform the world of educational technology. That includes, he says, being someone who is always willing to be curious and to listen to your gut—even if the data might not back you up. 'One of the things that Jeff would regularly say is when the data and the anecdotes don't align, trust the anecdotes,' Hart tells Fortune. 'Because it probably means that you're either measuring the wrong thing in the data, or that the data is telling you something that you're just not seeing yet.' This mantra would prove especially relevant in Hart's life after he was tapped to lead Amazon's creation of Alexa—a level of success he hopes to emulate at Coursera. '(Coursera) is one of the leaders in the edtech space, certainly,' Hart says. 'But hasn't yet achieved what I would call the true breakout success that I was fortunate to have seen when I was at Amazon.' While serving as technical advisor, Hart was asked to turn Bezos' two-sentence idea for the implementation of virtual assistant technology into a product found in consumers' homes, later known as Alexa. With little background in hardware or software, Hart recalls being hesitant: 'Why am I the right person to tackle this challenge?' 'He (Bezos) was unbelievably gracious. He said, 'you'll do fine, you'll figure it out,'' Hart says. Now with more than 600 million Alexa devices sold, it's clear Hart did figure it out—in part thanks to the belief Bezos instilled in his subordinates. That lesson is one Hart says was critical in making Amazon grow from a bookstore to an e-commerce conglomerate. 'Pushing decisions down as close to the customer as possible was certainly something that I learned from Jeff,' he says. 'The fewer decisions that have to go to the CEO, the faster the organization will move.' Moving quickly will likely play in Coursera's favor considering the rapidly changing world of education, including AI's intersection with skill development. One of Coursera's biggest competitors, 2U (which also owns edX), filed for bankruptcy last year and became a private company. Coursera's public performance hasn't been spectacular, either. Its share price currently sits at about $8.50, a far cry from its 2022 IPO at about $45. But in the next five years, a predicted 1 billion people will gain internet access, according to Bloomberg, and thus would have access to Coursera's thousands of online learning opportunities, that include partnerships with both industry and universities including Google, Microsoft, and IBM as well as Stanford University, University of Michigan, and University of Pennsylvania. 'There is a huge opportunity for Coursera, not just to serve all the people who are online today and give them access to world class education so they can transform their lives, but also to do that for the population that will come online,' Hart says. For young people looking to push their careers up the corporate ladder and emulate a jump from Nordstrom to Amazon,Hart's advice is simple: Focus on learning—not on a flashy job title or cushy salary. 'Don't optimize for titles, don't optimize for salary, optimize for learning. And if you do that in the long run, it will benefit you,' he tells Fortune. And while that advice may sound on-brand coming from the CEO of an education company, treating your career like a marathon, not a sprint, and spending time discovering your broader interests is a mantra echoed by other business leaders, including Hart's former coworker, Andy Jassy. 'I have a 21-year-old son and a 24-year-old daughter, and one of the things I see with them and their peers is they all feel like they have to know what they want to do for their life at that age,' Jassy, the current Amazon CEO, said on the podcast, How Leaders Lead with David Novak. 'And I really don't believe that's true.' 'I tried a lot of things, and I think that early on it's just as important to learn what you don't want to do as what you want to do, because it actually helps you figure out what you want to do,' Jassy added. And while Jassy admits career success involves an element of luck and may include multiple setbacks, remaining persistent is what ultimately might land you a shot at the corner office. 'I feel like my journey or adventure was a lot of luck, and I think maybe one of the things I did best was not overthink it,' Jassy added to Novak. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
This CEO went from folding clothes at Nordstrom to being Jeff Bezos' right hand man—the billionaire told him to delegate to his employees more
Amazon's billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, instilled one lesson in his former worker. It was 1997 when Coursera's newest CEO, Greg Hart was a young new hire at Amazon. He climbed the ranks swiftly, becoming Bezos' right-hand man just 12 years later. Today, Hart still points to one lesson that's shaped his leadership philosophy: 'The fewer decisions that have to go to the CEO, the faster the organization will move,' Hart tells Fortune. During Greg Hart's monotonous college job of folding t-shirts and jeans at Nordstrom, he never imagined that one day he'd be right-hand man to one of the most notable CEOs in the world—or even be an executive himself. But after landing a job at Amazon in the late 1990s—when it was a bookstore-focused startup—Hart started his steep climb up the corporate ladder. In 2009, he had worked his way up to Jeff Bezos' technical advisor, a chief-of-staff-equivalent role internally known as 'the shadow.' Now, as a new CEO of Coursera, Hart is taking the lessons he learned sitting next to the now third-richest man in the world (with a net worth of $241 billion) to transform the world of educational technology. That includes, he says, being someone who is always willing to be curious and to listen to your gut—even if the data might not back you up. 'One of the things that Jeff would regularly say is when the data and the anecdotes don't align, trust the anecdotes,' Hart tells Fortune. 'Because it probably means that you're either measuring the wrong thing in the data, or that the data is telling you something that you're just not seeing yet.' This mantra would prove especially relevant in Hart's life after he was tapped to lead Amazon's creation of Alexa—a level of success he hopes to emulate at Coursera. '(Coursera) is one of the leaders in the edtech space, certainly,' Hart says. 'But hasn't yet achieved what I would call the true breakout success that I was fortunate to have seen when I was at Amazon.' While serving as technical advisor, Hart was asked to turn Bezos' two-sentence idea for the implementation of virtual assistant technology into a product found in consumers' homes, later known as Alexa. With little background in hardware or software, Hart recalls being hesitant: 'Why am I the right person to tackle this challenge?' 'He (Bezos) was unbelievably gracious. He said, 'you'll do fine, you'll figure it out,'' Hart says. Now with more than 600 million Alexa devices sold, it's clear Hart did figure it out—in part thanks to the belief Bezos instilled in his subordinates. That lesson is one Hart says was critical in making Amazon grow from a bookstore to an e-commerce conglomerate. 'Pushing decisions down as close to the customer as possible was certainly something that I learned from Jeff,' he says. 'The fewer decisions that have to go to the CEO, the faster the organization will move.' Moving quickly will likely play in Coursera's favor considering the rapidly changing world of education, including AI's intersection with skill development. One of Coursera's biggest competitors, 2U (which also owns edX), filed for bankruptcy last year and became a private company. Coursera's public performance hasn't been spectacular, either. Its share price currently sits at about $8.50, a far cry from its 2022 IPO at about $45. But in the next five years, a predicted 1 billion people will gain internet access, according to Bloomberg, and thus would have access to Coursera's thousands of online learning opportunities, that include partnerships with both industry and universities including Google, Microsoft, and IBM as well as Stanford University, University of Michigan, and University of Pennsylvania. 'There is a huge opportunity for Coursera, not just to serve all the people who are online today and give them access to world class education so they can transform their lives, but also to do that for the population that will come online,' Hart says. For young people looking to push their careers up the corporate ladder and emulate a jump from Nordstrom to Amazon,Hart's advice is simple: Focus on learning—not on a flashy job title or cushy salary. 'Don't optimize for titles, don't optimize for salary, optimize for learning. And if you do that in the long run, it will benefit you,' he tells Fortune. And while that advice may sound on-brand coming from the CEO of an education company, treating your career like a marathon, not a sprint, and spending time discovering your broader interests is a mantra echoed by other business leaders, including Hart's former coworker, Andy Jassy. 'I have a 21-year-old son and a 24-year-old daughter, and one of the things I see with them and their peers is they all feel like they have to know what they want to do for their life at that age,' Jassy, the current Amazon CEO, said on the podcast, How Leaders Lead with David Novak. 'And I really don't believe that's true.' 'I tried a lot of things, and I think that early on it's just as important to learn what you don't want to do as what you want to do, because it actually helps you figure out what you want to do,' Jassy added. And while Jassy admits career success involves an element of luck and may include multiple setbacks, remaining persistent is what ultimately might land you a shot at the corner office. 'I feel like my journey or adventure was a lot of luck, and I think maybe one of the things I did best was not overthink it,' Jassy added to Novak. This story was originally featured on Error al recuperar los datos Inicia sesión para acceder a tu cartera de valores Error al recuperar los datos Error al recuperar los datos Error al recuperar los datos Error al recuperar los datos
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Coursera
Coursera CEO Greg Hart Credit - Courtesy Coursera In the race to master generative AI, Coursera has emerged as the go-to platform for white-collar upskilling. With 20 million new learners in 2024 and content now available in 24 additional languages, the online education giant is aiming to democratize access to tech's most sought-after skills. Most telling: generative AI course enrollments surged from one per minute in 2023 to six per minute in 2024, totaling 3 million new skills-first hiring, which prioritizes someone's competence over things like having a particular degree, gains momentum—over half of U.S. job listings now omit formal education requirements, according to a 2024 report by the research arm of job platform Indeed—Coursera's 25 new entry-level Professional Certificates are meeting the demand for alternative credentials. Under the leadership of CEO Greg Hart, who took over in February, the company is continuing to expand its partnerships with industry leaders like Google, Microsoft, and Oxford's Said Business School, positioning Coursera at the intersection of AI innovation and workforce transformation. Contact us at letters@
Newsweek
18-06-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
New Coursera CEO Greg Hart on the Future of Learning at Work
Greg Hart became CEO of Coursera in February, taking over after the retirement of Jeff Maggioncalda, who had been leading the education technology company since 2017. Hart was previously the chief product officer at Compass, the real estate brokerage that went public in 2021. Before that, he spent 23 years at Amazon, where he led some of the company's most well-known product teams, including Alexa and Prime Video. Coursera filed for IPO in 2021 and is nearing profitability, reporting a net loss of $7.8 million on $179 million revenue after Q1 2025. Coursera's CEO sat down with Newsweek for a conversation about his new job, training and the future of work. Editor's Note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Coming from Amazon and Compass, what made the opportunity to lead Coursera interesting to you? The opportunity to join Coursera was unbelievably appealing because of the mission and the societal good. The mission of democratizing access to education so that anyone, anywhere around the world can transform their life through the power of learning, you can't script a better mission. And there's never been a greater need for that than now. You've got huge parts of the world that don't have access to the internet still, 2.5 billion people in the world that do not have online access, according to the World Economic Forum... A billion of those people are going to come online over the next five years. My vision would be, how do we meet them as they come online? How do we help them gain those skills? We have 168 million registered learners so far, but I'd love to go after that next billion. Greg Hart, CEO of Coursera. Greg Hart, CEO of Coursera. Coursera What did you do during the first few weeks in seat? I spent the month or two after I joined really just diving into every area of the company, relationships with partners, our technology stack, how we're organized, what we should focus on strategically, and just thinking about, how do we continue to focus in the right way on the problems that we're trying to solve for learners? The approach that I like to take is identify what I would refer to as durable customer needs. The learner is our core customer. So what are durable-learner needs? Examples of that would be, there is no way that it's not going to be true in five years or 10 years that learners will not want a more personalized learning experience. They will always want a more personalized learning experience. They will also, by the same token, always want to achieve better outcomes from that experience. So, how do we organize to make sure that we're making progress on each of those things every day. What goals do you have around talent strategy and partnership with HR? I think of the CEO's role as multifaceted from a talent perspective. First and foremost, you need to make sure that the company has clear strategic direction. I believe that the right way to arrive at clear strategic direction is not for the CEO to dictate that direction but for the CEO to help guide the leadership team as they collectively come up with that. More brains focused on a problem generally deliver better outcomes than fewer brains, so I'd really like to have that be a collaborative process. I think there are a couple of benefits that you get from that. One, you get much more engagement and also much more buy-in to whatever that strategy ends up being. As you're talking about that with folks across the broader organization, you start to harness the energy that they have around it as well. So it just becomes this force multiplier as people gain passion around that strategy and how the work that they do aligns and drives that strategy. From a talent perspective, my view is we are a learning company; you want to have people who are curious, who are lifelong learners, who constantly ask, "Why?" and "How could this be better?" When faced with a challenge, their response isn't "We can't do that." It's "Okay, how could we do that? How would we solve that problem?" Part of it is making sure that the company reflects the values that you think the company needs to have to achieve its objectives, both as a business and for its customers. Since we're a learning company, it's easy to have that set of values... A big part of the role that we play in society is educating people, helping them gain new skills. We have to make sure that internally within the company, we keep developing our talent so that they're also gaining new skills, not just in Gen AI but, you know, for the tasks that we need them to do from a leadership perspective and functional perspective, etc. So, making sure that we provide the right levels of support and structure and frameworks around that. And then, you know, really, it's just like, do you have the right talent and the right [organizational] structure to most effectively go after your objectives as a business, and what that org structure is in the talent that you need today might be very different than what it is tomorrow, so you also have to be nimble and adaptable. What is your sense of the way talent and upskilling have entered the forefront with so much change occurring in the business world? Each company had to go through the pandemic and the post-pandemic on their own, of course they're all looking at each other... but at the end of the day, you have to make the decision that you feel is right for your specific company, whatever space it might be in. If you have situations where talent is scarce, that puts more energy on the side of the person who's thinking about their next job and makes it more challenging for employers. I think we've moved a little bit back the other way now. The pendulum has swung so the imbalance is on the side of their employers, but at the same time, there's plenty of challenges for them, not just in upskilling their existing workforces but finding the right talent. I think some of the considerations that the boards and CEOs are focused on now is: In the current environment, how do we stay really nimble? Because the macroeconomic environment is very different than what people thought it would be three or four months ago, and it continues to change. I definitely think there's more and more of a desire to make sure that you have the right ways to bring people together. For some people, that might mean being in the office in the same way they were pre-pandemic. For others, it's just finding the right moments to bring people together and then what you get out of those moments. What is your sense of the state of education and the role Coursera plays in its future? Right now, people are questioning the cost of education. They're questioning the value of that at the other end. You have shrinking budgets; you have colleges closing. So it's a really challenging time. We've been focused on, how do we use micro-credentials to help augment the curricula that university partners offer at their institutions. So, working with ACE [American Council on Education] here in the U.S., ECTS [European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System] in Europe and then NSQF [National Skills Qualification Framework] in India, we've gotten over 55 different micro-credentials that now are recommended for credit at universities. So that's a fantastic way for a university to say, 'OK, look, it's really challenging to stay on top of the pace of technical development' and Gen AI, and there is a phenomenal body of partners out there who are doing this all the time in their industry. What's your take on how non-technical workers and managers can upskill on AI and emerging technology? Gen AI has increased the demand for workforce adaptation and for upskilling and rescaling to ensure that companies have employees that are continually capable of doing their job as it changes underneath them. So there's a real need, even though the average customer service representative doesn't necessarily come from a technical background, to ensure that they're really good at using those tools. I think you're going to continue to see that ongoing demand for non-technical workers to gain familiarity with technical skills, specifically AI skills and how to leverage those. And some of that is going to be driven by the engineering teams that are creating the systems that they're using to do that. You've seen a lot of courses, like Gen AI for Leaders. We have a course that Dr. Jules White at Vanderbilt [University] created, Gen AI for university presidents and university leaders. And that's a very different type of course than Gen AI for everyone, right? Because obviously, if you're in education, there's the need certainly to learn about Gen AI and its impact, but there's also the need to understand deeply what that means for your institution, right, and how you keep that institution evolving and meeting its needs for its learners, students.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Coursera (NYSE:COUR) Exceeds Q1 Expectations, Next Quarter's Sales Guidance is Optimistic
Online learning platform Coursera (NYSE:COUR) reported revenue ahead of Wall Street's expectations in Q1 CY2025, with sales up 6.1% year on year to $179.3 million. Guidance for next quarter's revenue was optimistic at $181 million at the midpoint, 2.4% above analysts' estimates. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.12 per share was 52.6% above analysts' consensus estimates. Is now the time to buy Coursera? Find out in our full research report. Revenue: $179.3 million vs analyst estimates of $175.3 million (6.1% year-on-year growth, 2.3% beat) Adjusted EPS: $0.12 vs analyst estimates of $0.08 (52.6% beat) Adjusted EBITDA: $18.7 million vs analyst estimates of $10.36 million (10.4% margin, 80.5% beat) Revenue Guidance for the full year is $725 million at the midpoint, roughly in line with what analysts were expecting EBITDA guidance for the full year is $50.75 million at the midpoint, below analyst estimates of $51.02 million Operating Margin: -8%, up from -17.6% in the same quarter last year Free Cash Flow Margin: 0%, down from 4.1% in the previous quarter Market Capitalization: $1.23 billion 'Stepping into the role of CEO of Coursera, a company at the forefront of transforming learning, has been thrilling. We welcomed more than seven million new learners, marking a first quarter record and underscoring the global demand for job-relevant skills and trusted education,' said Coursera CEO Greg Hart. Founded by two Stanford University computer science professors, Coursera (NYSE:COUR) is an online learning platform that offers courses, specializations, and degrees from top universities and organizations around the world. Consumers today expect goods and services to be hyper-personalized and on demand. Whether it be what music they listen to, what movie they watch, or even finding a date, online consumer businesses are expected to delight their customers with simple user interfaces that magically fulfill demand. Subscription models have further increased usage and stickiness of many online consumer services. A company's long-term sales performance is one signal of its overall quality. Any business can have short-term success, but a top-tier one grows for years. Over the last three years, Coursera grew its sales at a solid 16.4% compounded annual growth rate. Its growth beat the average consumer internet company and shows its offerings resonate with customers. This quarter, Coursera reported year-on-year revenue growth of 6.1%, and its $179.3 million of revenue exceeded Wall Street's estimates by 2.3%. Company management is currently guiding for a 6.3% year-on-year increase in sales next quarter. Looking further ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 3.4% over the next 12 months, a deceleration versus the last three years. This projection doesn't excite us and implies its products and services will face some demand challenges. Unless you've been living under a rock, it should be obvious by now that generative AI is going to have a huge impact on how large corporations do business. While Nvidia and AMD are trading close to all-time highs, we prefer a lesser-known (but still profitable) stock benefiting from the rise of AI. Click here to access our free report one of our favorites growth stories. If you've followed StockStory for a while, you know we emphasize free cash flow. Why, you ask? We believe that in the end, cash is king, and you can't use accounting profits to pay the bills. Coursera has shown mediocre cash profitability over the last two years, giving the company limited opportunities to return capital to shareholders. Its free cash flow margin averaged 4.9%, subpar for a consumer internet business. Taking a step back, an encouraging sign is that Coursera's margin expanded by 16.4 percentage points over the last few years. We have no doubt shareholders would like to continue seeing its cash conversion rise as it gives the company more optionality. Coursera broke even from a free cash flow perspective in Q1. The company's cash profitability regressed as it was 10.7 percentage points lower than in the same quarter last year, prompting us to pay closer attention. Short-term fluctuations typically aren't a big deal because investment needs can be seasonal, but we'll be watching to see if the trend extrapolates into future quarters. We were impressed by Coursera's optimistic EBITDA guidance for next quarter, which blew past analysts' expectations. We were also excited its EBITDA outperformed Wall Street's estimates by a wide margin. On the other hand, its full-year EBITDA guidance slightly missed. Overall, we think this was a solid quarter with some key areas of upside. The stock traded up 3.6% to $7.96 immediately following the results. Coursera may have had a good quarter, but does that mean you should invest right now? What happened in the latest quarter matters, but not as much as longer-term business quality and valuation, when deciding whether to invest in this stock. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it's free. Sign in to access your portfolio
