Korean War overview

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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Before we go into the actual
conflict of the Korean War,

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let's try to get a sense of the
historical environment going

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into the Korean War.

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So if you go all the way
back to the late 1800s,

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early 1900s, the
Korean peninsula--

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what we now consider both
North and South Korea-- they

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were occupied by the
Japanese military.

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And then in 1910,
the Korean peninsula

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is formally annexed into
the Japanese empire.

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So the Japanese are
essentially this colonial,

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this imperialist power here.

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And they stay in power in the
Korean peninsula all the way

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until the end of World War II.

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And it's probably
worth saying here--

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and it's probably worth making
and doing a bunch of videos

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here-- that the Japanese
occupation was not

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a pleasant occupation
for the Korean people.

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They subjugated the Korean
people in multiple ways.

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Forced labor,
forced prostitution.

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They tried to eradicate
the Korean language

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and the Korean culture.

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So this was not in any
way a pleasant occupation.

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They weren't pleasant
imperialists.

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But you fast forward
all the way to 1945,

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we know that Japan
loses World War II.

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And the major two victors
on the Allied side,

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that are kind of acting
in this part of the world,

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are the United States
and the Soviet Union.

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And so in 1945, you have the
Soviets coming from above.

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That's the Soviets,
coming from above.

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And eventually, you have the
Americans coming from below.

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They occupy Japan first.

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So this is the USA.

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And they essentially,
remember at this point,

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even though this is kind of
the beginning of the Cold War,

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at this point in World
War II, the United States

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and the Soviet Union are allies.

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And so United States
tells us the Soviet Union,

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hey, why don't we just
stop at the 38th parallel?

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The United States
actually didn't even

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think that the Soviets
would stop there,

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but they actually did.

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And from the Soviet's
point of view,

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it's believed that
they stopped there,

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because the United States didn't
get there at the same time.

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So there was no one to stop
them from going further South.

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But it's believed that
the Soviets wanted

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to uphold their side
of the agreement

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so that they would be a
trusted party to negotiations

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in Europe, and maybe get
more in Europe, which

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is what the Soviets
maybe cared about more.

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So what happens
after World War II

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is that the North, what is
now North Korea essentially,

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becomes under the
influence of the Soviets.

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Everything below
the 38th parallel

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becomes under the influence
of the United States.

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The Soviets essentially install
this gentleman right over here

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to lead North Korea-- Kim Il
Sung-- or the part of Korea

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that is north of
the 38th parallel.

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At this point, this
was just kind of

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viewed as a point where the
Soviets and the United States

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should meet up.

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Where they would have to stop.

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It wasn't meant to be an actual
partition of the country.

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But as we'll see,
it actually becomes

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a partition of the country.

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But the Soviets
install Kim Il Sung.

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He sets up a
communist, essentially

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a communist dictatorship
in the North.

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And this is the current
leader of North Korea's dad.

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This is Kim Jong Il's dad.

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So he gets installed
in the North.

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And in the South, if you fast
forward a little bit to 1948,

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there's an attempt at elections.

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But those elections
are seriously rigged.

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And this gentleman, Syngman
Rhee, comes to power.

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And although he might look
like a nice, pleasant man,

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he was actually fairly ruthless.

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And he is unanimously
considered a strong man.

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And on both sides--
and so once again,

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this is one of those
situations where you really

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can't call either of these guys
good guys because both of them

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have done some pretty nasty,
nasty things to each other,

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to soldiers on either side,
and to innocent civilians.

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But Syngman Rhee comes to power
in the south, and his, I guess,

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most attractive feature
to the Americans

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is that he is not a communist.

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And so you have this
situation setting up

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communist North
above 38th parallel.

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Non-communist South,
controlled by Syngman Rhee,

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supported by the United States.

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The other thing that
happens is that the Soviets

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help build up the
North Korean military.

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The United States is
not as encouraging

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of a strong South
Korean military.

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So you start having an
imbalance between the military

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of the North and the South.

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And obviously, either one of
these parties, Kim Il Sung

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wants to unite Korea under his
rule, under his communist rule.

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Syngman Rhee wants
to unite Korea

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under his authoritarian rule.

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So they're both setting up
the troops along the border.

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And this whole time you
have skirmishes going on

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across the border.

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And just to give you a context,
you're probably saying, wait,

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Korea is right next to China.

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What was going on there?

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And if you go to China, in 1949,
the Communists come to power.

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There was a civil war
leading up to that

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between the Communists
led by Mao Zedong,

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and the Nationalists
led by Chiang Kai-shek.

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Mao Zedong comes to power.

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He wants to support the
communists in North Korea,

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especially because some of
those communists in North Korea

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actually helped fight
on the communist side

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during the Chinese Civil War.

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So this is an important
factor right here.

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Mao Zedong is interested
in spreading Communism.

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He doesn't like the
Americans in South Korea,

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and he feels some
type of allegiance

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to the communists
in North Korea.

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So now you fast forward
to June 25, 1950.

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And in the North, you
have a major event.

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The North Korean
army-- and it's not

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called North Korea at this
point-- they both consider

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themselves Korea, competing,
I guess, governments of Korea.

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The army in the North
is disproportionately

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stronger than the South,
and so they invade.

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They view this as their chance
at unifying the peninsula.

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And essentially, they're
able to almost just storm

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through the Korean peninsula.

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Immediately, when that
happens, the UN, and especially

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the United States-- and this
is because at this point,

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the Soviet Union was boycotting
the Security Council,

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so they couldn't even veto
it-- the UN immediately

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starts supplying naval and air
support for the South Koreans.

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But the disparity is so
big that the North Koreans

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are able to just keep
marching forward.

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Within a few days,
literally by July 1,

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the United States decides
to commit ground forces,

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because we had
substantial ground

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forces in Japan, which
isn't that far away.

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Just to give you a
global perspective,

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this is the Korean
peninsula right here.

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And this is Japan.

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I know I could have probably
found a bigger picture of that.

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But America had military forces
in Japan that they could send,

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and so the Americans enter
the battle in a major way,

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very early on.

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But that doesn't stop the
North Koreans for some time.

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So the North Koreans
get all the way,

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they're able to occupy all
of the Korean peninsula,

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except for the
northeastern corner.

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So they get around this far.

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Over here, you have
the city of Pusan.

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And this is called
the Pusan Perimeter.

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And it's at the Pusan
Perimeter that you

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have a little bit of a, the
United States and Korean forces

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combined are able to
halt the North Koreans.

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And you have a slight stalemate
for a couple of months here.

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But while that
stalemate is happening,

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the United States is able
to-- and especially the UN,

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but it's mainly
the United States--

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is able to build up significant
troops within the Pusan

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Perimeter.

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But even more, and at this
point, the United States

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and the UN forces, go under the
control of Douglas MacArthur,

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General Douglas
MacArthur, who's a bit

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of an interesting character.

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Until this point, he was able
to rule Japan with an iron fist.

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He's a hugely popular
war hero in America,

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and the current
president, Truman, kind of

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has a little trouble controlling
MacArthur, especially

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during the Korean War.

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And we'll see that MacArthur
really oversteps his bounds

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during the course of this war.

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Now, at this point, you have the
South Koreans and the Americans

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kind of cornered down here
inside of the Pusan Perimeter.

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It looks like North Korea's
on the verge of victory.

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But the US is able
to build forces.

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And the Korean War
really just starts

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becoming into a game of Risk.

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I don't know if you've ever
played the game of Risk,

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but whenever it's
somebody's turn,

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they're able to
spread their forces.

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But then they get spread thin,
and then the other side's

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able to come back.

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And what we'll see is the
rest of the Korean War

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is essentially a back and
forth between the Communists

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in the North-- supported
by the Chinese,

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although the Chinese aren't in
the war officially just yet--

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and then the Americans
in the South.

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And the first really smart
thing that MacArthur does

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is he says, look,
instead of trying

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to fight our way through
the Korean forces

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that are over here, why don't
we just kind of outflank them?

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And why don't we
use our navy to do

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an amphibious landing
of an army at Incheon?

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So on September 15, while you
have the stalemate over here,

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the United States, they
have an amphibious landing.

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So they send troops from
all of these places.

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They have an amphibious
landing at Incheon,

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which is near Seoul.

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So they land right
over, they land

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at Incheon, which is
roughly over there.

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I'm not super accurate here.

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And what's
interesting about that

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is, in any battle, all of
these Korean troops right here,

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they have supply chains.

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They have to get food and
supplies and fresh troops

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from up here.

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And so the further in you
go into enemy territory,

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the more spread out
your troops get.

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And the strategy here is instead
of fighting through this,

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what if we outflank them
and are able to land

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a significant force right
here, and immediately

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disrupt the supply lines
of the North Koreans.

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And that's essentially
what the Americans did.

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And it was successful.

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So MacArthur looks like
a genius over here,

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and he's able to retake Seoul.

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He's able to take what's kind
of the North Korean capital

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at this point,
Pyongyang, and you

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have the Americans
marching north.

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So all of a sudden, it started
off with the North Koreans

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being able to roll
down, and now all

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of a sudden the Americans
and the South Koreans

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are able to roll up.

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And they're feeling pretty
good about themselves.

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And the whole time,
Truman's trying

00:10:09.040 --> 00:10:11.030
to keep MacArthur under check.

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MacArthur is excited.

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He's ultra confident.

00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:17.230
He thinks that the troops are
going to be home by Christmas.

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He doesn't think China is
serious about supporting

00:10:21.305 --> 00:10:23.919
the North Koreans, and even
more, he almost, it seems,

00:10:23.919 --> 00:10:25.460
like wants to pick
a fight with China

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because he wants to maybe
eliminate communism in China

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as well.

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He viewed it as
he's on this mission

00:10:32.170 --> 00:10:34.970
to eliminate communism
from all of Asia.

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So Truman is saying limited war.

00:10:37.460 --> 00:10:41.790
Don't cross the Yalu
River, and be careful.

00:10:41.790 --> 00:10:45.030
Don't start attacking Chinese
up here and enrage them,

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and you're going to
have them enter the war.

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MacArthur doesn't take
that too seriously.

00:10:50.520 --> 00:10:53.430
And he also says, look, I
have to start bombing bombs

00:10:53.430 --> 00:10:55.630
across the Yalu River so
that the Chinese won't

00:10:55.630 --> 00:11:00.520
be able to send troops and
supplies to aid the North

00:11:00.520 --> 00:11:01.270
Koreans.

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So he's marching
up, all confident,

00:11:03.060 --> 00:11:04.770
going up against the Yalu River.

00:11:04.770 --> 00:11:10.720
And this whole time, the
Chinese, under Mao Zedong,

00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:12.412
are sending a pretty
substantial army.

00:11:12.412 --> 00:11:13.870
And they're able
to do it secretly.

00:11:13.870 --> 00:11:15.950
They're able to march
at night, and they even

00:11:15.950 --> 00:11:18.690
have these policies where if
any surveillance planes go

00:11:18.690 --> 00:11:21.850
overhead, all of the Chinese
soldiers have to freeze.

00:11:21.850 --> 00:11:23.489
And if they don't
freeze, someone else

00:11:23.489 --> 00:11:24.530
is allowed to shoot them.

00:11:24.530 --> 00:11:26.738
So everyone wants to freeze
so that no one can really

00:11:26.738 --> 00:11:28.480
see them from above.

00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:30.990
So it's this really
secret buildup

00:11:30.990 --> 00:11:34.310
of troops across the Yalu River,
and this whole time MacArthur

00:11:34.310 --> 00:11:36.770
is just ultra, ultra
confident about what's

00:11:36.770 --> 00:11:38.010
happening over here.

00:11:38.010 --> 00:11:40.316
But then you fast forward
until the end of October,

00:11:40.316 --> 00:11:42.190
the Americans think that
they're on the verge

00:11:42.190 --> 00:11:44.242
of winning the Korean War.

00:11:44.242 --> 00:11:45.950
And all of a sudden,
you have the Chinese

00:11:45.950 --> 00:11:47.090
cross the Yalu River.

00:11:47.090 --> 00:11:48.580
And the Americans
didn't even know

00:11:48.580 --> 00:11:51.794
that the Chinese had major
forces ready to cross.

00:11:51.794 --> 00:11:53.710
And once again, it's
just like a game of Risk.

00:11:53.710 --> 00:11:55.179
Now you have the Chinese cross.

00:11:55.179 --> 00:11:56.720
They catch the
Americans unsuspected.

00:11:56.720 --> 00:11:57.909
They engage a few times.

00:11:57.909 --> 00:12:00.200
The Americans weren't sure
if the Chinese were serious.

00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:02.380
So they keep re-engaging
them, but it becomes clear,

00:12:02.380 --> 00:12:05.770
yes the Chinese are serious.

00:12:05.770 --> 00:12:08.412
And essentially the Chinese
are able to push back

00:12:08.412 --> 00:12:10.370
the Americans and the
South Koreans all the way

00:12:10.370 --> 00:12:13.420
back so that they are
able to recapture Seoul.

00:12:13.420 --> 00:12:15.760
But once again, like
any game of Risk,

00:12:15.760 --> 00:12:18.060
now the Chinese are spread thin.

00:12:18.060 --> 00:12:20.070
The Americans and
the South Koreans,

00:12:20.070 --> 00:12:22.830
and all the other UN forces--
although the UN forces are

00:12:22.830 --> 00:12:27.950
mainly the Americans--
are able to regroup.

00:12:27.950 --> 00:12:31.200
And then, in March-- so
Seoul has changed hands

00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:33.080
four times-- so
in March, they're

00:12:33.080 --> 00:12:37.170
able to retake Seoul again.

00:12:37.170 --> 00:12:41.350
And at this point, MacArthur
is ultra confident.

00:12:41.350 --> 00:12:43.970
He's telling the Chinese,
you've essentially lost.

00:12:43.970 --> 00:12:45.500
He's even trying
to get permissions

00:12:45.500 --> 00:12:48.099
to use nuclear weapons
against the Chinese.

00:12:48.099 --> 00:12:49.640
To some degree, he
doesn't even think

00:12:49.640 --> 00:12:52.650
he needs the permission
of Truman to stop.

00:12:52.650 --> 00:12:56.310
It sounds like he's eager to
push the Chinese further back,

00:12:56.310 --> 00:12:59.550
even though they surprised
him the first go around.

00:12:59.550 --> 00:13:02.350
So Truman has enough
of this wild card

00:13:02.350 --> 00:13:04.480
guy, who thinks that
he can call the shots

00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:07.770
and use nuclear weapons if
he wants to, willy nilly.

00:13:07.770 --> 00:13:14.490
And so Truman finally dismisses
MacArthur in April of 1951.

00:13:14.490 --> 00:13:16.370
And at this point,
you start having

00:13:16.370 --> 00:13:20.550
a stalemate near
the 38th parallel.

00:13:20.550 --> 00:13:22.950
So that you start having a
stalemate across this border

00:13:22.950 --> 00:13:23.924
right over there.

00:13:23.924 --> 00:13:26.090
And both sides think the
end of the war is imminent.

00:13:26.090 --> 00:13:28.490
They're like, OK, we're
back to where we both began.

00:13:28.490 --> 00:13:29.880
We should both stop here.

00:13:29.880 --> 00:13:31.600
But the negotiations,
unfortunately,

00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:32.620
took over two years.

00:13:32.620 --> 00:13:35.180
And there was a lot
of back and forth

00:13:35.180 --> 00:13:38.430
about what to do with prisoners
of war and all of the rest.

00:13:38.430 --> 00:13:43.005
But it finally took two years
so that on July 27, 1953,

00:13:43.005 --> 00:13:46.680
you have an armistice signed
between the two parties.

00:13:46.680 --> 00:13:50.189
And I want to make it clear,
an armistice agreement,

00:13:50.189 --> 00:13:51.230
it is not a peace treaty.

00:13:51.230 --> 00:13:53.250
It is not saying
that we both agree

00:13:53.250 --> 00:13:56.225
that this is the border
of our two new countries

00:13:56.225 --> 00:13:58.100
and that we are now at
peace with each other.

00:13:58.100 --> 00:14:01.630
All an armistice means is that
we're going to stop fighting.

00:14:01.630 --> 00:14:03.900
It is not a formal
end to the war.

00:14:03.900 --> 00:14:08.880
So in theory, North and South
Korea, even to this day,

00:14:08.880 --> 00:14:10.480
are in a state of war.

00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:12.639
And to this day, I'm
recording this video in 2011.

00:14:12.639 --> 00:14:14.180
Maybe if you view
this in the future,

00:14:14.180 --> 00:14:16.030
hopefully they won't be in
an official state of war.

00:14:16.030 --> 00:14:18.590
But they're in an official
state of war under an armistice.

00:14:18.590 --> 00:14:22.060
They've just agreed
to stop fighting.

00:14:22.060 --> 00:14:25.620
So all in all, you have
this hugely bloody battle

00:14:25.620 --> 00:14:28.660
with all of these atrocities
going on on both sides.

00:14:28.660 --> 00:14:31.270
Syngman Rhee when he was,
the first time when the North

00:14:31.270 --> 00:14:34.680
Korean troops were rolling in
to South Korea, he essentially,

00:14:34.680 --> 00:14:37.400
beforehand, he was
imprisoning a bunch

00:14:37.400 --> 00:14:39.234
of people who he suspected
to be communists.

00:14:39.234 --> 00:14:40.691
We're not talking
about people, I'm

00:14:40.691 --> 00:14:42.750
talking about whole
families sometimes.

00:14:42.750 --> 00:14:45.530
And when he was
retreating, he essentially

00:14:45.530 --> 00:14:48.960
allowed the massacre of a huge
number of people who were just

00:14:48.960 --> 00:14:50.740
suspected of being communists.

00:14:50.740 --> 00:14:52.690
These weren't just military men.

00:14:52.690 --> 00:14:53.580
These were women.

00:14:53.580 --> 00:14:54.440
These were children.

00:14:54.440 --> 00:14:56.760
These were entire families,
so he is guilty of that.

00:14:56.760 --> 00:15:00.940
And Kim Il Sung just as guilty
when the North Korean soldiers

00:15:00.940 --> 00:15:03.660
infiltrated South
Korea in Seoul,

00:15:03.660 --> 00:15:07.720
they committed atrocities
killing civil servants,

00:15:07.720 --> 00:15:11.920
killing any of the established
intellectuals in the area.

00:15:11.920 --> 00:15:13.300
So on both sides.

00:15:13.300 --> 00:15:14.884
This hugely horrific war.

00:15:14.884 --> 00:15:16.800
And just to get a sense
of what was happening.

00:15:16.800 --> 00:15:19.200
Korea isn't a huge
country, but you

00:15:19.200 --> 00:15:22.010
have within Korea,
the civilian deaths,

00:15:22.010 --> 00:15:25.910
1.5 to 3 million civilian
deaths and the consensus

00:15:25.910 --> 00:15:26.810
is at 2 million.

00:15:26.810 --> 00:15:29.110
And this tells you how ugly
war is that you can't even

00:15:29.110 --> 00:15:33.840
estimate how many people died
to the nearest 500,000 people.

00:15:33.840 --> 00:15:35.390
You just don't
know what happened.

00:15:35.390 --> 00:15:40.620
Two million people died in a
country that's not too big.

00:15:40.620 --> 00:15:46.910
All in all, you have about
40,000 American soldiers dying.

00:15:46.910 --> 00:15:49.640
China loses on the order of,
depending on the estimates,

00:15:49.640 --> 00:15:50.667
400,000 soldiers.

00:15:50.667 --> 00:15:52.500
I mean the estimates
are all over the place.

00:15:52.500 --> 00:15:56.300
North Korea loses, on the order,
same magnitude of soldiers.

00:15:56.300 --> 00:16:01.020
South Korea loses several
hundred thousand soldiers.

00:16:01.020 --> 00:16:04.130
So you have this hugely bloody
battle, this hugely bloody

00:16:04.130 --> 00:16:07.470
war, I should say, that really
ends with an outcome that

00:16:07.470 --> 00:16:10.610
wasn't so different
from where it started.


Salman Khan on Charlie Rose

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.157 --> 00:00:01.122
Charlie: Sal Khan is here.

00:00:01.122 --> 00:00:02.630
He's the founder of Khanacademy.org.

00:00:02.630 --> 00:00:04.874
He provides 10-minute tutorials on the web

00:00:04.874 --> 00:00:07.211
on everything from math
to science to finance.

00:00:07.211 --> 00:00:09.275
The Harvard MBA and
former hedge fund manager

00:00:09.275 --> 00:00:10.943
has become an online teaching sensation.

00:00:10.943 --> 00:00:12.550
His videos have been viewed

00:00:12.550 --> 00:00:14.546
more than 50 million times worldwide.

00:00:14.546 --> 00:00:18.197
They have been translated to
more than 7 different languages.

00:00:18.197 --> 00:00:19.282
Here is a look.

00:00:19.282 --> 00:00:22.289
Sal: So the hypotenuse
is now going to be 5.

00:00:22.289 --> 00:00:24.529
This animal's fossils are only found

00:00:24.529 --> 00:00:26.216
in this are of South America,

00:00:26.216 --> 00:00:27.525
a nice clean band here,

00:00:27.525 --> 00:00:29.632
and this part of Africa.

00:00:29.632 --> 00:00:32.100
We could integrate over the surface.

00:00:32.100 --> 00:00:34.779
The notation usually is a capital sigma.

00:00:34.779 --> 00:00:36.694
National assembly, they create the

00:00:36.694 --> 00:00:38.116
Committee of Public Safety,

00:00:38.116 --> 00:00:39.748
which sounds like a very nice committee.

00:00:39.748 --> 00:00:42.792
Some cells have a membrane around the DNA.

00:00:42.792 --> 00:00:44.777
This is called a nucleus.

00:00:44.777 --> 00:00:49.023
Notice, this is an aldehyde
and it's an alcohol.

00:00:49.023 --> 00:00:51.960
Start differentiating into
effector and memory cells.

00:00:51.960 --> 00:00:53.042
A galaxy!

00:00:53.042 --> 00:00:54.241
Hey, there's another galaxy!

00:00:54.241 --> 00:00:56.312
And for dollars is their 30 million

00:00:56.312 --> 00:00:58.250
plus the 20 million dollars from

00:00:58.250 --> 00:00:59.852
the American manufacturer.

00:00:59.852 --> 00:01:03.716
If these things end up being
worth 30 cents on the dollar,

00:01:03.716 --> 00:01:05.856
let's say that we go to some future state

00:01:05.856 --> 00:01:07.297
and these really are worth only 30 cents,

00:01:07.297 --> 00:01:09.542
the most that the private investor loses

00:01:09.542 --> 00:01:12.394
in this situation is his 7 dollars.

00:01:12.394 --> 00:01:18.820
If this does not blow your
mind, then you have no emotion.

00:01:18.820 --> 00:01:20.347
Charlie: I am please to have Sal Khan

00:01:20.347 --> 00:01:21.324
at this table for the first time.

00:01:21.324 --> 00:01:22.129
Welcome.

00:01:22.129 --> 00:01:23.114
Sal: Thanks for having me.

00:01:23.114 --> 00:01:24.272
Charlie: So what am I just looking at?

00:01:24.272 --> 00:01:26.136
Am I looking at someone who's
interested in everything

00:01:26.136 --> 00:01:28.276
and has a passion to tell others?

00:01:28.276 --> 00:01:30.031
Sal: I think so.

00:01:30.031 --> 00:01:32.616
Yeah, that's what I've
turned into. (laughing)

00:01:32.616 --> 00:01:35.050
Charlie: What have you turned into?

00:01:35.050 --> 00:01:38.343
Sal: I've turned into someone,
I guess from my point of view,

00:01:38.343 --> 00:01:41.179
who gets to, I started off with the math

00:01:41.179 --> 00:01:43.351
and the physics and the
science and the economics,

00:01:43.351 --> 00:01:46.289
stuff that I knew fairly
well from my background.

00:01:46.289 --> 00:01:49.254
Now I've turned into
someone who gets to learn

00:01:49.254 --> 00:01:53.563
pretty much anything and
distill it down and teach it.

00:01:53.563 --> 00:01:54.765
Charlie: You're learning new things,

00:01:54.765 --> 00:01:56.369
assimilating them, distilling them,

00:01:56.369 --> 00:01:57.230
and then teaching them.

00:01:57.230 --> 00:01:57.677
Sal: Yeah.

00:01:57.677 --> 00:02:01.659
Charlie: So give me the
background that you have.

00:02:01.659 --> 00:02:05.056
Sal: As you mentioned, 5-6 years ago

00:02:05.056 --> 00:02:06.518
I was an analyst at a hedge fund.

00:02:06.518 --> 00:02:08.268
Before that my background was in software

00:02:08.268 --> 00:02:11.433
then I went to business school,
did the hedge fund thing.

00:02:11.433 --> 00:02:13.188
I started in Boston, and
while I was in Boston

00:02:13.188 --> 00:02:15.993
I had family visiting me from New Orleans.

00:02:15.993 --> 00:02:16.884
This was right after my wedding.

00:02:16.884 --> 00:02:18.522
This was in 2004.

00:02:18.522 --> 00:02:21.931
My cousin, Nadia, I
remember we were waiting

00:02:21.931 --> 00:02:23.130
for the fireworks over the Charles River

00:02:23.130 --> 00:02:25.376
and we were just killing time

00:02:25.376 --> 00:02:26.787
and I started giving
her these brain teasers,

00:02:26.787 --> 00:02:27.932
the type of brain teasers you'd give

00:02:27.932 --> 00:02:31.800
at a software interview for
like 25-year-old engineerings.

00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:33.529
Most people just disengage,

00:02:33.529 --> 00:02:35.275
"I don't want to deal with that.

00:02:35.275 --> 00:02:36.549
"I don't want to think right now."

00:02:36.549 --> 00:02:37.882
But Nadia, here's a
12-year-old, she was like,

00:02:37.882 --> 00:02:38.746
"Don't tell me the answer.

00:02:38.746 --> 00:02:39.802
"I need to figure it out.

00:02:39.802 --> 00:02:41.017
"Okay, can they see each other?"

00:02:41.017 --> 00:02:42.955
All these type of things
about the brain teaser.

00:02:42.955 --> 00:02:45.802
I was pretty impressed.

00:02:45.802 --> 00:02:47.047
I started telling her and her mother,

00:02:47.047 --> 00:02:47.777
"Hey, you should think about

00:02:47.777 --> 00:02:49.681
"becoming an engineer" or whatever.

00:02:49.681 --> 00:02:51.933
The next morning, her mom, [Noshradandie]

00:02:51.933 --> 00:02:54.623
told me, thanks for believing in Nadia

00:02:54.623 --> 00:02:56.227
but she's actually being tracked into

00:02:56.227 --> 00:02:59.158
a slower math class,
the non-advanced track.

00:02:59.158 --> 00:03:01.299
I said that's impossible,
the stuff she was doing

00:03:01.299 --> 00:03:03.032
yesterday is way beyond her.

00:03:03.032 --> 00:03:05.426
She's clearly a bright girl.

00:03:05.426 --> 00:03:07.514
She's like no, I think she
did bad on a placement exam.

00:03:07.514 --> 00:03:10.165
So when Nadia woke up, I
said, "What's going on?"

00:03:10.165 --> 00:03:11.512
She said, no I ...

00:03:11.512 --> 00:03:13.323
Apparently she had bombed units,

00:03:13.323 --> 00:03:16.053
converting gallons to quarts and all that.

00:03:16.053 --> 00:03:18.375
I said, Nadia, I understand
how that can be confusing,

00:03:18.375 --> 00:03:20.069
but the stuff you were doing last night

00:03:20.069 --> 00:03:23.378
was way deeper and way harder than units.

00:03:23.378 --> 00:03:24.504
If you're willing to work with me,

00:03:24.504 --> 00:03:25.702
when you go back to New Orleans

00:03:25.702 --> 00:03:27.054
and I'll stay here in Boston,

00:03:27.054 --> 00:03:31.244
I think we can get you past
whatever hurdles you have.

00:03:31.244 --> 00:03:33.714
She agreed and they went
back to New Orleans.

00:03:33.714 --> 00:03:35.870
Every day after work I would come home

00:03:35.870 --> 00:03:37.530
and we'd get on the speakerphone

00:03:37.530 --> 00:03:38.378
for about half an hour, an hour,

00:03:38.378 --> 00:03:39.809
and I'd start working with her.

00:03:39.809 --> 00:03:41.263
It worked out.

00:03:41.263 --> 00:03:44.220
Two or three months, she got up to speed,

00:03:44.220 --> 00:03:45.521
went ahead of the curve.

00:03:45.521 --> 00:03:46.625
Then I started tutoring her brothers,

00:03:46.625 --> 00:03:48.535
other family members.

00:03:48.535 --> 00:03:50.750
Then you fast forward to 2006.

00:03:50.750 --> 00:03:52.834
About 18 months have gone by.

00:03:52.834 --> 00:03:53.915
I was venting to a buddy,

00:03:53.915 --> 00:03:55.496
I was like, "This is a
lot of fun I'm having."

00:03:55.496 --> 00:03:57.109
By this time I had
moved out to California.

00:03:57.109 --> 00:03:58.737
I was like, "This is a lot of fun.

00:03:58.737 --> 00:04:00.041
"It's really satisfying, but ..."

00:04:00.041 --> 00:04:01.831
The first time you give a lecture

00:04:01.831 --> 00:04:03.589
on least common multiples,
it's kind of fun.

00:04:03.589 --> 00:04:05.445
The second time, it's still
fun; a little more polished.

00:04:05.445 --> 00:04:08.654
The third time it starts to
get a little bit tiring to do!

00:04:08.654 --> 00:04:10.503
He said ...

00:04:10.503 --> 00:04:11.440
Charlie: Do it one time.

00:04:11.440 --> 00:04:12.174
Sal: Do it one time.

00:04:12.174 --> 00:04:13.586
Why don't you put it on YouTube?

00:04:13.586 --> 00:04:16.777
I said, "No, YouTube's
for dogs on scateboards.

00:04:16.777 --> 00:04:19.377
"It's not for serious learning."

00:04:19.377 --> 00:04:21.591
Charlie: (laughing) That's true.

00:04:21.591 --> 00:04:25.142
Sal: Once I got over the
fact that it wasn't my idea,

00:04:25.142 --> 00:04:27.188
I decided to give it a shot.

00:04:27.188 --> 00:04:28.339
I put it up there.

00:04:28.339 --> 00:04:30.335
Charlie: Now, which one
did you put up there?

00:04:30.335 --> 00:04:32.419
Sal: It was either Least Common Multiple

00:04:32.419 --> 00:04:34.064
or Greatest Common Divisor, I forget.

00:04:34.064 --> 00:04:35.871
I think I did them on the
same day, that first day.

00:04:35.871 --> 00:04:40.145
The cool thing about YouTube
is you an sort by upload time.

00:04:40.145 --> 00:04:41.303
So that first video you'd shown,

00:04:41.303 --> 00:04:43.426
that was literally, that
was one of the early videos.

00:04:43.426 --> 00:04:44.358
I kind of cringed.

00:04:44.358 --> 00:04:45.422
I was like, "Oh, that's
when I wasn't using

00:04:45.422 --> 00:04:46.722
"the fancy HD stuff."

00:04:46.722 --> 00:04:48.056
Yeah, it was on one of those topics.

00:04:48.056 --> 00:04:49.126
Charlie: And the reaction?

00:04:49.126 --> 00:04:50.520
Sal: You know what?

00:04:50.520 --> 00:04:53.496
I had about 20-30 up there,
my cousins' initial reaction,

00:04:53.496 --> 00:04:56.268
and I joke about this but it's true,

00:04:56.268 --> 00:04:58.385
is that they preferred me
on YouTube than in person!

00:04:58.385 --> 00:05:01.867
Charlie: (laughing)

00:05:01.867 --> 00:05:03.998
Sal: I'll take that for what it's worth.

00:05:03.998 --> 00:05:05.326
It made sense.

00:05:05.326 --> 00:05:06.960
Charlie: You need not come
to the next family gathering.

00:05:06.960 --> 00:05:09.849
Just send us ...

00:05:09.849 --> 00:05:12.773
Sal: (laughs) Yeah, Sal
can be annoying sometimes.

00:05:12.773 --> 00:05:15.415
Charlie: When did it become Khan Academy?

00:05:15.415 --> 00:05:19.566
Sal: You fast forward,
it soon became clear,

00:05:19.566 --> 00:05:21.621
maybe in 6 months, even from the beginning

00:05:21.621 --> 00:05:22.956
random people started watching it,

00:05:22.956 --> 00:05:24.496
but then fast forward 6 months,

00:05:24.496 --> 00:05:25.992
I probably had 50 or 100 videos,

00:05:25.992 --> 00:05:27.975
and I started getting these random letters

00:05:27.975 --> 00:05:29.328
from people, just on YouTube.

00:05:29.328 --> 00:05:31.386
If you look on YouTube,
people aren't always

00:05:31.386 --> 00:05:33.809
that civil on YouTube in
terms of what they write.

00:05:33.809 --> 00:05:35.475
For the most part, everyone was writing,

00:05:35.475 --> 00:05:36.819
"Hey, thanks a bunch, this helped me."

00:05:36.819 --> 00:05:37.773
Some people would write,

00:05:37.773 --> 00:05:39.884
"I was going to flunk calculus
until I got this video."

00:05:39.884 --> 00:05:42.807
Or "I wasn't going to become an engineer

00:05:42.807 --> 00:05:43.965
"because I couldn't handle the course load

00:05:43.965 --> 00:05:45.088
"until I saw that video on vectors"

00:05:45.088 --> 00:05:47.983
or whatever it might be.

00:05:47.983 --> 00:05:49.993
It started to dawn on
me that this could be

00:05:49.993 --> 00:05:52.642
more than a hobby, although
it stayed a hobby right then.

00:05:52.642 --> 00:05:56.248
I think the first time
Khan Academy came about,

00:05:56.248 --> 00:06:00.829
I think it was 2007, I
had decided to set up

00:06:00.829 --> 00:06:03.164
my own domain name,
and so have another way

00:06:03.164 --> 00:06:04.167
of viewing the videos.

00:06:04.167 --> 00:06:05.537
I also started working on the software

00:06:05.537 --> 00:06:06.951
for my cousins so I
could give them problems

00:06:06.951 --> 00:06:09.796
and give them exercises, and
I put it all on that site.

00:06:09.796 --> 00:06:11.184
I was working for a hedge fund

00:06:11.184 --> 00:06:13.578
called Wohl Capital and
my boss was Dan Wohl

00:06:13.578 --> 00:06:15.213
and I said, "Well, I'm Sal Khan

00:06:15.213 --> 00:06:19.125
"so I'll call it Khan Academy."
(laughs)

00:06:19.125 --> 00:06:20.307
Charlie: (laughs) What are your dreams?

00:06:20.307 --> 00:06:22.909
What do you want it to be?

00:06:22.909 --> 00:06:26.616
Sal: I used to be kind
of quiet about this dream

00:06:26.616 --> 00:06:28.039
because it seemed kind
of like a crazy thing.

00:06:28.039 --> 00:06:30.614
Even last year it would have seemed crazy

00:06:30.614 --> 00:06:32.164
for me to say what I'm about to say,

00:06:32.164 --> 00:06:35.981
but now, I think there's a potential for-

00:06:35.981 --> 00:06:38.371
Online learning, no one takes it ser-,

00:06:38.371 --> 00:06:40.191
They take it seriously,
they think it has value,

00:06:40.191 --> 00:06:42.614
but online learning is here

00:06:42.614 --> 00:06:44.955
and your prestigious
universities are over here.

00:06:44.955 --> 00:06:46.680
They're not in the same conversation.

00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:50.430
I'm hoping Khan Academy can
turn into an institution

00:06:50.430 --> 00:06:54.111
that, I don't want to say rivals, but it's

00:06:54.111 --> 00:06:57.291
talked in the same conversation
as some of these things

00:06:57.291 --> 00:06:58.546
that have been around
for hundreds of years.

00:06:58.546 --> 00:06:59.796
Charlie: In the places
where you can learn.

00:06:59.796 --> 00:07:01.294
Sal: In the places where you can learn

00:07:01.294 --> 00:07:03.172
at a very high level.

00:07:03.172 --> 00:07:05.418
So you can start at
arithmetic but you can go deep

00:07:05.418 --> 00:07:07.127
and it's a real learning experience,

00:07:07.127 --> 00:07:08.582
it's not something superficial.

00:07:08.582 --> 00:07:10.123
Charlie: So how many
people work for you now?

00:07:10.123 --> 00:07:11.419
Sal: We have 8 people.

00:07:11.419 --> 00:07:14.357
We just have 8, we had 6
if you'd asked last week.

00:07:14.357 --> 00:07:16.797
Charlie: So eventually
you will give diplomas?

00:07:16.797 --> 00:07:18.669
Sal: That's an open question.

00:07:18.669 --> 00:07:21.130
If you focus just on K through 12,

00:07:21.130 --> 00:07:24.419
and our video content goes
well beyond K through 12,

00:07:24.419 --> 00:07:28.072
but just on K through 12,
right now what really matters

00:07:28.072 --> 00:07:30.042
is some of these standardized tests,

00:07:30.042 --> 00:07:33.790
the SATs, the AP tests,
high school diplomas,

00:07:33.790 --> 00:07:35.900
kids are getting into Harvard based

00:07:35.900 --> 00:07:37.395
on just being home schooled right now.

00:07:37.395 --> 00:07:41.066
We see our real niche right
now on the learning side.

00:07:41.066 --> 00:07:43.671
Standard education's really
learning and credentialing.

00:07:43.671 --> 00:07:46.083
We're going to tackle the
learning as well as we can.

00:07:46.083 --> 00:07:47.666
In the future, we'll see what we can do

00:07:47.666 --> 00:07:48.530
on the credentialing side.

00:07:48.530 --> 00:07:50.128
Charlie: You've got a
remarkable group of people

00:07:50.128 --> 00:07:51.540
who believe what you're
doing; people from Google,

00:07:51.540 --> 00:07:54.044
Bill Gates and a lot of
others have cited you

00:07:54.044 --> 00:07:56.505
for what you have done
and what you are doing.

00:07:56.505 --> 00:08:00.443
Is there any pushback from
what you have accomplished?

00:08:00.443 --> 00:08:04.917
Does anybody say, "Yes, but"?

00:08:04.917 --> 00:08:10.292
Sal: My sense of the pushback is

00:08:10.292 --> 00:08:12.457
sometimes these articles get written where

00:08:12.457 --> 00:08:14.900
the article itself is fairly
balanced and reasonable,

00:08:14.900 --> 00:08:17.155
but they'll title it
like "Will Khan Academy

00:08:17.155 --> 00:08:18.751
"Demolish Traditional Education?"

00:08:18.751 --> 00:08:20.312
Charlie: Where was this?

00:08:20.312 --> 00:08:22.406
Sal: Oh, I don't know, I'm exaggerating.

00:08:22.406 --> 00:08:24.358
There was one that recently came out,

00:08:24.358 --> 00:08:26.983
will it flip the classroom,
or turn education upside down

00:08:26.983 --> 00:08:27.904
or something like that.

00:08:27.904 --> 00:08:28.966
There are these headlines that are very

00:08:28.966 --> 00:08:30.133
attention-grabbing.

00:08:30.133 --> 00:08:32.047
I think when someone
reads that, they've become

00:08:32.047 --> 00:08:35.381
cynical about these panacea solutions

00:08:35.381 --> 00:08:38.217
to a big problem, so
they might say oh, no,

00:08:38.217 --> 00:08:39.491
there's no way that something like this

00:08:39.491 --> 00:08:40.982
could solve all of our problems.

00:08:40.982 --> 00:08:42.624
For the most part, I think, when people

00:08:42.624 --> 00:08:43.652
understand what they're doing,

00:08:43.652 --> 00:08:45.758
we haven't gotten a lot of resistance.

00:08:45.758 --> 00:08:47.322
Charlie: Who are the
people who are watching?

00:08:47.322 --> 00:08:50.458
Sal: That's the surprising
thing, who's watching.

00:08:50.458 --> 00:08:52.389
When I started off, it was for my cousins.

00:08:52.389 --> 00:08:55.956
I kind of just made them for my cousins,

00:08:55.956 --> 00:08:58.207
they wanted to learn,
I was there as kind of

00:08:58.207 --> 00:09:00.456
their big brother type figure,
so I was motivating them.

00:09:00.456 --> 00:09:03.274
Still, when I make the
videos, I'm kind of like,

00:09:03.274 --> 00:09:04.782
"Well, if I wanted to learn this subject,

00:09:04.782 --> 00:09:07.171
"what would I want, how would
I want it to be explained?"

00:09:07.171 --> 00:09:10.622
I thought that it would
appeal to a certain

00:09:10.622 --> 00:09:14.115
subset of people, people who like to watch

00:09:14.115 --> 00:09:17.797
the Discovery Channel and
Charlie Rose and all the rest.

00:09:17.797 --> 00:09:18.620
Charlie: I'm hooked.

00:09:18.620 --> 00:09:22.568
Sal: (laughing) So I'm really focused on

00:09:22.568 --> 00:09:24.922
the intuition and the
going deep and showing

00:09:24.922 --> 00:09:26.365
how it connects and all of these things

00:09:26.365 --> 00:09:28.394
that sometimes get lost in
some textbooks in some classes.

00:09:28.394 --> 00:09:30.764
The surprising thing is I get letters from

00:09:30.764 --> 00:09:33.734
that group of people, but I do get letters

00:09:33.734 --> 00:09:36.452
from parents of students
with learning disabilities,

00:09:36.452 --> 00:09:41.868
kids who were otherwise
disengaged from math class

00:09:41.868 --> 00:09:42.920
or from school generally,

00:09:42.920 --> 00:09:44.859
and then over here they all
of a sudden discover a love.

00:09:44.859 --> 00:09:46.791
Charlie: That is the
most important question

00:09:46.791 --> 00:09:48.701
to come out of the conversation
between the two of us.

00:09:48.701 --> 00:09:50.858
What is it you know, what is it you do

00:09:50.858 --> 00:09:56.330
that somehow makes
learning more attractive,

00:09:56.330 --> 00:10:00.619
more interesting, more
satisfying and more productive?

00:10:00.619 --> 00:10:04.039
Sal: I don't know that I
definitely have "the" answer.

00:10:04.039 --> 00:10:05.283
I have guesses.

00:10:05.283 --> 00:10:06.063
Charlie: Guess for me.

00:10:06.063 --> 00:10:09.901
Sal: I started off
making it for my cousins.

00:10:09.901 --> 00:10:12.479
I kind of didn't care.

00:10:12.479 --> 00:10:14.123
I was kind of like this liberated person.

00:10:14.123 --> 00:10:15.649
If someone had told me in 2004,

00:10:15.649 --> 00:10:17.912
"I'm going to give you a
couple million dollars.

00:10:17.912 --> 00:10:19.541
"Produce something that's going to reach

00:10:19.541 --> 00:10:21.538
"millions of people and Bill
Gates is going to watch it"

00:10:21.538 --> 00:10:22.535
and all the rest,

00:10:22.535 --> 00:10:24.204
I probably would have
produced something different.

00:10:24.204 --> 00:10:25.618
I probably would have
gotten fancy lighting

00:10:25.618 --> 00:10:28.208
and put some makeup on and
got some computer graphics,

00:10:28.208 --> 00:10:30.944
and probably produced a lot
of the education material

00:10:30.944 --> 00:10:32.387
that's already out there.

00:10:32.387 --> 00:10:33.398
These computer graphics,

00:10:33.398 --> 00:10:36.422
"The next stage of
photosynthesis is when the ..."

00:10:36.422 --> 00:10:37.923
But I think the reality is,

00:10:37.923 --> 00:10:40.122
that's what we all assume is good content,

00:10:40.122 --> 00:10:42.061
but when someone watches
it, it's so dehumanizing.

00:10:42.061 --> 00:10:43.458
You kind of check out.

00:10:43.458 --> 00:10:44.865
That's not talking to me.

00:10:44.865 --> 00:10:47.845
When I made it, it was
literally just me in a room,

00:10:47.845 --> 00:10:49.075
people can tell, it's just some dude,

00:10:49.075 --> 00:10:51.535
he's not getting paid, he's
making it for his cousins,

00:10:51.535 --> 00:10:53.922
so they can tell there's
a human element to it.

00:10:53.922 --> 00:10:56.348
They can tell that, a
lot of times when people

00:10:56.348 --> 00:10:58.735
are trying to get people
engaged into math,

00:10:58.735 --> 00:11:00.268
they try to distract them.

00:11:00.268 --> 00:11:02.264
They'll do like a rap song or
they'll play all this music,

00:11:02.264 --> 00:11:03.806
and I think people find that patronizing.

00:11:03.806 --> 00:11:05.196
They're like, look, don't distract me.

00:11:05.196 --> 00:11:06.866
If math is good, it should be able

00:11:06.866 --> 00:11:08.348
to stand up on its own.

00:11:08.348 --> 00:11:09.534
Charlie: That's exactly what I believe

00:11:09.534 --> 00:11:10.426
about this show.

00:11:10.426 --> 00:11:10.969
Same thing.

00:11:10.969 --> 00:11:12.287
It's a black room.

00:11:12.287 --> 00:11:15.938
Just a conversation
between interesting people.

00:11:15.938 --> 00:11:17.560
That's all it is.

00:11:17.560 --> 00:11:18.608
That's what people want.

00:11:18.608 --> 00:11:20.108
They don't want a lot
of bells and whistles.

00:11:20.108 --> 00:11:21.066
Sal: No, you're insulting people.

00:11:21.066 --> 00:11:22.376
If you have bells and
whistles it's meaning

00:11:22.376 --> 00:11:23.350
it's not worth watching.

00:11:23.350 --> 00:11:24.123
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:11:24.123 --> 00:11:25.282
Charlie: Sal Khan is a
very interesting person.

00:11:25.282 --> 00:11:26.070
If you don't know about him,

00:11:26.070 --> 00:11:27.121
you'll learn a whole lot here.

00:11:27.121 --> 00:11:29.372
This kind of conversation

00:11:29.372 --> 00:11:33.073
will penetrate that veil of complexity;

00:11:33.073 --> 00:11:36.754
and give you a channel
to access complexity.

00:11:36.754 --> 00:11:38.282
Sal: I wholeheartedly agree.

00:11:38.282 --> 00:11:40.157
Maybe I was subconsciously
inspired by you.

00:11:40.157 --> 00:11:41.075
Charlie: No, you weren't.

00:11:41.075 --> 00:11:41.868
But it is the same idea.

00:11:41.868 --> 00:11:43.461
When I hear you say it, I realize

00:11:43.461 --> 00:11:44.975
that's exactly the way we approach,

00:11:44.975 --> 00:11:46.207
that's my mindset as well.

00:11:46.207 --> 00:11:51.439
What's the hardest thing about this?

00:11:51.439 --> 00:11:53.042
24 hours in a day?

00:11:53.042 --> 00:11:53.991
Sal: 24 hours in a day.

00:11:53.991 --> 00:11:55.732
I think now the hardest thing is,

00:11:55.732 --> 00:11:57.711
I really want me to be all about

00:11:57.711 --> 00:11:59.407
continuing to make videos.

00:11:59.407 --> 00:12:03.361
I want most of my day, the
learning and the producing.

00:12:03.361 --> 00:12:04.682
Charlie: But, what?

00:12:04.682 --> 00:12:07.261
Sal: But, and this is
another interesting thing

00:12:07.261 --> 00:12:09.832
about Khan Academy, because
I've put these videos out there

00:12:09.832 --> 00:12:12.986
and people watch them, I'm
kind of associated with them.

00:12:12.986 --> 00:12:19.264
I can use that as a platform
to engage in the discussion,

00:12:19.264 --> 00:12:21.369
however you want to view it.

00:12:21.369 --> 00:12:23.067
I still think my biggest role,

00:12:23.067 --> 00:12:25.469
and probably the highest
leverage for my time,

00:12:25.469 --> 00:12:26.164
are those videos.

00:12:26.164 --> 00:12:29.462
Even though those videos,
that video on line integrals

00:12:29.462 --> 00:12:31.338
in the first week might only be watched by

00:12:31.338 --> 00:12:33.893
a few hundred people,
I think over the next

00:12:33.893 --> 00:12:37.664
hundred years, that'll be a big impact.

00:12:37.664 --> 00:12:39.955
Charlie: Do people come
to you all the time

00:12:39.955 --> 00:12:41.837
and say, "We can monetize this"?

00:12:41.837 --> 00:12:43.792
Sal: They used to.

00:12:43.792 --> 00:12:47.740
About 2 or 3 years ago, when
Khan Academy had gotten to-,

00:12:47.740 --> 00:12:49.462
kind of people started to know about it,

00:12:49.462 --> 00:12:52.048
but I still had my day
job at the hedge fund,

00:12:52.048 --> 00:12:55.151
a couple of VCs approached,
hey, we could do a double

00:12:55.151 --> 00:12:58.341
bottom-line hybrid model,
a fremium or whatever,

00:12:58.341 --> 00:12:59.688
I don't know, all these things.

00:12:59.688 --> 00:13:01.920
Actually I got to meeting
two with one of them.

00:13:01.920 --> 00:13:04.977
Meeting one was a lot of
fun because they're like

00:13:04.977 --> 00:13:06.521
hey, you can make a salary to do this

00:13:06.521 --> 00:13:08.312
and if it all works out
you're going to be rich

00:13:08.312 --> 00:13:09.020
and all of that.

00:13:09.020 --> 00:13:11.252
But meeting two was let's
focus on this market

00:13:11.252 --> 00:13:12.596
because we can monetize this.

00:13:12.596 --> 00:13:19.747
I was like, "No, but I feel
like doing Civil War videos."

00:13:19.747 --> 00:13:21.374
I said no, I can't,
because it was too much fun

00:13:21.374 --> 00:13:28.965
to give up the fun part of
it regardless of the upside.

00:13:28.965 --> 00:13:30.499
Even though I didn't know what a nonprofit

00:13:30.499 --> 00:13:32.744
would entail to start and how do you raise

00:13:32.744 --> 00:13:34.226
money for it or anything,
that's where it became clear

00:13:34.226 --> 00:13:35.673
that, no, I wanted it to be a ...

00:13:35.673 --> 00:13:37.015
I was like, what are
all these universities?

00:13:37.015 --> 00:13:37.723
Oh, they're not-for-profits?

00:13:37.723 --> 00:13:38.916
I want to be a not-for-profit, too.

00:13:38.916 --> 00:13:39.837
Charlie: So that's what you've become?

00:13:39.837 --> 00:13:40.611
Sal: That's what we've become.

00:13:40.611 --> 00:13:41.630
Charlie: So you get a lot of money

00:13:41.630 --> 00:13:44.677
from people like Gates or
John Doerr or Ann Doerr

00:13:44.677 --> 00:13:47.047
and people like that who believe
in what you do and say ...

00:13:47.047 --> 00:13:50.414
Sal: Yeah. Ann and John
were the first, literally,

00:13:50.414 --> 00:13:53.048
I'd quit my job in 2009 and the savings

00:13:53.048 --> 00:13:57.900
started to go like this and
it was Ann in particular

00:13:57.900 --> 00:14:02.293
who really stepped up and
allowed me to get a first salary

00:14:02.293 --> 00:14:03.731
and then Google and Bill Gates

00:14:03.731 --> 00:14:06.016
and everyone else started to get involved.

00:14:06.016 --> 00:14:08.348
Charlie: Take a tangent
from you for a second.

00:14:08.348 --> 00:14:13.418
What's wrong with the way we teach?

00:14:13.418 --> 00:14:15.050
Sal: More than the way
we teach, I think it's

00:14:15.050 --> 00:14:18.319
a systemic thing of how
the school is structured.

00:14:18.319 --> 00:14:23.081
Right now you have, you and I were sitting

00:14:23.081 --> 00:14:25.055
in algebra class, pre-albegra class,

00:14:25.055 --> 00:14:28.842
and they're going over negative numbers.

00:14:28.842 --> 00:14:30.899
Maybe you get a 95% on the exam.

00:14:30.899 --> 00:14:32.534
You feel good about yourself.

00:14:32.534 --> 00:14:34.905
You can an A stamped on
your forehead or whatever.

00:14:34.905 --> 00:14:39.503
Let's say I get a 70%, it's a C or a D.

00:14:39.503 --> 00:14:41.032
There's an assessment and it does identify

00:14:41.032 --> 00:14:42.912
that I have big weaknesses.

00:14:42.912 --> 00:14:44.570
You have even some weaknesses.

00:14:44.570 --> 00:14:46.873
You had a 95%, so there's
still 5% you didn't know.

00:14:46.873 --> 00:14:48.631
Negative numbers is a core thing.

00:14:48.631 --> 00:14:49.912
You need to know that really well.

00:14:49.912 --> 00:14:52.081
Despite that, the whole class then moves

00:14:52.081 --> 00:14:53.645
to the next concept and builds on it.

00:14:53.645 --> 00:14:55.033
They assume that everyone had mastery

00:14:55.033 --> 00:14:56.588
when they've just shown that no one does.

00:14:56.588 --> 00:14:59.051
You keep marching everyone down that path

00:14:59.051 --> 00:15:02.158
and people just keep having
gaps in their knowledge.

00:15:02.158 --> 00:15:03.531
What you have is when you get to,

00:15:03.531 --> 00:15:05.621
and we've all seen this with ourseleves,

00:15:05.621 --> 00:15:09.287
family members, everyone
hits a certain math class

00:15:09.287 --> 00:15:10.955
or a certain science class
where they hit a wall;

00:15:10.955 --> 00:15:13.196
where all of a sudden that
A student or that B student

00:15:13.196 --> 00:15:15.250
just starts flunking, they just can't-

00:15:15.250 --> 00:15:17.209
They have good teachers
and they're trying to study

00:15:17.209 --> 00:15:19.266
and they're hitting
their head against a wall

00:15:19.266 --> 00:15:20.830
and it's because they
have all of these gaps.

00:15:20.830 --> 00:15:22.580
Once you're in algebra
class, there's no way

00:15:22.580 --> 00:15:24.551
to identify the gap in fourth grade,

00:15:24.551 --> 00:15:26.784
or identify the gap in pre-algebra.

00:15:26.784 --> 00:15:28.376
Or once you're in calculus, there's no way

00:15:28.376 --> 00:15:29.717
to identify that algebra gap.

00:15:29.717 --> 00:15:31.381
I think that that's the problem.

00:15:31.381 --> 00:15:32.744
No matter how good a teacher you have,

00:15:32.744 --> 00:15:34.696
you have just a weak foundation.

00:15:34.696 --> 00:15:36.546
Charlie: This is Fortune, August 24:

00:15:36.546 --> 00:15:38.193
"His low-tech, conversational tutorials,

00:15:38.193 --> 00:15:40.832
"Khan's face never appears
and viewers see only

00:15:40.832 --> 00:15:43.161
"his unadorned step-by-step
doodles and diagrams

00:15:43.161 --> 00:15:46.212
"on an electronic
blackboard, more than merely

00:15:46.212 --> 00:15:47.929
"another example of
viral medial distributed

00:15:47.929 --> 00:15:49.397
"at negligible cost to the universe,

00:15:49.397 --> 00:15:51.676
"Khan Academy holds the
promise of virtual school,

00:15:51.676 --> 00:15:54.689
"an educational transformation
that de-emphasizes

00:15:54.689 --> 00:15:57.066
"classrooms, campus and
administrative infrastructure

00:15:57.066 --> 00:15:58.797
"and even brand-name instructors.

00:15:58.797 --> 00:16:00.989
"Quick, free and easy to understand.

00:16:00.989 --> 00:16:03.848
"Khan has his skeptics in
the education business.

00:16:03.848 --> 00:16:05.960
"They don't doubt he means
well and is helping students,

00:16:05.960 --> 00:16:07.692
"but they question the broad impact

00:16:07.692 --> 00:16:09.864
"of any tutorial that
doesn't test performance

00:16:09.864 --> 00:16:12.785
"or allow student-teacher discussion."

00:16:12.785 --> 00:16:14.130
Is that a point?

00:16:14.130 --> 00:16:16.931
Sal: It's a point. (laughing)

00:16:16.931 --> 00:16:18.037
As all points are.

00:16:18.037 --> 00:16:18.978
Charlie: Nothing more; it's a point!

00:16:18.978 --> 00:16:19.894
Sal: It is a point.

00:16:19.894 --> 00:16:22.069
Charlie: Everybody's
entitled to a opinion.

00:16:22.069 --> 00:16:23.168
Sal: Or more!

00:16:23.168 --> 00:16:25.397
Charlie: Maybe two, three.

00:16:25.397 --> 00:16:26.396
Sal: Maybe two or three.

00:16:26.396 --> 00:16:30.607
To rebut that last point
is that that's exactly why

00:16:30.607 --> 00:16:33.172
we have the videos and
I keep making videos.

00:16:33.172 --> 00:16:34.683
But as soon as we got funding, that little

00:16:34.683 --> 00:16:36.815
simple software that I started building

00:16:36.815 --> 00:16:39.284
for my cousins to measure what they knew

00:16:39.284 --> 00:16:40.358
and what they didn't know.

00:16:40.358 --> 00:16:41.526
That's why we started building it

00:16:41.526 --> 00:16:42.457
into this exercise platform.

00:16:42.457 --> 00:16:45.485
I think over time, the
videos will always be

00:16:45.485 --> 00:16:46.752
a big part of Khan Academy,

00:16:46.752 --> 00:16:49.066
but this exercise piece
where students start

00:16:49.066 --> 00:16:50.733
at 1+1, it keeps generating
problems for them

00:16:50.733 --> 00:16:53.816
until they can master a
concept, and only then

00:16:53.816 --> 00:16:55.152
move on to the next concept.

00:16:55.152 --> 00:16:56.972
That's going to become a
bigger and bigger piece of it.

00:16:56.972 --> 00:16:58.867
So, to rebut that, no, we
are doing the assessment

00:16:58.867 --> 00:16:59.999
and the feedback.

00:16:59.999 --> 00:17:02.069
Charlie: Do you see it as supplementary

00:17:02.069 --> 00:17:04.567
to the process of education or a main line

00:17:04.567 --> 00:17:07.669
in the process of education?

00:17:07.669 --> 00:17:11.420
Sal: We view ourselves as in the beginning

00:17:11.420 --> 00:17:13.463
of this process, and I've
been at it 4 or 5 years.

00:17:13.463 --> 00:17:16.010
As an organization we've only
been at it 6 or 7 months.

00:17:16.010 --> 00:17:19.505
Our goal is that with Khan Academy alone,

00:17:19.505 --> 00:17:23.248
if there's a student in Kolkata, they need

00:17:23.248 --> 00:17:25.554
an internet connection so
that's a gating factor,

00:17:25.554 --> 00:17:28.592
but if they're there, they
can get a pretty solid

00:17:28.592 --> 00:17:31.047
grounding in a lot of
different subject areas,

00:17:31.047 --> 00:17:32.830
especially ones that
are meaningful to them

00:17:32.830 --> 00:17:34.207
that they can use to progress.

00:17:34.207 --> 00:17:37.334
But, we think it can also
be the operating system

00:17:37.334 --> 00:17:38.942
of what happens in the classroom to really

00:17:38.942 --> 00:17:42.828
liberate what happens
inside of a classroom.

00:17:42.828 --> 00:17:45.416
Charlie: How many of
them do you do yourself?

00:17:45.416 --> 00:17:47.814
Sal: I've produced all the videos.

00:17:47.814 --> 00:17:48.642
Charlie: That's what I thought.

00:17:48.642 --> 00:17:49.640
Sal: I'm the faculty

00:17:49.640 --> 00:17:50.807
Charlie: You are the faculty of one, yeah.

00:17:50.807 --> 00:17:52.266
Sal: Our meetings are
very non-bureaucratic.

00:17:52.266 --> 00:17:53.862
Charlie: Let's assume you're interested

00:17:53.862 --> 00:17:55.503
in Napoleon and in the French Revolution.

00:17:55.503 --> 00:17:57.309
What do you do?

00:17:57.309 --> 00:17:58.836
How to do you prepare?

00:17:58.836 --> 00:18:01.799
What's the process of going from

00:18:01.799 --> 00:18:03.724
"I'm curious about Napoleon" to

00:18:03.724 --> 00:18:06.205
"This is what I have to teach you.

00:18:06.205 --> 00:18:09.666
"This is your access to understand
this moment in history"?

00:18:09.666 --> 00:18:12.333
Sal: Once again, I approach it from

00:18:12.333 --> 00:18:14.950
what my brain would like to see.

00:18:14.950 --> 00:18:17.817
For me, in history in particular,

00:18:17.817 --> 00:18:20.283
I don't feel like I got
this in the history books,

00:18:20.283 --> 00:18:21.231
and even now when I prepare,

00:18:21.231 --> 00:18:23.023
I'm not getting it from the
history books on my shelf,

00:18:23.023 --> 00:18:24.734
I like to see a scaffold.

00:18:24.734 --> 00:18:25.660
I like to see a map.

00:18:25.660 --> 00:18:28.182
What is a Holy Roman Empire?

00:18:28.182 --> 00:18:29.357
What is that now?

00:18:29.357 --> 00:18:30.355
Charlie: How they got to an empire.

00:18:30.355 --> 00:18:31.937
Sal: What are these things?

00:18:31.937 --> 00:18:33.122
People can just keep referring to them,

00:18:33.122 --> 00:18:34.142
but if I can't ...

00:18:34.142 --> 00:18:38.652
So what I do is, for
history, I immerse myself

00:18:38.652 --> 00:18:40.321
in it as much as possible.

00:18:40.321 --> 00:18:41.289
I usually read Wikipedia entry first,

00:18:41.289 --> 00:18:42.592
just to get the scaffold.

00:18:42.592 --> 00:18:43.372
Charlie: Same thing I do.

00:18:43.372 --> 00:18:45.200
I go for the scaffold myself.

00:18:45.200 --> 00:18:46.259
Sal: Get the scaffold and-

00:18:46.259 --> 00:18:47.176
Charlie: Just as a learning experience.

00:18:47.176 --> 00:18:47.888
Sal: Just as a learning experience.

00:18:47.888 --> 00:18:48.723
Charlie: I want to see where it fits.

00:18:48.723 --> 00:18:50.558
I want to see the geography of the place.

00:18:50.558 --> 00:18:51.942
What does it look like?

00:18:51.942 --> 00:18:55.080
Sal: The beauty, also
Wikipedia, if I find cool maps

00:18:55.080 --> 00:18:56.367
along the way, I copy and paste.

00:18:56.367 --> 00:18:57.689
I make sure they're in the public domain.

00:18:57.689 --> 00:19:00.819
I copy and paste, stick it on my little

00:19:00.819 --> 00:19:02.361
blackboard art program.

00:19:02.361 --> 00:19:04.614
Sometimes I'll draw out a timeline

00:19:04.614 --> 00:19:07.398
just to make sure that
I get the years right.

00:19:07.398 --> 00:19:08.675
But the main thing I do,

00:19:08.675 --> 00:19:10.358
whether it's history of
chemistry or anything,

00:19:10.358 --> 00:19:13.143
is get the scaffold and
then really immerse myself

00:19:13.143 --> 00:19:15.751
for however long it takes.

00:19:15.751 --> 00:19:18.028
Then make sure that I can make

00:19:18.028 --> 00:19:20.695
intuitive connections between
everything that happens.

00:19:20.695 --> 00:19:23.261
Charlie: What's that,
an intuitive connection?

00:19:23.261 --> 00:19:27.015
Sal: Understand why something,

00:19:27.015 --> 00:19:28.683
if I'm doing it on the neuron,

00:19:28.683 --> 00:19:32.676
a biology book will tell you the signal

00:19:32.676 --> 00:19:35.105
goes across because
there's a myelin sheath.

00:19:35.105 --> 00:19:37.127
I'm like, yeah, but how
does putting a little

00:19:37.127 --> 00:19:39.291
tissue around a neuron, how does it make

00:19:39.291 --> 00:19:41.518
the signal go faster?

00:19:41.518 --> 00:19:43.634
No biology book will tell you that answer.

00:19:43.634 --> 00:19:45.631
I'd kind of ponder it a bit,

00:19:45.631 --> 00:19:46.749
and then, you know, it's kind of like

00:19:46.749 --> 00:19:50.018
a fiberoptic system and
one's kind of amplifying

00:19:50.018 --> 00:19:51.458
the signal, but you amplify too-

00:19:51.458 --> 00:19:53.212
Then I'd call up some buddies,

00:19:53.212 --> 00:19:54.379
who are either biologists

00:19:54.379 --> 00:19:57.725
or communications engineers or whatever,

00:19:57.725 --> 00:19:58.661
I'll say, "Does this make sense?"

00:19:58.661 --> 00:19:59.983
They're like, "No, I think you're right."

00:19:59.983 --> 00:20:03.408
It's a big deal for me,
if I'm doing biology,

00:20:03.408 --> 00:20:05.573
why does the myelin sheath
make the signal go faster?

00:20:05.573 --> 00:20:09.322
If it's history, why did
this artillery captain

00:20:09.322 --> 00:20:10.797
all of a sudden come to power?

00:20:10.797 --> 00:20:12.562
Weren't there other people around?

00:20:12.562 --> 00:20:16.929
These obvious questions are
important for me to answer.

00:20:16.929 --> 00:20:19.278
What's really cool is
sometimes you call a buddy

00:20:19.278 --> 00:20:20.453
and you're like, "I know you're
going to think I'm stupid

00:20:20.453 --> 00:20:22.705
"when I ask you this and
you're probably going to think

00:20:22.705 --> 00:20:23.974
"I have no business making a video on this

00:20:23.974 --> 00:20:25.261
"considering I'm asking you this question,

00:20:25.261 --> 00:20:27.098
"but why does the Sarcoplasmic reticulum

00:20:27.098 --> 00:20:29.120
"release these ions when this happens?"

00:20:29.120 --> 00:20:30.675
They're like, "You know
what, we don't know."

00:20:30.675 --> 00:20:34.151
I'm like why doesn't
the book tell me that?

00:20:34.151 --> 00:20:35.855
Everyone would like it better.

00:20:35.855 --> 00:20:37.780
Charlie: What do your former colleagues

00:20:37.780 --> 00:20:39.438
at the hedge fund say?

00:20:39.438 --> 00:20:41.802
Sal: They're super happy about it.

00:20:41.802 --> 00:20:44.474
My last boss told me, "Hey, if I knew you

00:20:44.474 --> 00:20:48.680
"were going to do this, I wouldn't
have hired you." (laughing)

00:20:48.680 --> 00:20:51.618
Charlie: It's great to find something

00:20:51.618 --> 00:20:53.116
that you have great passion for

00:20:53.116 --> 00:20:55.838
and involve learning yourself.

00:20:55.838 --> 00:20:58.131
Sal: I think I've subconsciously
been inspired by you.

00:20:58.131 --> 00:21:00.744
Years ago, I was just, "Charlie
Rose got the best job."

00:21:00.744 --> 00:21:02.659
He's just got to learn everything.

00:21:02.659 --> 00:21:05.027
I'm doing it my own way.

00:21:05.027 --> 00:21:06.398
Charlie: It's great to meet you.

00:21:06.398 --> 00:21:07.144
Thank you very much.

00:21:07.144 --> 00:21:07.666
Sal: Oh, thank you.

00:21:07.666 --> 00:21:11.000
Charlie: Sal Khan, Khanacademy.com.


TEDxSanJoseCA - Salman Khan - (Sequel to talk at TED)

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:15.247 --> 00:00:18.036
(applauding)

00:00:18.036 --> 00:00:21.037
Salman: As I just introduced what
Khan Academy is most known for

00:00:21.037 --> 00:00:23.480
is this library of videos
that I started producing

00:00:23.480 --> 00:00:26.207
almost five, six years ago now.

00:00:26.207 --> 00:00:30.599
Before I go any further, let me just
show you all a little bit of a mix

00:00:30.599 --> 00:00:32.682
of what the videos actually look like

00:00:32.682 --> 00:00:34.489
and then we can go a
little deeper from there.

00:00:36.612 --> 00:00:39.252
So the hypotenuse is now going to be five.

00:00:39.252 --> 00:00:42.829
These animals fossils are only
found in this area of South America

00:00:42.829 --> 00:00:46.375
a nice, clean band here
and this part of Africa.

00:00:46.375 --> 00:00:51.568
We can integrate over the surface in
the notation usually is a capital sigma.

00:00:51.568 --> 00:00:54.934
National Assembly they create
the committee of public safety

00:00:54.934 --> 00:00:56.680
which sounds like a very nice committee.

00:00:56.680 --> 00:01:00.328
Notice this is an aldehyde
and it's an alcohol

00:01:00.328 --> 00:01:03.764
start differentiating it to
affect or, and memory cells.

00:01:03.764 --> 00:01:06.069
A galaxy, hey there's another galaxy.

00:01:06.069 --> 00:01:07.906
Oh look there's another galaxy.

00:01:07.906 --> 00:01:10.148
For dollars is there 30 million

00:01:10.148 --> 00:01:13.098
plus the 20 million dollars
from the American manufacturer

00:01:13.098 --> 00:01:18.375
if this does not blow your
mind then you have no emotion.

00:01:18.375 --> 00:01:24.430
(audience laughing)

00:01:27.091 --> 00:01:30.344
You know the videos
there's now 2,200 of them.

00:01:30.344 --> 00:01:33.138
That's kind of what I want to
do until I get a hit by a bus

00:01:33.138 --> 00:01:35.132
or hopefully it won't be for a while.

00:01:38.854 --> 00:01:41.347
We're doing a lot more than that,I
mean the videos are reaching ...

00:01:41.347 --> 00:01:44.508
Actually now, on the order of about
two million unique users a month.

00:01:44.508 --> 00:01:47.461
We've had almost 45 million video views

00:01:47.461 --> 00:01:49.700
they are being watched 2
to 300,000 times a day.

00:01:49.700 --> 00:01:55.584
Before I go any deeper, I actually just
gave a talk at TED down in Long Beach

00:01:55.584 --> 00:01:58.948
a couple weeks ago, I don't want
this to be a repetition of that talk.

00:01:58.948 --> 00:02:00.243
I want this to kind of be a part two.

00:02:00.243 --> 00:02:02.276
But before I go any further,
I want to get a sense

00:02:02.276 --> 00:02:04.542
just so I know how much background
and depth I need to give.

00:02:04.542 --> 00:02:06.413
How many of you all seen that talk?

00:02:06.413 --> 00:02:07.971
Okay, good.

00:02:07.971 --> 00:02:10.263
How many of you all have been to the site?

00:02:10.263 --> 00:02:13.351
Because I want to know how much
background, okay very good, very good.

00:02:15.166 --> 00:02:19.326
What I want to focus on today is
kind of going a little bit deeper.

00:02:19.326 --> 00:02:23.247
I will give a background about what
we're doing beyond the video portion.

00:02:23.247 --> 00:02:24.573
Now that it isn't just me.

00:02:24.573 --> 00:02:28.547
We are actually kind of a
team now, we're at six people.

00:02:31.777 --> 00:02:33.957
(audience laughing)

00:02:33.957 --> 00:02:37.778
Some of the questions
that I think have surfaced

00:02:37.778 --> 00:02:41.590
is we've gotten a little bit more popular
and we started to enter into domains,

00:02:41.590 --> 00:02:43.176
but frankly I never
thought we would enter.

00:02:43.176 --> 00:02:45.442
Especially into the classroom itself.

00:02:45.442 --> 00:02:49.064
Before I do that,I want to give you all
a little bit of a thought experiment.

00:02:50.064 --> 00:02:54.055
Imagine if we're in a juggling class
and I'm your juggling instructor.

00:02:54.055 --> 00:02:58.049
This week we are going to
learn to juggle oranges.

00:02:58.049 --> 00:03:02.328
I give you all your orange juggling
kits, I give you all each four oranges

00:03:02.328 --> 00:03:04.901
and I give you all a
lecture on juggling oranges.

00:03:04.901 --> 00:03:09.434
I say practice and in a week I will
assess your orange juggling ability.

00:03:10.233 --> 00:03:13.976
You practice and a week later I come
back with my clipboard and I say juggle.

00:03:13.976 --> 00:03:18.378
You try the best you can to juggle
and different three oranges,

00:03:18.378 --> 00:03:22.531
four oranges, all the rest and I say,
"You can't juggle four oranges at all."

00:03:22.531 --> 00:03:26.120
"Three oranges, barely can
keep the oranges in the air"

00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:27.706
"for more than a few seconds."

00:03:27.706 --> 00:03:33.264
You are a 70% orange juggler,
you are a D orange juggler.

00:03:33.264 --> 00:03:35.197
I place that label on your forehead.

00:03:35.197 --> 00:03:38.003
I put it in your permanent
record making it all

00:03:38.003 --> 00:03:40.336
but impossible for you to go
in an elite juggling school.

00:03:40.336 --> 00:03:44.320
(audience laughing)

00:03:44.320 --> 00:03:47.976
Despite those deficiencies that
you clearly have in your abilities,

00:03:47.976 --> 00:03:53.890
there's the state mandated a juggling
curriculum that we have to follow

00:03:53.890 --> 00:03:57.921
and there's a calendar that specifies
how we have to move forward.

00:03:57.921 --> 00:04:00.826
We have this kind of
assembly line and so I say,

00:04:00.826 --> 00:04:05.796
"Well give me back the oranges. The
next lesson here are some knives."

00:04:05.796 --> 00:04:10.618
(audience laughing)

00:04:10.618 --> 00:04:14.955
As crazy as that might appear to be

00:04:14.955 --> 00:04:18.451
that's exactly what's happening
in our classrooms right now.

00:04:18.451 --> 00:04:24.233
It might not be as physically dangerous
but it is just as mentally dangerous.

00:04:24.233 --> 00:04:28.041
We have students they take
an exam, they get 10% wrong,

00:04:28.041 --> 00:04:30.950
20% wrong, 30% wrong, you
can even fail an exam.

00:04:32.689 --> 00:04:35.593
Regardless of the fact that we've
identified those deficiencies,

00:04:35.593 --> 00:04:37.876
we know that the student
doesn't know those concepts,

00:04:37.876 --> 00:04:40.944
we have to move on to the next
concept, we have this assembly line.

00:04:40.944 --> 00:04:44.425
That the only thing were using
the test for is to put labels

00:04:44.425 --> 00:04:47.005
on peoples foreheads to
separate them, to track them.

00:04:47.005 --> 00:04:49.143
Though we know there's
weaknesses we push them forward

00:04:49.143 --> 00:04:51.831
and we're pretty much ensuring that at
some future point they'r going to fail.

00:04:51.831 --> 00:04:54.350
We're pretty much ensuring
that motivated kids,

00:04:54.350 --> 00:04:56.927
even if they have awesome
teachers at some point

00:04:56.927 --> 00:04:59.982
those gaps are going to come back and
they're not going to be able to perform

00:04:59.982 --> 00:05:03.437
once they get to some
more advanced mathematics.

00:05:04.067 --> 00:05:07.446
Now that we've gotten a funding ...

00:05:07.446 --> 00:05:10.526
just so you know a little bit of
the story how all of this happened.

00:05:10.526 --> 00:05:16.020
I was literally making videos in
my closet for about five years.

00:05:17.112 --> 00:05:21.224
Then about a year ago Google
brought me over to their campus

00:05:21.224 --> 00:05:23.911
and I thought it was just like
a lot of the Google engineers,

00:05:23.911 --> 00:05:27.282
as parents they were using these videos
for their children and all of that.

00:05:27.282 --> 00:05:29.661
But they brought me in to a
conference room and they said,

00:05:29.661 --> 00:05:31.997
"Sal, what would you do
with two million dollars?"

00:05:31.997 --> 00:05:34.854
(audience laughing)

00:05:34.854 --> 00:05:38.561
I said, "Is this an education context?
Or is just a broader question?"

00:05:38.561 --> 00:05:41.887
(audience laughing)

00:05:41.887 --> 00:05:43.409
There are very different answers.

00:05:45.501 --> 00:05:49.293
That happened and a little bit
later, I mean this is like last year,

00:05:49.293 --> 00:05:50.642
I was still in the closet.

00:05:50.642 --> 00:05:55.331
(audience laughing)

00:05:56.284 --> 00:06:00.570
I get a call from Larry Cohen,
who's Bill Gates chief of staff,

00:06:00.587 --> 00:06:05.417
and says, "I don't know if you realize
this but Bill Gates likes your videos."

00:06:05.417 --> 00:06:08.910
"He watches them, he uses it with his
kids, and he would like to support you."

00:06:08.910 --> 00:06:11.749
"Do you have some time to
meet him in the near future?"

00:06:11.749 --> 00:06:14.296
I said, "I think I can move
around my calendar a little bit."

00:06:14.296 --> 00:06:15.874
(audience laughing)

00:06:15.874 --> 00:06:18.835
I think I can push back a few of
the video recordings here or there.

00:06:18.835 --> 00:06:22.921
But you fast forward to
October of this year,

00:06:22.921 --> 00:06:25.426
we got funding from the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation.

00:06:25.426 --> 00:06:27.133
We got the funding from Google.

00:06:27.133 --> 00:06:30.012
In a sense it allowed me
to come out of the closet.

00:06:33.058 --> 00:06:38.456
What we're now trying to do
there is take these videos

00:06:38.456 --> 00:06:43.840
to their natural conclusion, and
address that juggling mastery problem.

00:06:43.840 --> 00:06:45.996
What we're doing, if you go
to the site it's all free,

00:06:45.996 --> 00:06:48.425
it's a not for profit, not
trying to sell anything.

00:06:48.425 --> 00:06:54.145
You can start at 1 + 1 = 2 and we'll
give you as many problems as you need.

00:06:54.145 --> 00:06:55.039
As you get 10 in a row,

00:06:55.039 --> 00:06:57.741
you can keep advancing to more
and more advanced concepts.

00:06:57.741 --> 00:07:01.719
The paradigm here is don't
move on to a next concept

00:07:01.719 --> 00:07:04.727
until you master the one you already know.

00:07:04.727 --> 00:07:07.245
As an organization what we're trying to do

00:07:07.245 --> 00:07:10.857
and it seems like there's already a little
bit, we're getting the traction here

00:07:10.857 --> 00:07:14.094
and we'll talk later and to talk about
why we think we're getting that traction.

00:07:15.924 --> 00:07:20.056
What we're trying to do is enable
anyone, anywhere in the world for free

00:07:20.056 --> 00:07:24.156
to get one an education but
when we say an education,

00:07:24.156 --> 00:07:27.861
to get an education that really
is a mastery based education.

00:07:27.861 --> 00:07:30.970
One that really ensures that
someone understands the basics

00:07:30.970 --> 00:07:34.006
before they move forward and they
can do it all at their own pace.

00:07:34.006 --> 00:07:35.776
I want to be clear, this is actually ...

00:07:35.776 --> 00:07:38.530
We'll talk more about this in
the second half of the talk.

00:07:38.530 --> 00:07:39.801
This isn't a new idea,

00:07:39.801 --> 00:07:43.803
it's actually nothing that Khan
Academy doing is fundamentally new.

00:07:43.803 --> 00:07:47.411
Doing videos either online
or even on TV or whatever,

00:07:47.411 --> 00:07:50.017
it's not a new idea when the
radio was first invented,

00:07:50.017 --> 00:07:51.382
when TV was first invented,

00:07:51.382 --> 00:07:53.720
people thought it was going
to revolutionize education.

00:07:53.720 --> 00:07:56.555
Put the best teachers, broadcast
them, it never happened.

00:07:56.555 --> 00:07:59.854
Even when the internet kind of came out,

00:07:59.854 --> 00:08:03.265
they thought that was going to be
the killer [happen] for the internet.

00:08:03.265 --> 00:08:05.160
When the PC was first invented,

00:08:05.160 --> 00:08:08.032
they thought this was the first time
we can give people self-pace learning

00:08:08.032 --> 00:08:09.472
but it never got traction.

00:08:09.472 --> 00:08:10.465
In the second half of my talk

00:08:10.465 --> 00:08:13.494
I'd like to think a little bit about
maybe why we're getting a traction.

00:08:13.494 --> 00:08:16.121
It's a super important question
for us as an organization

00:08:16.121 --> 00:08:20.660
because we don't want to lose
whatever that secret sauce might be.

00:08:20.660 --> 00:08:24.085
The other interesting
thing that's happened

00:08:24.085 --> 00:08:27.111
and I talk a lot more about
this in the other TED talk,

00:08:27.111 --> 00:08:30.655
and is actually a big surprise to me,

00:08:30.655 --> 00:08:34.056
is that our software and video start
to get adapted in the classroom.

00:08:34.056 --> 00:08:36.936
I mentioned the previous talk
that it happened early on

00:08:36.936 --> 00:08:38.416
even before we got funding or anything.

00:08:38.416 --> 00:08:40.413
I started getting letters
from teachers who's saying

00:08:40.413 --> 00:08:43.392
that they were using just the
videos to flip the education model.

00:08:43.392 --> 00:08:46.245
They were now assigning
the videos for a lecture,

00:08:46.245 --> 00:08:48.410
they were assigning
the videos for homework

00:08:48.410 --> 00:08:50.243
and instead of doing a
lecture in the classroom,

00:08:50.243 --> 00:08:53.949
they were actually allowing their
students to interact with each other

00:08:53.949 --> 00:08:55.221
in doing problems.

00:08:55.221 --> 00:08:58.750
Just with that simple technology,
just the on demand video

00:08:58.750 --> 00:09:01.586
they were actually able
to kind of personalize

00:09:01.586 --> 00:09:04.942
and make the actual classroom
experience interactive.

00:09:04.942 --> 00:09:09.913
Now with this kind of self-paced
mastery base learning software,

00:09:09.913 --> 00:09:14.036
we were approached by the Los Altos
School District not to far from here,

00:09:14.036 --> 00:09:15.661
"What would you do with a classroom?"

00:09:17.522 --> 00:09:20.217
We said, "Well we would let every
student work at their own pace."

00:09:20.217 --> 00:09:23.319
The teachers role would
be, they have a dashboard,

00:09:23.319 --> 00:09:24.768
they would have all of the data

00:09:24.768 --> 00:09:27.375
and only intervene on the
students that are stuck.

00:09:27.375 --> 00:09:29.493
So you could do a very
focused intervention

00:09:29.493 --> 00:09:31.407
and be armed with the right data to do it.

00:09:31.407 --> 00:09:34.035
Or even better get a student
who's already proficient in that

00:09:34.035 --> 00:09:35.774
to intervene on that student

00:09:35.774 --> 00:09:38.543
and then you get all the benefits
of learning something even deeper

00:09:38.543 --> 00:09:40.827
when you yourself are the teacher.

00:09:40.827 --> 00:09:43.326
They decided to do it.

00:09:43.326 --> 00:09:49.031
In Los Altos we have two fifth grade
classes and two seventh grade classes

00:09:49.031 --> 00:09:51.971
and they're using this
as their core curriculum.

00:09:51.971 --> 00:09:54.946
What I want to emphasize here
and it's not always made clear

00:09:54.946 --> 00:09:57.939
is when I talk about this to
people, a lot of people will say,

00:09:57.939 --> 00:09:59.038
"Oh this awesome."

00:09:59.038 --> 00:10:02.458
Self-pace learning, mastery based,
differentiate in instruction

00:10:02.458 --> 00:10:05.275
but there is a crowd that starts
to get a little suspicious.

00:10:05.275 --> 00:10:10.326
They start saying well, "This sounds
like you're automating things"

00:10:10.326 --> 00:10:12.693
"but it sounds like it's very robotic."

00:10:12.693 --> 00:10:18.323
"It sounds like kids in front of a
computer just doing exercises all day,"

00:10:18.323 --> 00:10:20.882
"listening to videos, not
interacting with each other."

00:10:20.882 --> 00:10:23.236
"It sounds like you're
marginalizing the teacher."

00:10:23.236 --> 00:10:25.308
"It sounds your deskilling the teacher,"

00:10:25.308 --> 00:10:29.859
"that you're making them just
do what the computers can't."

00:10:29.859 --> 00:10:33.193
What I want to emphasize
here is the exact opposite.

00:10:33.193 --> 00:10:35.466
What we're seeing in those
classrooms in Los Altos,

00:10:35.466 --> 00:10:38.879
is we're seeing every
moment of that teachers time

00:10:38.879 --> 00:10:42.776
is spent interacting with
her students, being a mentor.

00:10:42.776 --> 00:10:45.984
These students are getting one on one
with the teacher multiple times a week.

00:10:45.984 --> 00:10:49.228
When I was in school I was lucky
to get that even a few times,

00:10:49.228 --> 00:10:50.860
and even in your whole career.

00:10:50.860 --> 00:10:52.307
Multiple times a week.

00:10:52.307 --> 00:10:56.655
They aren't doing this at the
expense of project based learning

00:10:56.655 --> 00:10:57.592
or investigations.

00:10:57.592 --> 00:11:00.430
What this is allowing the teacher
to do, it liberates the classroom.

00:11:00.430 --> 00:11:03.184
So now that they can do more
of the project based learning,

00:11:03.184 --> 00:11:04.707
they can do more of the investigations.

00:11:04.707 --> 00:11:08.785
These classrooms in Los Altos, there
is more of that creative activity,

00:11:08.785 --> 00:11:13.009
more of this interaction, more of
this experimenting with the world

00:11:13.009 --> 00:11:15.016
than you would see in any other classroom.

00:11:15.016 --> 00:11:16.633
So for the first time because
we have this technology

00:11:16.633 --> 00:11:18.184
it's not an either or proposition.

00:11:18.184 --> 00:11:20.724
You have this kind of camps
of mathematical instruction.

00:11:20.724 --> 00:11:22.989
Do you do kind of the traditional,

00:11:22.989 --> 00:11:27.011
do a lot of problems, lecture and
see a lot of traditional problems?

00:11:27.011 --> 00:11:29.744
Or do you do the project based
learning where you investigate things?

00:11:29.744 --> 00:11:32.099
Our answer is now we can do both.

00:11:32.099 --> 00:11:34.784
Even better, even on the instruction
itself there's these debates

00:11:34.784 --> 00:11:37.559
between old Math and
new Math, how you to it?

00:11:37.559 --> 00:11:40.243
The value when you have on
demand video, you can do both.

00:11:40.243 --> 00:11:43.265
You can actually expose the
students to every possible way

00:11:43.265 --> 00:11:44.882
that there is to learn Mathematics.

00:11:44.882 --> 00:11:48.696
In the same classroom, you have
one kid doing third grade Math

00:11:48.696 --> 00:11:51.228
and you have one kid doing
Algebra, and that's great.

00:11:51.228 --> 00:11:55.183
The student doing the third grade Math
needs to be doing the third grade Math.

00:11:55.183 --> 00:11:57.180
Here she needs to fill out those gaps,

00:11:57.180 --> 00:12:00.763
and the student who's doing the
Algebra should be able to run forward

00:12:00.763 --> 00:12:02.236
and do the Algebra.

00:12:02.236 --> 00:12:04.040
Then some people say, "Oh this is bad."

00:12:04.040 --> 00:12:05.904
"Already the smart kids
have the advantage"

00:12:05.904 --> 00:12:08.262
"and the slow kids they already
have every disadvantage."

00:12:08.262 --> 00:12:10.218
"Now you're making the spread even wider."

00:12:10.218 --> 00:12:12.796
But what they don't realize
is in these same classes

00:12:12.796 --> 00:12:16.598
it's becoming impossible to
figure out over a longer term

00:12:16.598 --> 00:12:19.096
who those smart kids are
and who the slower kids are.

00:12:19.096 --> 00:12:21.992
Because even though one kid is working
on third grade Math for a little while,

00:12:21.992 --> 00:12:25.429
once he or she has getting those [cuts]
and we see it over and over again,

00:12:25.429 --> 00:12:26.971
they're able to race ahead.

00:12:26.971 --> 00:12:29.741
Then three weeks later they passed
up the kid who is in Algebra.

00:12:29.741 --> 00:12:33.012
All of this kind of
labels start to disappear.

00:12:33.012 --> 00:12:40.749
The other thing that we're kind of
thinking about as we grow our organization

00:12:40.749 --> 00:12:44.541
and we really want to make sure we have
a good hold on it is why is it working,

00:12:44.541 --> 00:12:45.817
why is it resonating?

00:12:45.817 --> 00:12:50.209
These ideas heave existed forever on
demand videos, self-paced learning.

00:12:52.454 --> 00:12:55.742
The real data points we've been getting
obviously we've had the user growth,

00:12:55.742 --> 00:12:58.178
we've had the traction,
Bill Gates uses it.

00:12:58.178 --> 00:13:02.416
(audience laughing)

00:13:02.416 --> 00:13:07.960
For me personally the real data points
has just been the user testimonies,

00:13:07.960 --> 00:13:08.997
the letters that we get

00:13:08.997 --> 00:13:11.594
and actually the first feedback just
turned into a little bit of a one liner

00:13:11.594 --> 00:13:13.336
was for my cousins ...

00:13:13.336 --> 00:13:17.039
Their very first feedback when I
put 20 or 30 videos up for them,

00:13:17.039 --> 00:13:20.164
they said that they preferred
me on YouTube than in person.

00:13:20.164 --> 00:13:23.404
(audience laughing)

00:13:24.373 --> 00:13:28.061
We just keep getting them and I
think there's a common theme here

00:13:28.061 --> 00:13:29.895
and I'll just read a couple real quick.

00:13:29.895 --> 00:13:32.844
There's one, "My eldest kid is
dancing around in my room here"

00:13:32.844 --> 00:13:34.783
"because she is so excited
that she finally found someone"

00:13:34.783 --> 00:13:36.401
"that teaches like this."

00:13:36.401 --> 00:13:41.021
I feel uncomfortable, I don't like doing
the self praise, I mean I don't ...

00:13:41.021 --> 00:13:47.160
But what's cool here is that
this girl she wasn't just happy.

00:13:47.160 --> 00:13:48.778
When she learned something,

00:13:48.778 --> 00:13:50.640
when she was actually able
to connect with the material

00:13:50.640 --> 00:13:52.356
it wasn't like "Oh I'm
going to nail the exam."

00:13:52.356 --> 00:13:55.597
She felt the visceral desire to dance.

00:13:55.597 --> 00:13:58.303
(audience laughing)

00:13:58.303 --> 00:14:05.973
(applauding)

00:14:05.973 --> 00:14:07.971
There's all sorts of ... this is a letter

00:14:07.971 --> 00:14:11.504
and this takes me back to my college
days when I didn't have a girlfriend.

00:14:11.504 --> 00:14:15.119
I don't know if these boys at
Bellarmine can relate to this comment.

00:14:15.119 --> 00:14:16.969
(audience laughing)

00:14:16.969 --> 00:14:19.097
This is a comment from a college student,

00:14:19.097 --> 00:14:21.886
"There's always so much else that
a student has on their mind."

00:14:21.886 --> 00:14:23.799
"What is a pretty girl
looking like today?"

00:14:23.799 --> 00:14:26.079
"What was the professor like
when they were a student?"

00:14:26.079 --> 00:14:28.121
"Should I talk to the
pretty girl after class?"

00:14:28.121 --> 00:14:31.251
"Will I include last weekends
event in a book about my life?"

00:14:31.251 --> 00:14:33.361
"That the slightest drifting of focus"

00:14:33.361 --> 00:14:36.497
"quickly turns into a fruitless two
hours spent daydreaming or unconscious."

00:14:36.497 --> 00:14:38.983
"Please continue what you are doing."

00:14:38.983 --> 00:14:41.309
(audience laughing)

00:14:41.309 --> 00:14:45.099
(applauding)

00:14:45.099 --> 00:14:47.974
It was actually a much longer
letter that I had to reduct,

00:14:47.974 --> 00:14:50.466
it wasn't appropriate for this audience.

00:14:50.466 --> 00:14:52.269
(audience laughing)

00:14:52.269 --> 00:14:56.519
This is what I got two days ago,
"I've taken Calculus 1 three times."

00:14:56.519 --> 00:14:58.072
"The first time I didn't pass the class,"

00:14:58.072 --> 00:14:59.630
"the second time I had to drop the class."

00:14:59.630 --> 00:15:02.268
"My girlfriend's mom
told me about the site,"

00:15:02.268 --> 00:15:04.211
"she heard about it in a
conference, I checked it out."

00:15:04.211 --> 00:15:07.013
"I began supplementing, proceeding and
sometimes even replacing my lectures"

00:15:07.013 --> 00:15:10.507
"with your videos and I received
an 84% on my first midterm."

00:15:10.507 --> 00:15:12.250
This is the third time he's taking it.

00:15:12.250 --> 00:15:14.590
"I almost cried, I was so happy."

00:15:14.590 --> 00:15:18.667
When I first try, it's 84 that's
a good score, why's he crying?

00:15:18.667 --> 00:15:22.779
"Especially because the
class average was a 47%."

00:15:22.779 --> 00:15:30.370
(applauding)

00:15:30.370 --> 00:15:31.796
"Now the second midterm is coming up,"

00:15:31.796 --> 00:15:34.551
"I feel confident enough to say that I
will most likely get an A in the class."

00:15:34.551 --> 00:15:36.631
"Since my major depends
on me passing the class,"

00:15:36.631 --> 00:15:39.165
"I want to thank you for helping
me save my college career."

00:15:40.334 --> 00:15:44.553
It's pretty a mind blowing stuff

00:15:44.553 --> 00:15:48.598
and I think you can imagine why I quit
my day job as a hedge fund manager.

00:15:48.598 --> 00:15:51.258
Wasn't quite as much psychic reward.

00:15:51.258 --> 00:15:57.322
(applauding)

00:15:57.322 --> 00:15:59.639
I think the take away here is that ...

00:15:59.639 --> 00:16:02.885
and this is the learning that we never
want to forget as an organization

00:16:02.885 --> 00:16:07.821
is that, people come to the Khan
Academy wanting to just fill in the gap.

00:16:07.821 --> 00:16:09.552
They have an exam, they
want to pass an exam,

00:16:09.552 --> 00:16:12.210
but once they actually experience
what it's like to learn,

00:16:12.210 --> 00:16:13.603
it doesn't matter who they are.

00:16:13.603 --> 00:16:15.343
It could be the student
who's about to drop out.

00:16:15.343 --> 00:16:17.807
Once they actually experience
it for the first time in life

00:16:17.807 --> 00:16:19.144
they get addicted.

00:16:19.144 --> 00:16:24.230
It's a natural high, it's something that
we innately, all humans want to have.

00:16:24.230 --> 00:16:26.305
That's something as an organization,
we don't want to ever forget.

00:16:26.305 --> 00:16:28.845
That if we can form these
human bonds using technology,

00:16:28.845 --> 00:16:31.249
that's what's actually going
to allow us to succeed.

00:16:31.249 --> 00:16:35.026
I want to leave you with
one quick little story

00:16:35.026 --> 00:16:39.393
from one of the Los Altos classrooms last
week that kind of hits the point home.

00:16:39.393 --> 00:16:42.091
There was a reporter
from NBC doing a story

00:16:42.091 --> 00:16:44.595
on what we're doing in that classroom.

00:16:44.595 --> 00:16:48.546
And there's a little fifth grader
and she's doing trigonometry

00:16:48.546 --> 00:16:50.973
and actually all of the
boys are very envious of her

00:16:50.973 --> 00:16:53.345
because she has the most badges and
points and all of that other things.

00:16:53.345 --> 00:16:56.228
The reporter sits down
next to her and says,

00:16:56.228 --> 00:16:58.724
"Do you think this is fifth grade Math?"

00:16:58.724 --> 00:17:01.880
Then the little girl has a mischievous
smile and she looks at the reporter

00:17:01.880 --> 00:17:04.575
and she goes, "No, I
think it's sixth grade."

00:17:04.575 --> 00:17:06.596
(audience laughing)

00:17:06.596 --> 00:17:07.462
Thank you.

00:17:07.462 --> 00:17:15.210
(applauding)