Salman Khan Interview with Mixergy.com

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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Voiceover: Before we get started,

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I've got to tell you
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PicClick gives you a
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Etsy, and other sites.

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Ryan is already doing 1
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on PicClick.com.

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Not hits, but sales.

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99designs, it's the largest
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for graphic design.

00:00:31.134 --> 00:00:33.068
When I used them, I wrote a description

00:00:33.068 --> 00:00:35.492
of the design I needed, and
how much I wanted to pay.

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I got a bunch of designs back.

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I gave each designer feedback.

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I picked the one I liked best,

00:00:41.274 --> 00:00:43.237
and that's the only one that I paid for.

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Try them for logo design.

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Check out 99designs, and you'll see

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why so many past mixergy
guests have used 99designs.com

00:00:59.223 --> 00:01:00.486
And Grasshopper.

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I've had them now as my
longest sponsor for a reason.

00:01:03.504 --> 00:01:05.820
Not only does my audience love them,

00:01:05.820 --> 00:01:07.913
but you might have heard
several guests here, on Mixergy,

00:01:07.913 --> 00:01:09.920
say that they use Grasshopper.com

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as a result of these messages,

00:01:11.421 --> 00:01:13.336
and they love it.

00:01:13.336 --> 00:01:16.587
It's the virtual phone system
that entrepreneurs like me love

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because it offers us multiple extensions,

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music on hold, call forwarding.

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It gives you an impression
of having a big,

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professional organization,

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but also caters to your need
to travel and to be flexible.

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Check out Grasshopper.com.

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Here's the program.

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Andrew: Hey, everyone. It's Andrew Warner,

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founder of Mixergy.com, home
of the ambitious upstart.

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I've got with me today Salman Khan.

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He is the founder of,
well, an online school

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that's launched and run
largely through YouTube.

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Do I have that right?

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Sal: Yeah.

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Well, it's known mainly
for the video library

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on YouTube right now.

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There's 1,500 videos.

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It is being used,

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it's had over 16 million views,
200,000 unique users a month.

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It is definitely the most used
education platform on YouTube,

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and as far as I can tell,

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looking at the other
open course intiatives,

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the most used library
on the web right now.

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Andrew: I went through
the courses in preparation

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for this interview, and I saw
that you teach math, basic math.

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You say you start out
teaching 1 plus 1 equals 2.

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I got so into a history course,
that I almost stopped working,

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and I said, "Andrew, you can't do this."

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So you know what I did?

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I used this program called Zamzar,

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that's gonna rip your course.

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It's gonna put it on my iPhone.

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I'm going over to an
estancia here this weekend.

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On the ride over, I'm gonna be
watching you teach me history.

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It was that freakin' fascinating.

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Salman: Oh, cool. I'm glad.

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That's actually really good feedback

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because I get a lot of,

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there's a lot of
interesting discussion about

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how credentialed someone should
be to teach a certain subject,

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and most of my credentials
are in computer science

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and in finance and math,

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I did the history. I love history,

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but I did that one, to kind
of push the boundaries,

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to show that you don't have
to necessarily have a PhD,

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you just have to have a
passion for the subject,

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so I'm glad to hear that.

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You hopefully won't have to rip it soon.

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It'll be on iTunes by
the end of the summer.

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It'll be on iTunes U, the
entire Khan Academy library.

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Andrew: I'm gonna come back to that point

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that you said you don't
have to have a PhD.

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I want to ask you about
what qualifies you to teach

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all these subjects,

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because you're teaching
more and more of them.

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You've got a course on how IPOs work,

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on how to raise money
for a startup, all that.

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But let me start off asking you a question

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that I ask a lot of my other guests here.

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How much money does the Khan Academy make?

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Salman: Well, that answer could be,

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it could be answered on a
bunch of different levels.

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It is a not-for-profit.

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That's a decision we can talk about

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because there was kind
of a thought process.

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I was being approached by some people

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in the venture capital and
the entrepreneurial world

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about starting it as kind of
either a social for-profit venture

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or a pure for-profit venture
or a little bit of both.

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But it is a pure not-for-profit.

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There's a little bit of
advertising that comes in

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and goes to the not-for-profit,

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and we're being very delicate
about the advertising,

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not too agressive there.

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When I quit my job as a hedge
fund analyst in September,

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I was making nothing, so I was
essentially living off of savings,

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and very recently-

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Andrew: Sorry, the video just
cut out right after you explained

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that you quit your job
as a hedge fund analyst.

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Can you pick it up from there?

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Salman: Oh, yeah.

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So, after I quit, I was
living off of savings

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until about, I would
say, about a month ago,

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where we've gotten some
fairly significant donations,

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so now I can at least
take a salary to do this.

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Not a hedge fund salary, but a salary.

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(both laugh)

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Andrew: The donations
are coming from people

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who are hitting that donate
button on top of your website?

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Salman: Well, you know,
there's a ton of people

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who are hitting that little
PayPal donation, you know,

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and that's anywhere from,

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I've gotten donations as
little as 50 cents all the way,

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but there's a lot of people
who just donate unsolicited,

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100, 200, 300, 500.

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I've even gotten a couple
that were 2-3 thousand

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just from that PayPal donation button.

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But more recently, we've gotten
some pretty significant checks

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from people out here in
the Valley that, you know,

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get us to the point that I
have a runway to have a salary

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for at least several years.

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Obviously, there'll be other
opportunities to backfill from there.

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Andrew: What kind of people?

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Salman: A couple of them are
venture capitalists in this area.

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One gentleman, he's a,

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actually, he's not in the Valley.

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He's in Europe.

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He's a pretty prominant
businessman in Europe.

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There's another,

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I mean, a lot of the people
are people in the tech space.

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You know, they're not doing it
as an investment, obviously.

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It's a not-for-profit, but I
think they're excited about

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the potential here, the
potential for kind of disrupting.

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I think the feedback I
get from a lot of them is,

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look, a lot of people are doing this,

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a lot of people have talked
about doing this type of thing.

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It's kind of an obvious idea to
take videos from good instructors,

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put them on the web,

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and eventually do some
analytics around it,

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do some self-paced learning,

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and everything's gonna be great,

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but no one's really done it.

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The best to date outside of Khan Academy

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is the open courseware
efforts at MIT and Stanford

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and all of that.

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That's essentially been
just videos and classrooms.

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Andrew: Boring.

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Can I say that?

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Salman: You can say it.

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I feel the ...

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I'm a huge consumer of
their open courseware,

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but you have to be really motivated

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and sit through a lot of things

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that you don't necessarily
want to pay attention to

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to get to what you want.

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Sometimes it's delivered
well, sometimes it's not.

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It's kind of inconsistent quality,

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and there's all sorts of
other things that occur

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when you have a video
camera in a classroom

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that make it a little bit weird.

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I think they appreciate the fact

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that Khan Academy is 99%
execution and 1% talk.

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Andrew: Let me ask you this, then.

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I got your resume here.

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I actually went to the way-back machine

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to see what you were up
to before you did this,

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to see who you were,

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and you had your resume up.

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I'm looking at it. Pretty
frickin' impressive.

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In addition to 3 degrees from MIT,

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which a lot of us have seen
in news stories about you,

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and the one from Harvard.

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You worked at Oracle. You
worked a venture capital firm.

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You worked for,

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you were on a path to be

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one of these rich people
of Silicon Valley.

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You're not gonna be that now, right?

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Not through this.

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Salman: Yeah, unless they make a movie

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about the Khan Academy, I won't.

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Yeah, you know, it's funny.

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When I was working at a hedge fund,

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the six years after business school,

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I was a senior analyst at a hedge fund,

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and it was doing well, and
then my manager retired.

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He encouraged me to start my own fund,

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so I was on that track to kind
of be a hedge fund manager

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and all of that, but the whole
time, I kind of rationalized

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that the only reason why I'm doing this

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is because I want to
one day start a school.

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In my mind, I didn't
want to start a school,

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write grants and go to the
department of education

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and get a charter and all of that.

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I felt it would constrain me too much.

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I was like, no, I just
want to become really rich

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and just do it on my own terms.

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That was my rationalization

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for just trying to generate
alpha day and night.

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But, as the Khan Academy story goes,

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I kind of got an outlet
for some of my ideas

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with my cousins, tutoring them virtually,

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and then the YouTube thing took off.

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I wrote a little software app.

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A lot of people are using that

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and a lot of the vision
started to become concrete

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a lot sooner than I'd expected it to,

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and then it was just kind of
a little bit of introspection,

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realizing that I got a lot
more satisfaction out of,

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the hedge fund job, it is a great job,

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even irrespective of how much they

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may or may not compensate you,

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but this was just 10 times more fun.

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Just the impact, everything
I did on a daily basis,

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it kind of added to this library
that could be around forever.

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My son who's 15 months old right now

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could use it when he's
18 or 30 or whenever.

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That idea got really exciting,

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and just when you think about it,

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and you see people in
the Valley like this.

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I think Silicon Valley
is an interesting place,

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because you do see this.

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It really isn't about money.

00:09:00.397 --> 00:09:01.548
I think so many people,

00:09:02.362 --> 00:09:04.213
they view the money as points,

00:09:04.213 --> 00:09:05.535
and they view it as kind of a

00:09:05.535 --> 00:09:08.929
how important was my
contribution to the world,

00:09:08.929 --> 00:09:10.881
and I think with Khan Academy,

00:09:10.881 --> 00:09:14.547
I get to do that without having
to play the whole, you know,

00:09:15.577 --> 00:09:17.102
venture-backed startup game,

00:09:17.102 --> 00:09:19.588
and what's interesting
about Khan Academy is

00:09:19.588 --> 00:09:21.764
even though it's not
gonna make me any money,

00:09:21.764 --> 00:09:24.360
and I'm not gonna be able to
buy a nice house in Atherton

00:09:24.360 --> 00:09:26.156
and all of that type of thing,

00:09:26.156 --> 00:09:28.740
in terms of just impact,
it is already, kind of,

00:09:28.740 --> 00:09:32.142
it's getting more
notoreity than many already

00:09:32.142 --> 00:09:33.802
fairly successful startups.

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If I had entered the startup world

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and I had an exit for 10
or 20 million dollars,

00:09:36.719 --> 00:09:38.757
that's a huge win, but
those type of things are

00:09:38.757 --> 00:09:40.302
a dime a dozen out of the Valley,

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and the Khan Academy,

00:09:41.389 --> 00:09:42.591
it's not like I'm, that's my,

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the Khan Academy, I already
feel has more impact

00:09:44.689 --> 00:09:50.289
than a lot of these, so
from that point of view,

00:09:50.289 --> 00:09:54.242
it was just way more impact, way more fun.

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Every day, the things
that I was contributing,

00:09:56.321 --> 00:09:59.079
I felt it was contributing
to kind of a lasting legacy,

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and just the letters you get from people.

00:10:02.911 --> 00:10:04.197
This was also another realization.

00:10:04.197 --> 00:10:07.139
When you work at a firm,
kind of the best thing

00:10:07.139 --> 00:10:08.561
that could happen to you is
kind of a pat on the back

00:10:08.561 --> 00:10:10.724
from the boss, or a nice bonus,

00:10:10.724 --> 00:10:15.081
but in this, I'm getting
letters, like 20 or 30 a day.

00:10:15.081 --> 00:10:16.932
These letters, some of
them are just thank you,

00:10:16.932 --> 00:10:19.711
but some of them are like,
"I was gonna fail algebra

00:10:19.711 --> 00:10:21.659
"until I started using these videos,"

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or, "Now I want to be an engineer,

00:10:23.533 --> 00:10:25.146
"and I thought I was bad
at math my whole life."

00:10:25.146 --> 00:10:27.308
When you get stuff like that,
it really makes you say,

00:10:27.308 --> 00:10:29.942
"Hey, this is what I want to do."

00:10:29.942 --> 00:10:30.440
Andrew: How about this?

00:10:30.440 --> 00:10:31.978
I saw one letter on your website.

00:10:31.978 --> 00:10:34.587
Someone said that, I
don't know where she was

00:10:34.587 --> 00:10:37.298
or where he was, but the letter went,

00:10:37.298 --> 00:10:41.193
"Where I live, black kids don't
really have access to schools,

00:10:41.193 --> 00:10:44.147
and my mother moved me so
I have more opportunities,

00:10:44.147 --> 00:10:46.789
and my teachers weren't doing it for me,

00:10:46.789 --> 00:10:48.212
and then I discovered your videos."

00:10:48.212 --> 00:10:51.388
Essentially, that was the
story, and things changed.

00:10:51.388 --> 00:10:52.224
Salman: Yeah, no, and that letter,

00:10:52.224 --> 00:10:53.269
I actually put on my website.

00:10:53.269 --> 00:10:55.721
I view that as the
letter that on some level

00:10:55.721 --> 00:10:57.727
convinced me to really quit my job.

00:10:57.727 --> 00:11:01.000
I mean, there were multiple
other moments over the last,

00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:03.074
I would say over the last 3 years,

00:11:03.074 --> 00:11:05.961
where Khan Academy, I got a
letter or something like that.

00:11:05.961 --> 00:11:08.492
I said, "Oh, you know, maybe
I'll do this full time,

00:11:08.492 --> 00:11:10.704
"or take time off from
the hedge fund world,"

00:11:10.704 --> 00:11:12.430
and then I would look
at my finances and say,

00:11:12.430 --> 00:11:14.396
"No, no. Maybe I'll do the hedge
fund world a little longer,"

00:11:14.396 --> 00:11:17.984
but then I got that letter in
August, late August of '09,

00:11:17.984 --> 00:11:19.903
and I got that letter
in the same week that

00:11:19.903 --> 00:11:22.699
Khan Academy had gotten some
notoriety from the Tech Museum

00:11:22.699 --> 00:11:25.324
and the Microsoft Tech Award, and
it was getting a little press,

00:11:25.324 --> 00:11:27.847
and I just kind of viewed
it as a confluence of events

00:11:27.847 --> 00:11:30.228
that were telling me that
I should be doing this,

00:11:30.228 --> 00:11:32.173
but that letter, especially.

00:11:32.173 --> 00:11:34.821
I still think to date, that's
probably one of the top,

00:11:34.821 --> 00:11:36.834
definitely the top 5
letters that I've gotten.

00:11:36.834 --> 00:11:39.175
I mean, you know, it's
on the level of this,

00:11:39.175 --> 00:11:41.799
without me really doing anything
incremental for that person,

00:11:41.799 --> 00:11:43.555
they just consumed these
videos over a summer.

00:11:43.555 --> 00:11:45.781
It really changed their life.

00:11:45.781 --> 00:11:48.160
Andrew: By the way, people
in the chat room are just,

00:11:48.160 --> 00:11:48.864
they're so inspired.

00:11:48.864 --> 00:11:51.171
I see Dan Blank saying, "This
guy is really inspiring.

00:11:51.171 --> 00:11:52.956
"We're only 10 minutes into the interview,

00:11:52.956 --> 00:11:54.766
"and he's already inspired," he says.

00:11:54.766 --> 00:11:57.761
"Such strong integrity,"
from Joseph Jacks.

00:11:59.298 --> 00:12:00.778
Everybody here, they're just loving it.

00:12:00.778 --> 00:12:04.897
"Holy crap," from Joseph Jacks
about your 3 MIT degrees.

00:12:04.897 --> 00:12:06.108
So you're blowing us away.

00:12:06.108 --> 00:12:06.606
Let's do this-

00:12:06.606 --> 00:12:09.025
Salman: Well, you know,
I'll add this as another

00:12:09.025 --> 00:12:12.115
kind of thing about making
it non-profit, here,

00:12:12.115 --> 00:12:14.723
is that the good will
that comes out from this

00:12:14.723 --> 00:12:18.388
is just orders a magnitude
greater than anything.

00:12:18.388 --> 00:12:20.445
I mean, I'm convinced if
I did it as a for-profit,

00:12:20.445 --> 00:12:22.359
it wouldn't have had the
same level of good will.

00:12:22.359 --> 00:12:23.660
There's a lot more there,

00:12:23.660 --> 00:12:24.843
we could talk more about that in general,

00:12:24.843 --> 00:12:27.180
but I think people respond well to it,

00:12:27.180 --> 00:12:28.583
and so people are coming
out of the woodwork

00:12:28.583 --> 00:12:30.055
to really help as well.

00:12:30.055 --> 00:12:31.375
Andrew: So, here's what I'd like to do.

00:12:31.375 --> 00:12:33.884
I'd like to ask you about
your vision long term

00:12:33.884 --> 00:12:36.111
so I could continue to be inspired

00:12:36.111 --> 00:12:37.381
and inspire my audience.

00:12:37.381 --> 00:12:39.985
I want to find out how you got here,

00:12:39.985 --> 00:12:42.246
and then I want to ask you,
how do you do it so well?

00:12:42.246 --> 00:12:44.548
Because you're able to take subjects

00:12:44.548 --> 00:12:46.456
that you didn't spend
your whole life learning,

00:12:46.456 --> 00:12:48.867
but somehow, you make it
seem like they're a part of

00:12:48.867 --> 00:12:50.791
who you are, and then you explain them

00:12:50.791 --> 00:12:52.117
in an easy-to-understand way.

00:12:52.117 --> 00:12:53.566
I want to learn how you do that.

00:12:53.566 --> 00:12:55.899
Let's start off with the big vision,

00:12:55.899 --> 00:12:57.125
so we know where you're going with this.

00:12:57.125 --> 00:13:00.289
What do you envision in the
future coming out of this?

00:13:00.289 --> 00:13:01.561
Salman: Yeah. Well, you know,

00:13:01.561 --> 00:13:02.501
people know about the videos.

00:13:02.501 --> 00:13:04.275
I'm gonna keep making videos.

00:13:06.105 --> 00:13:08.212
That's probably the
highest return on my time.

00:13:08.212 --> 00:13:11.461
I was talking to a foundation yesterday,

00:13:11.461 --> 00:13:12.692
and they were like, "Where do you envision

00:13:12.692 --> 00:13:13.661
"yourself in 5 years?"

00:13:13.661 --> 00:13:14.963
I spend at least 60% of my time,

00:13:14.963 --> 00:13:15.695
still going to make videos.

00:13:15.695 --> 00:13:17.052
There's an infinite amount of knowledge,

00:13:17.052 --> 00:13:18.693
and as you know, I teach things

00:13:18.693 --> 00:13:20.770
that are not necessarily
in my core expertise,

00:13:20.770 --> 00:13:24.530
but I make the part of my core
expertise so I can teach them.

00:13:24.530 --> 00:13:26.057
Beyond just the video library,

00:13:26.057 --> 00:13:28.930
I see it becoming a free virtual school,

00:13:28.930 --> 00:13:32.159
and what I think that entails is

00:13:32.159 --> 00:13:33.789
you have a video library,

00:13:33.789 --> 00:13:37.533
you have self-paced adaptive
exercises you don't,

00:13:37.533 --> 00:13:38.900
call them adaptive if you'd like.

00:13:38.900 --> 00:13:39.662
That's already built.

00:13:39.662 --> 00:13:41.338
Actually, I started building that before

00:13:41.338 --> 00:13:43.107
I started working on the videos.

00:13:43.107 --> 00:13:44.879
The videos are actually a
complement to the software piece,

00:13:44.879 --> 00:13:45.797
and people can log in.

00:13:45.797 --> 00:13:48.549
It's at khanexercises.appspot.com,

00:13:48.549 --> 00:13:49.465
and it's all free.

00:13:49.465 --> 00:13:50.274
You just need a Google account.

00:13:50.274 --> 00:13:51.784
It's on an app engine.

00:13:52.599 --> 00:13:53.993
People started coming out of the woodwork,

00:13:53.993 --> 00:13:54.871
started working on that,

00:13:54.871 --> 00:13:56.876
so it's an open source
project on top of that,

00:13:56.877 --> 00:14:00.760
so not only will Khan
Academy be a virtual school,

00:14:00.760 --> 00:14:02.789
but that code can then
be used for anyone else

00:14:02.789 --> 00:14:05.505
if they want to make their own
island of education if they want.

00:14:05.505 --> 00:14:06.953
But the idea is you have the videos,

00:14:06.953 --> 00:14:10.345
you have exercises that start
you at 1 plus 1 equals 2.

00:14:10.345 --> 00:14:11.562
They'll work you all the way up,

00:14:11.562 --> 00:14:12.756
and they're dynamically generated.

00:14:12.756 --> 00:14:13.787
They'll work you all the way up.

00:14:13.787 --> 00:14:15.084
Right now, they go through about algebra.

00:14:15.084 --> 00:14:16.756
The videos go well beyond that,

00:14:16.756 --> 00:14:18.486
but the exercise I want
them to go through calculus

00:14:18.486 --> 00:14:21.796
and chemistry, and
those keep building out.

00:14:21.796 --> 00:14:23.176
We collect data on everything.

00:14:23.176 --> 00:14:24.341
we know what videos you've watched,

00:14:24.341 --> 00:14:25.388
when you've watched the videos,

00:14:25.388 --> 00:14:27.750
what exercises you've watched.

00:14:27.750 --> 00:14:31.000
We'll do heuristics on when you're stuck,

00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:33.468
and then what I think would
kind of complete the picture

00:14:33.468 --> 00:14:34.900
of a virtual school is,

00:14:35.500 --> 00:14:38.127
leverage the community to do
actual peer-to-peer instruction,

00:14:38.127 --> 00:14:41.060
so if I know that Andrew is having trouble

00:14:41.060 --> 00:14:42.372
with negative exponents

00:14:42.372 --> 00:14:45.939
and Sal who lives in Mountain
View knows negative exponents,

00:14:45.939 --> 00:14:47.629
and I know both of your schedules,

00:14:47.629 --> 00:14:49.944
i'll set up a peer-to-peer interaction,

00:14:49.944 --> 00:14:51.617
and then you and I will have
a session not too different

00:14:51.617 --> 00:14:54.136
than I was having with
my cousins 4 years ago,

00:14:54.136 --> 00:14:55.324
and then we'll also record it,

00:14:55.324 --> 00:14:57.033
so it also becomes part of this library

00:14:57.033 --> 00:14:58.658
that we can collect all
of this data around.

00:14:58.658 --> 00:14:59.933
Was that a good interaction?

00:14:59.933 --> 00:15:01.656
I'll rate you, you'll rate me,

00:15:01.656 --> 00:15:03.615
and then we could also see if there are

00:15:03.615 --> 00:15:07.113
statistically-significant
outcomes on your performance.

00:15:07.113 --> 00:15:10.423
I think there's a lot to be
said in the for-profit world,

00:15:10.423 --> 00:15:13.375
there's a lot of people
doing video libraries,

00:15:13.375 --> 00:15:14.840
and they're doing different
ways to collect data on it

00:15:14.840 --> 00:15:16.614
and have the best videos,

00:15:16.614 --> 00:15:18.322
and then there are other
people who are doing exercises,

00:15:18.322 --> 00:15:20.009
and there are other people
who are starting to explore

00:15:20.009 --> 00:15:21.566
the peer-to-peer learning,

00:15:21.566 --> 00:15:23.483
but I'm pretty convinced
in order to do it properly,

00:15:23.483 --> 00:15:27.584
you want to have all of them
together in the same place.

00:15:27.584 --> 00:15:31.282
Andrew: Okay, so we got the videos today.

00:15:31.282 --> 00:15:33.155
You talked about what you
have up on app engine.

00:15:33.155 --> 00:15:34.625
I played with that game for a little bit.

00:15:34.625 --> 00:15:37.163
It's interesting. You get to
learn and then you go into

00:15:39.363 --> 00:15:42.196
a place where you take quizzes
based on what you've learned,

00:15:42.196 --> 00:15:46.326
so to use the example that I played with,

00:15:46.326 --> 00:15:48.788
it was what's 9 plus 5,

00:15:48.788 --> 00:15:49.983
and if I didn't know the answer,

00:15:49.983 --> 00:15:51.486
I could press the button to see a hint,

00:15:51.486 --> 00:15:53.789
and the hint you showed
me balls underneath 9,

00:15:53.789 --> 00:15:55.580
and then if I still
didn't know the answer,

00:15:55.580 --> 00:15:56.792
I would hit the hint again,

00:15:56.792 --> 00:15:58.688
and I would see 5 balls under 5,

00:15:58.688 --> 00:15:59.883
and then I could answer it,

00:15:59.883 --> 00:16:01.419
and then you keep track of it,

00:16:01.419 --> 00:16:02.414
and so you got that today,

00:16:02.414 --> 00:16:02.978
and then in the future,

00:16:02.978 --> 00:16:03.954
you're gonna add peer to peer,

00:16:03.954 --> 00:16:05.176
and then you mention that
there are other people

00:16:05.176 --> 00:16:06.629
who are already doing this.

00:16:06.629 --> 00:16:08.659
What about people like Cramster,

00:16:08.659 --> 00:16:11.798
who's doing this already or, who else?

00:16:11.798 --> 00:16:12.698
Who did I interview here?

00:16:12.698 --> 00:16:13.664
I interviewed the founder of

00:16:13.664 --> 00:16:15.729
University of the People, Shai.

00:16:15.729 --> 00:16:17.256
He wants to create an online university.

00:16:17.256 --> 00:16:19.916
How does this fit in with
what's already out there?

00:16:19.916 --> 00:16:23.150
You know, I think a
lot of the focus so far

00:16:23.150 --> 00:16:25.981
has been on platform, and I'm not 100%.

00:16:26.873 --> 00:16:29.573
I'm somewhat familiar with both
of those 2 efforts you've had,

00:16:29.573 --> 00:16:33.249
and I think in order to make
these work, platform matters,

00:16:33.249 --> 00:16:35.981
but the platform really has to
have a core of really good content,

00:16:35.981 --> 00:16:39.124
and that's what's going to
make people use the platform,

00:16:39.124 --> 00:16:42.420
and I think right now
the value proposition,

00:16:42.420 --> 00:16:43.484
and I think the reason why Khan Academy

00:16:43.484 --> 00:16:46.002
has a lot of traction is
because it has, you know,

00:16:46.002 --> 00:16:47.192
when people say, "What is Khan Academy?"

00:16:47.192 --> 00:16:50.494
It's 95% content and 5% platform,

00:16:50.510 --> 00:16:51.978
but I think that's what
gives us the ability

00:16:51.978 --> 00:16:54.229
to eventually turn it into 95% platform,

00:16:54.229 --> 00:16:56.486
maybe 50-50, 50% platform,

00:16:56.486 --> 00:16:58.815
so I don't know what
these other efforts are,

00:16:58.815 --> 00:17:03.346
but I have, I've even advised
a few startups in the Valley

00:17:03.346 --> 00:17:04.660
about education and that,

00:17:04.660 --> 00:17:07.240
without trying to be too blunt about it,

00:17:07.240 --> 00:17:09.428
I think a lot of thier
problem is that, you know,

00:17:09.428 --> 00:17:10.534
there are a couple of MBAs,

00:17:10.534 --> 00:17:11.805
they have this big-picture idea,

00:17:11.805 --> 00:17:14.577
which is not an incorrect idea,

00:17:14.577 --> 00:17:19.687
but I think they downplay the
value of good instruction,

00:17:19.687 --> 00:17:21.420
or they downplay the value
of really good content,

00:17:21.420 --> 00:17:24.588
which I think is super
important in education.

00:17:24.588 --> 00:17:26.041
Andrew: All right. Let's go
back to how you started this.

00:17:26.041 --> 00:17:29.719
I feel like everyone
probably knows it already,

00:17:29.719 --> 00:17:30.939
but they can't possibly.

00:17:30.939 --> 00:17:32.053
Can you tell people?

00:17:32.053 --> 00:17:36.154
The reason I feel that is
because lately in our space,

00:17:36.154 --> 00:17:38.346
in the entrepreneurial space,
people keep talking about you.

00:17:38.346 --> 00:17:39.769
I saw you on Hacker News.

00:17:39.769 --> 00:17:43.550
I saw your story on Jason Fried's site.

00:17:43.550 --> 00:17:44.946
Of course, a lot of us are NPR nerds.

00:17:44.946 --> 00:17:46.241
We heard your story there.

00:17:46.241 --> 00:17:47.811
For anyone who didn't hear how it started,

00:17:47.811 --> 00:17:49.220
can you tell them?

00:17:49.220 --> 00:17:51.251
Salman: Yeah, I was ...

00:17:51.251 --> 00:17:52.588
Well, it depends how early you want to go.

00:17:52.588 --> 00:17:55.251
If you go back to college, I
always did have this vision

00:17:55.251 --> 00:17:57.042
of kind of creating a holy grail of

00:17:57.042 --> 00:17:59.442
at the time, I thought it
would be a software-based

00:17:59.442 --> 00:18:00.944
education platform,

00:18:00.944 --> 00:18:02.266
but then obviously, my education got,

00:18:02.266 --> 00:18:04.610
my career got derailed, I
ended up at a hedge fund,

00:18:04.610 --> 00:18:10.074
we're in 2004 now, my
cousin and uncle and aunt

00:18:10.074 --> 00:18:12.465
were visiting me from New Orleans.

00:18:12.465 --> 00:18:14.430
My cousin Nadia was having trouble,

00:18:14.430 --> 00:18:16.014
well, it just came up in conversation

00:18:16.014 --> 00:18:19.068
that she was not placed into
pre-algebra for 7th grade,

00:18:19.068 --> 00:18:21.101
and then I kind of said,
"Hey, that's a big deal.

00:18:21.101 --> 00:18:22.111
"You don't realize it.

00:18:22.111 --> 00:18:23.472
"It seems like a harmless
thing in middle school,

00:18:23.472 --> 00:18:25.088
"but then she's not gonna
take algebra in 8th grade.

00:18:25.088 --> 00:18:26.861
"She's not gonna take
calculus when she's a senior,

00:18:26.861 --> 00:18:28.590
"and that's gonna really limit
her career opportunities,

00:18:28.590 --> 00:18:30.759
"or if she wants, all
these other byproducts,

00:18:30.759 --> 00:18:32.547
"and even her own self-confidence,"

00:18:33.055 --> 00:18:34.178
and she's a really bright girl.

00:18:34.178 --> 00:18:35.398
She was a really bright girl then.

00:18:35.398 --> 00:18:39.015
It was pretty obvious, so
I made a deal with her.

00:18:39.015 --> 00:18:40.971
I was like, "Hey, if you
are willing to work with me

00:18:40.971 --> 00:18:44.108
"half an hour a day after
your school and my work,

00:18:44.415 --> 00:18:46.064
"I'll tutor you remotely.
I'll be in Boston.

00:18:46.064 --> 00:18:47.862
"You'll be in New Orleans."

00:18:47.862 --> 00:18:49.621
She agreed, and we started doing it.

00:18:50.190 --> 00:18:51.868
We just used Yahoo Doodle,

00:18:52.375 --> 00:18:54.778
and a conference call,

00:18:54.778 --> 00:18:57.103
and it ended up working out really well.

00:18:57.103 --> 00:18:58.421
I mean, even within a couple of months,

00:18:58.421 --> 00:18:59.786
she had not only done pre-algebra,

00:18:59.786 --> 00:19:01.365
she was working on algebra stuff,

00:19:01.365 --> 00:19:02.916
and then I started
working with her brothers,

00:19:02.916 --> 00:19:05.385
and then other family
members and family friends,

00:19:05.385 --> 00:19:08.195
and a couple of things popped in my mind.

00:19:08.195 --> 00:19:10.072
I was like, you know,
1-on-1 teaching people

00:19:10.072 --> 00:19:13.094
really works, even if it's virtual,
which might be kind of obvious,

00:19:13.094 --> 00:19:14.675
but I was like, "Gee,
I wish there was a way

00:19:14.675 --> 00:19:16.472
"that I could make this
scale a little bit,"

00:19:16.472 --> 00:19:18.125
or at minimum, make it a little easier

00:19:18.125 --> 00:19:20.628
for me to logistically handle
everything that I'm doing,

00:19:20.628 --> 00:19:21.467
and so I did two things.

00:19:21.467 --> 00:19:22.741
I started working on the software.

00:19:22.741 --> 00:19:24.399
I started doing that before the videos,

00:19:24.399 --> 00:19:26.026
because I wanted, you know,
when I started tutoring

00:19:26.026 --> 00:19:27.973
even Nadia, I would point
her to random websites,

00:19:27.973 --> 00:19:29.739
and I'd say, "Hey, there's
some exercises there.

00:19:29.739 --> 00:19:31.224
"Why don't you play around with them?"

00:19:31.224 --> 00:19:33.524
I didn't know what she did,
when she did the exercises.

00:19:33.524 --> 00:19:35.047
I was very data-focused, and I was like,

00:19:35.047 --> 00:19:36.409
"Well, I kind of have
to take her word for it,

00:19:36.409 --> 00:19:38.105
"how she felt about it."

00:19:38.105 --> 00:19:39.522
I'd keep pointing her to different things,

00:19:39.522 --> 00:19:40.971
I was just like, let me
just write my own little

00:19:40.971 --> 00:19:45.585
my own little JavaScript
scripts to generate problems,

00:19:45.585 --> 00:19:47.240
and let me put a little database behind it

00:19:47.240 --> 00:19:49.038
so I can track when she's doing it,

00:19:49.038 --> 00:19:51.580
how long it's taking her,
all of that type of thing,

00:19:51.580 --> 00:19:52.827
and then a buddy literally said,

00:19:52.827 --> 00:19:55.333
"Hey, you know, why don't
you add some videos there?"

00:19:55.333 --> 00:19:56.312
Because I was kind of telling him about,

00:19:56.312 --> 00:19:57.406
"Yeah, you know, these kids,

00:19:57.406 --> 00:19:58.954
"I keep having to do the
same lecture over again.

00:19:58.954 --> 00:20:00.137
"It's getting hard to schedule.

00:20:00.137 --> 00:20:02.198
"I have 5 or 10 kids
that I'm working with,

00:20:02.198 --> 00:20:03.484
"and I have a day job."

00:20:03.484 --> 00:20:04.531
He was like, "Why don't
you make YouTube videos?

00:20:04.531 --> 00:20:06.104
"It might be useful for them."

00:20:06.104 --> 00:20:10.821
So I tried it out, and the initial
feedback I got from my cousins

00:20:10.821 --> 00:20:14.556
was that they liked me better
on YouTube than in person,

00:20:14.556 --> 00:20:16.710
or virtually, or live,

00:20:16.710 --> 00:20:20.566
and I think the takeaway
was it was less-stress,

00:20:20.566 --> 00:20:22.401
they could pause and repeat.

00:20:22.401 --> 00:20:23.954
They could do it on their own time,

00:20:23.954 --> 00:20:25.737
there was none of this
scheduling situation,

00:20:25.737 --> 00:20:27.470
so I got that feedback from them.

00:20:27.470 --> 00:20:29.814
Other people started watching the videos,

00:20:30.121 --> 00:20:32.903
and other people started
sending these notes,

00:20:32.903 --> 00:20:34.868
like, "Hey, I got an A on my algebra exam

00:20:34.868 --> 00:20:36.233
because of this," and at
first, it might have been

00:20:36.233 --> 00:20:37.445
one note a week or one note a month,

00:20:37.445 --> 00:20:39.066
but it got me pretty excited.

00:20:39.066 --> 00:20:41.509
The ideas started to crystallize,

00:20:41.509 --> 00:20:43.492
I said, "Gee, if I make this library,

00:20:43.492 --> 00:20:45.883
"even if it's just useful to my family,

00:20:45.883 --> 00:20:47.509
"like my cousins who are using it now,

00:20:47.509 --> 00:20:49.230
"and my, I didn't have a son at the time,

00:20:49.230 --> 00:20:52.217
"but my future kids, and anyone else,

00:20:52.217 --> 00:20:54.768
"that's just a huge gift to our family,

00:20:54.768 --> 00:20:56.165
"and if other people end up using it,

00:20:56.165 --> 00:20:57.786
"that's even more neat,"

00:20:57.786 --> 00:20:59.616
so it kind of became a fun outlet for me.

00:20:59.616 --> 00:21:00.930
I was working, you know,

00:21:00.930 --> 00:21:04.623
we had moved out to Palo
Alto a year after that,

00:21:04.623 --> 00:21:06.141
so I was working east coast hours,

00:21:06.141 --> 00:21:07.868
so I was done with work by about 2 p.m.

00:21:07.868 --> 00:21:09.702
My wife was in medical residency,

00:21:09.702 --> 00:21:13.287
so I had a lot of time, and as
this was a fun use of my time,

00:21:13.287 --> 00:21:15.608
and it was kind of an outlet for
me to get this kind of education,

00:21:15.608 --> 00:21:17.787
these educational ideas off my plate,

00:21:17.787 --> 00:21:19.326
and I love mathematics.

00:21:19.326 --> 00:21:21.358
It was also a way to
engage parts of my brain

00:21:21.358 --> 00:21:23.724
that I hadn't engaged in a while,

00:21:23.724 --> 00:21:25.210
so it was just a lot of fun,

00:21:25.210 --> 00:21:26.536
and it was actually having an impact.

00:21:26.536 --> 00:21:30.791
Then fast forward 4 years, you know,

00:21:30.791 --> 00:21:32.837
September 2009, take it from there,

00:21:32.837 --> 00:21:36.178
and now we have, whatever,
16-17 million views

00:21:36.178 --> 00:21:38.613
and it's the most used
open course library.

00:21:38.613 --> 00:21:40.622
Andrew: September 2009
being the day you quit,

00:21:40.622 --> 00:21:42.910
being the month you quit your work

00:21:42.910 --> 00:21:44.070
so that you can do this full time?

00:21:44.070 --> 00:21:45.140
Salman: Right.

00:21:45.140 --> 00:21:46.931
Andrew: You know what I'm
wondering as you're saying this?

00:21:46.931 --> 00:21:49.200
If I had a relative who
wanted to learn math

00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:51.943
or wanted to learn anything,
I might help them once.

00:21:51.943 --> 00:21:54.237
Then after that, I might
refer them to a website

00:21:54.237 --> 00:21:57.221
where they can go and learn after that.

00:21:57.221 --> 00:21:59.275
Why would you spend so much time?

00:21:59.998 --> 00:22:03.447
You've got a job, you've
got other things going on.

00:22:03.447 --> 00:22:06.406
Salman: Well, you know, I think it's ...

00:22:06.406 --> 00:22:08.337
You know, it was fun.

00:22:08.598 --> 00:22:10.660
Look, if you work at a hedge fund,

00:22:10.660 --> 00:22:11.747
it was a great job, and I have to say,

00:22:11.747 --> 00:22:13.802
the hedge funds I worked for,

00:22:13.802 --> 00:22:15.816
and I worked for one hedge
fund in particular for 6 years,

00:22:15.816 --> 00:22:19.499
it wasn't the typical really
high-power type-A type place.

00:22:19.499 --> 00:22:22.325
It was a really intellectual,
thoughtful type of firm.

00:22:22.325 --> 00:22:24.463
My boss was a really great
guy who really focused on

00:22:24.463 --> 00:22:25.673
kind of work-life balance.

00:22:26.611 --> 00:22:29.822
But, at the same time,
it was a really good job,

00:22:29.822 --> 00:22:31.443
but there wasn't a lot that you could say,

00:22:31.443 --> 00:22:33.506
what have I contributed
to the world today?

00:22:34.982 --> 00:22:37.932
Even the nature of the
hedge fund job itself,

00:22:37.932 --> 00:22:38.837
you could do really good analysis

00:22:38.837 --> 00:22:40.132
and then that investment goes nowhere,

00:22:40.132 --> 00:22:41.626
and then you could get
lucky, and you could do,

00:22:41.626 --> 00:22:42.830
so there's a lot of that,

00:22:42.830 --> 00:22:46.998
and you almost crave for
something that you do every day,

00:22:46.998 --> 00:22:49.400
where you feel like I
did this for X hours,

00:22:49.400 --> 00:22:53.331
and that X hours was a positive
contribution to something.

00:22:53.331 --> 00:22:56.129
It made the pie a little bit bigger,

00:22:56.129 --> 00:22:58.719
and I think that's what gave
me a little bit of purpose,

00:22:58.719 --> 00:23:00.679
and it gave me an outlet,

00:23:00.679 --> 00:23:03.213
and it made me feel
like I wasn't, you know.

00:23:03.213 --> 00:23:06.279
I talked to a lot of my friends
who are roughly at my stage

00:23:06.279 --> 00:23:07.456
in my career, and I was like, you know,

00:23:07.456 --> 00:23:08.674
it kind of dawned on me that look,

00:23:08.674 --> 00:23:10.644
you're life is pretty valuable,

00:23:10.644 --> 00:23:12.997
and what I was doing at the hedge fund,

00:23:12.997 --> 00:23:16.044
I don't want to demean it.
I think it's a great job,

00:23:16.044 --> 00:23:18.309
but I'd spent 6 years of my life,

00:23:18.309 --> 00:23:20.275
but really what I had to show for it was

00:23:21.674 --> 00:23:24.656
I had experience, I learned
to analyze securities better,

00:23:24.656 --> 00:23:26.891
and I saw a lot about how
businesses work and all of that,

00:23:26.891 --> 00:23:29.390
but what I really had to show
for it was just some numbers

00:23:29.390 --> 00:23:31.208
in a bank account someplace.

00:23:31.208 --> 00:23:33.391
It's like I really had no
actual tangible contribution

00:23:33.391 --> 00:23:35.720
to show for it, and
this gave me that outlet

00:23:35.720 --> 00:23:37.687
where I felt like these
years weren't wasted.

00:23:38.102 --> 00:23:40.075
I feel that more and more.

00:23:40.075 --> 00:23:42.242
Evey day, I almost feel
like my day is wasted

00:23:42.242 --> 00:23:43.560
if I don't make a few videos,

00:23:43.560 --> 00:23:44.810
or if I don't write a
little bit of software.

00:23:44.810 --> 00:23:46.234
If I just sit a whole day in meetings

00:23:46.234 --> 00:23:48.888
or if I'm trying to
fundraise or whatever else,

00:23:48.888 --> 00:23:51.056
I feel like I'm not doing
what the Khan Academy

00:23:51.056 --> 00:23:52.837
is supposed to be doing.

00:23:52.837 --> 00:23:55.302
Andrew: Did you think at the
time that this might help

00:23:55.302 --> 00:23:57.893
you prepare for the school
you'll launch some day,

00:23:57.893 --> 00:23:59.613
or did you think that
maybe this would lead to

00:23:59.613 --> 00:24:02.449
a school or software that
I can create and sell?

00:24:02.449 --> 00:24:03.956
What did you think it
was going to lead to?

00:24:03.956 --> 00:24:06.714
Salman: Once it got to about,

00:24:06.714 --> 00:24:12.163
once the JavaScript
modules, once I had about,

00:24:12.163 --> 00:24:13.588
I would say about 20 of them,

00:24:13.588 --> 00:24:16.923
and I was using it with my
cousins and family and friends,

00:24:16.923 --> 00:24:17.702
and they were using it,

00:24:17.702 --> 00:24:19.827
it really was teaching them,

00:24:19.827 --> 00:24:21.838
and you combine it with the videos.

00:24:21.838 --> 00:24:23.379
Once the video library got to about 100,

00:24:23.379 --> 00:24:25.806
and the combination of
it really was pretty good

00:24:25.806 --> 00:24:30.152
at teaching people
pre-algebra through algebra,

00:24:30.152 --> 00:24:31.726
I started to think very
seriously, you know what?

00:24:31.726 --> 00:24:33.881
The school fo the future needs to have

00:24:33.881 --> 00:24:36.491
something like this as
its operating system,

00:24:36.491 --> 00:24:38.051
needs to have something
like this at its DNA.

00:24:38.051 --> 00:24:42.580
I did, and actually I do
view, this virtual school

00:24:42.580 --> 00:24:46.035
that we talked about earlier,
as, it is a virtual school.

00:24:46.035 --> 00:24:46.949
It could stand on itself.

00:24:46.949 --> 00:24:48.447
People could go to that virtual school

00:24:48.447 --> 00:24:50.762
and use it to learn things,

00:24:50.762 --> 00:24:51.631
independent of anything else,

00:24:51.631 --> 00:24:55.278
but it could also be used
as the operating system

00:24:55.278 --> 00:24:57.258
or the DNA for a physical school,

00:24:57.258 --> 00:24:59.366
where you have a 1-room schoolhouse,

00:24:59.366 --> 00:25:00.870
kids of all ages,

00:25:00.870 --> 00:25:02.094
you know, you don't,

00:25:02.094 --> 00:25:04.938
it's actually a very bizarre
way that people connect age

00:25:04.938 --> 00:25:06.198
with different concepts,

00:25:06.198 --> 00:25:09.905
so you have students of all
ages in a room together.

00:25:09.905 --> 00:25:11.594
They're working on, for part of their day,

00:25:11.594 --> 00:25:13.104
not their full day, for part of their day,

00:25:13.104 --> 00:25:17.556
they're using technology to kind
of get their core skills going.

00:25:17.556 --> 00:25:18.465
If they don't understand something,

00:25:18.465 --> 00:25:20.161
there are other people in the
room that are going to help them,

00:25:20.161 --> 00:25:21.624
so you have a lot of peer to
peer occurring in the room.

00:25:21.624 --> 00:25:23.483
It could even occur across site,

00:25:23.483 --> 00:25:25.049
and then the rest of the day is spent

00:25:25.049 --> 00:25:26.760
doing real project-based learning.

00:25:26.760 --> 00:25:28.289
There's a lot of talk about
project-based learning,

00:25:28.289 --> 00:25:31.472
but not much of it is substantive.

00:25:31.472 --> 00:25:32.572
I mean, real project-based learning,

00:25:32.572 --> 00:25:33.931
where kids are actually
learning to program,

00:25:33.931 --> 00:25:35.525
like they're really
working, building things.

00:25:35.525 --> 00:25:38.168
They're actually writing things
that are being published.

00:25:38.168 --> 00:25:40.074
They're actually composing music

00:25:40.074 --> 00:25:41.349
instead of just learning to play music.

00:25:41.349 --> 00:25:42.310
That's the whole aspect.

00:25:42.310 --> 00:25:45.406
I definitely, I definitely
wanted this to become,

00:25:45.406 --> 00:25:48.717
eventually the, and it does
seem like it is becoming

00:25:48.717 --> 00:25:51.105
the DNA of a possible framework in school.

00:25:51.105 --> 00:25:53.222
I did it with a couple of summer camps,

00:25:53.222 --> 00:25:56.391
and the teachers wanted reports.

00:25:56.391 --> 00:25:58.615
Can I see, you know, all the
students, where they are,

00:25:58.615 --> 00:26:01.598
and we pretty quickly settled
on that kind of a paradigm,

00:26:01.598 --> 00:26:02.945
when the teacher would walk into the room,

00:26:02.945 --> 00:26:04.881
all the kids are working
at their own pace,

00:26:04.881 --> 00:26:07.296
and the teacher just gets
a spreadsheet saying,

00:26:07.296 --> 00:26:09.576
"Look, everyone's fine, but
those 2 kids are having trouble

00:26:09.576 --> 00:26:13.312
"with adding and subtracting
negative numbers."

00:26:13.312 --> 00:26:15.807
Instead of the teacher giving a
lecture and all of that type of stuff,

00:26:15.807 --> 00:26:16.487
and admit,

00:26:16.487 --> 00:26:18.538
the teacher just takes
those two kids aside,

00:26:19.491 --> 00:26:20.808
does a very intimate session with them,

00:26:20.808 --> 00:26:21.965
and let everyone else
work at their own pace.

00:26:21.965 --> 00:26:23.407
Then, who are the next
two people who need help?

00:26:23.407 --> 00:26:25.399
You could even, before the
teacher even gets involved,

00:26:25.399 --> 00:26:26.597
you could have other peers helping,

00:26:26.597 --> 00:26:27.516
all that type of thing,

00:26:27.516 --> 00:26:29.141
so you can get more and
more technology in it,

00:26:29.141 --> 00:26:30.442
you could get more and more data on it,

00:26:30.442 --> 00:26:32.691
you can make everyone's
life a lot more streamlined,

00:26:32.691 --> 00:26:34.565
and be able to do much
more intelligent things

00:26:34.565 --> 00:26:37.073
on where you point people's energies.

00:26:38.119 --> 00:26:40.145
Andrew: I could so see the
passion as you talk about this.

00:26:40.145 --> 00:26:42.912
I can't imagine you were this
passionate about hedge funds

00:26:42.912 --> 00:26:45.932
or venture capital or
any of the previous work.

00:26:45.932 --> 00:26:49.464
Salman: Yeah, no, I was not.

00:26:49.464 --> 00:26:50.908
I could see now that I'm not
working in those industries,

00:26:50.908 --> 00:26:51.870
I can say it.

00:26:51.870 --> 00:26:53.140
(Sal laughs)

00:26:53.140 --> 00:26:56.774
You have to, I mean, those were,

00:26:56.774 --> 00:26:59.245
I mean, I think outside
of the Khan Academy,

00:26:59.245 --> 00:27:02.206
my job at the hedge fund was
probably the best possible job.

00:27:02.206 --> 00:27:03.833
What was fun about it,
as you mentioned earlier,

00:27:03.833 --> 00:27:06.631
I teach out of my core competency,

00:27:06.631 --> 00:27:09.696
so a lot of what I do is
I really learn new things

00:27:09.696 --> 00:27:11.608
and I try to learn it
at a really deep level

00:27:11.608 --> 00:27:13.756
and that's really what I had
to do at my hedge fund job,

00:27:13.756 --> 00:27:15.720
where every day, we'd
talk to an oil company,

00:27:15.720 --> 00:27:16.174
and then the next day,

00:27:16.174 --> 00:27:18.631
we'd talk to an internet
marketing company,

00:27:18.631 --> 00:27:22.791
and the next day, we'd talk
to a chicken egg company,

00:27:22.791 --> 00:27:24.194
so it was this kind of process of

00:27:24.194 --> 00:27:25.468
you're always learning new things,

00:27:25.468 --> 00:27:27.164
and you have to kind of
become a quick expert.

00:27:27.748 --> 00:27:29.089
Andrew: I see.

00:27:30.165 --> 00:27:32.127
All right, so you get these videos online.

00:27:32.127 --> 00:27:33.699
I understand how today, when you have,

00:27:33.699 --> 00:27:36.240
how many videos do you have?

00:27:37.239 --> 00:27:38.685
Salman: A little over 1,500.

00:27:38.685 --> 00:27:39.662
Andrew: A little over 1,500.

00:27:39.662 --> 00:27:42.859
I understand when you get
to even 500 to 1,000 videos.

00:27:42.859 --> 00:27:44.276
It starts to feel like something.

00:27:44.276 --> 00:27:45.756
When NPR comes and interviews you,

00:27:45.756 --> 00:27:47.061
when the BBC has you on,

00:27:47.061 --> 00:27:48.660
starts to feel like something.

00:27:48.660 --> 00:27:52.470
What about when it was just 100 or 200?

00:27:52.470 --> 00:27:53.826
Did you ever feel at those moments,

00:27:53.826 --> 00:27:55.628
wow, I'm just a YouTube producer.

00:27:55.628 --> 00:27:57.834
It's me and the guy who's
creating the cat videos,

00:27:57.834 --> 00:28:00.217
and he's got more viewers than I do.

00:28:00.217 --> 00:28:01.200
Salman: Oh, yeah.

00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:02.037
No, absolutely.

00:28:02.037 --> 00:28:04.410
You know, I think in the past year,

00:28:04.410 --> 00:28:06.481
a lot of friends and
family are trying to say,

00:28:06.481 --> 00:28:08.138
"Hey, yeah. What Sal's doing is great."

00:28:08.138 --> 00:28:11.762
But I think if you go back 3-4 years ago,

00:28:11.762 --> 00:28:14.659
and I was kinda just going into the,

00:28:14.659 --> 00:28:15.854
sometimes the guest room,

00:28:15.854 --> 00:28:17.339
and eventually converted the closet,

00:28:17.339 --> 00:28:19.865
making these YouTube videos,

00:28:19.865 --> 00:28:21.582
a lot of them said, "What's Sal doing?

00:28:21.582 --> 00:28:23.530
"Why is he spending all
of his time doing this?"

00:28:23.530 --> 00:28:24.751
I had a lot of friends who
kind of like, you know,

00:28:24.751 --> 00:28:26.682
"This is kind of weird."

00:28:27.666 --> 00:28:28.909
Andrew: Tell me about how that felt,

00:28:28.909 --> 00:28:30.204
because it's easy to look back and say,

00:28:30.204 --> 00:28:31.618
"Eh, you know, that's what happened,

00:28:31.618 --> 00:28:32.527
"and we got through it."

00:28:32.527 --> 00:28:33.696
Tell me about how that felt so that

00:28:33.696 --> 00:28:35.741
when I have that situation in my life,

00:28:35.741 --> 00:28:37.470
or one of our listeners
has it in their lives,

00:28:37.470 --> 00:28:39.279
where they are just like 100 videos

00:28:39.279 --> 00:28:42.200
into a million-video project
the way you were back then,

00:28:42.200 --> 00:28:44.691
and no one believes in them
and they doubt themselves,

00:28:44.691 --> 00:28:46.235
they could identify with you.

00:28:46.235 --> 00:28:48.310
So what was it like for you?

00:28:48.310 --> 00:28:51.340
Salman: You know, I
think what allowed me to

00:28:51.340 --> 00:28:52.953
kind of keep up a high level of energy

00:28:52.953 --> 00:28:54.615
and stay motivated and want to do it

00:28:54.615 --> 00:28:58.651
is that I didn't care if it
ever got to where it did get.

00:28:58.651 --> 00:29:00.404
I was pretty happy with the,

00:29:00.404 --> 00:29:01.577
I guess you could call
them small successes.

00:29:01.577 --> 00:29:04.859
I was excited that 20
people a day were watching,

00:29:04.859 --> 00:29:07.127
20 people who I didn't know
were learning math from me.

00:29:07.127 --> 00:29:12.207
The idea that even if I
were to get hit by a bus,

00:29:12.207 --> 00:29:13.829
20 people a day, even if
it didn't grow at all,

00:29:13.829 --> 00:29:15.250
would still learn math from me.

00:29:15.250 --> 00:29:17.872
That, to me, was a
pretty profound concept.

00:29:18.779 --> 00:29:20.748
For me, just a couple notes a day,

00:29:20.748 --> 00:29:24.323
and that idea were enough for me to say,

00:29:24.323 --> 00:29:26.485
"Hey, this is a project worth my time."

00:29:26.485 --> 00:29:32.181
I mean, it is, if at minimum,
no non-relatives watched it,

00:29:32.181 --> 00:29:34.908
but if my son, when he's 18 years old,

00:29:35.169 --> 00:29:38.540
is able to learn a little bit
of algebra or calculus from me,

00:29:38.540 --> 00:29:39.948
that by itself makes it worth it.

00:29:39.948 --> 00:29:41.811
I mean, that by itself
makes it a neat project.

00:29:41.811 --> 00:29:44.033
I think in those early days,

00:29:44.033 --> 00:29:50.110
I was just excited about the
small, that small impact.

00:29:50.110 --> 00:29:51.569
That was enough.

00:29:51.569 --> 00:29:54.504
Now, in the back of my
mind, it was growing.

00:29:54.504 --> 00:29:56.075
I said, "Well, if it keeps
growing at this rate,

00:29:56.075 --> 00:29:57.209
"Then right now, there's 20.

00:29:57.209 --> 00:29:58.674
"Next month there might be 30,

00:29:58.674 --> 00:30:00.300
"and, boy, in a year, we'd
have a couple thousand,

00:30:00.300 --> 00:30:01.329
"and in two years, you know ..."

00:30:01.329 --> 00:30:03.120
Exponential growth, it
happens pretty fast.

00:30:03.120 --> 00:30:06.205
So that, I was like,
that would just be gravy

00:30:06.205 --> 00:30:08.229
on top of everything else that happened.

00:30:08.536 --> 00:30:10.309
Andrew: Did you have a
moment where you doubted it?

00:30:10.309 --> 00:30:11.879
Where you were down on it?

00:30:11.879 --> 00:30:14.559
Where you said, "What am
I doing here in the closet

00:30:14.559 --> 00:30:16.706
"or on my computer, wherever it was?"

00:30:16.706 --> 00:30:18.390
Salman: You know, I never did,

00:30:18.390 --> 00:30:21.400
although I did have a lot of ...

00:30:22.132 --> 00:30:26.030
I never doubted it, and
I'll tell you one of the,

00:30:26.030 --> 00:30:29.172
I'm a bit of a stubborn
character, and I did early on

00:30:29.172 --> 00:30:34.472
have people say, "Who
do you think you are?"

00:30:34.472 --> 00:30:37.452
Like, you know, I've had
friends who are schoolteachers,

00:30:37.452 --> 00:30:39.117
who are academics.

00:30:39.117 --> 00:30:40.966
Not all of them, some of
them were very supportive.

00:30:40.966 --> 00:30:42.137
They thought it was cool.

00:30:42.137 --> 00:30:44.046
In general, I got kind
of negative push-back

00:30:44.046 --> 00:30:45.936
from people who never
experienced the videos.

00:30:45.936 --> 00:30:46.952
I think there's two camps.

00:30:46.952 --> 00:30:48.773
People who actually experienced the videos

00:30:48.773 --> 00:30:50.574
and said, "Wow, this is
kind of a cool way to learn.

00:30:50.574 --> 00:30:53.381
"It was strangely engaging
and strangely addictive.

00:30:53.381 --> 00:30:55.332
"It kind of got me excited about things,

00:30:55.332 --> 00:30:56.550
"and it was kind of entertaining."

00:30:56.550 --> 00:30:58.799
Those people are almost
universally supportive,

00:30:58.799 --> 00:31:01.636
but a very small subset of my,

00:31:01.636 --> 00:31:03.829
of people who were close
to me actually did that.

00:31:03.829 --> 00:31:07.101
They actually took the
time to experience them.

00:31:07.101 --> 00:31:08.799
A lot more people I know were like,

00:31:08.799 --> 00:31:13.052
you know, there's billions of
dollars being spent on education,

00:31:13.052 --> 00:31:16.507
there's thousands of people with PhDs

00:31:16.507 --> 00:31:19.006
spending their whole life on
fixing the education system,

00:31:19.006 --> 00:31:23.053
isn't it arrogant of you to think that you

00:31:23.053 --> 00:31:25.445
and your YouTube videos are
gonna have any type of impact?

00:31:25.445 --> 00:31:26.551
I mean, that's essentially the summary

00:31:26.551 --> 00:31:28.905
of what a lot of people would tell me.

00:31:30.627 --> 00:31:32.718
I would defend it a little bit at first.

00:31:32.718 --> 00:31:34.804
I'd be like, well, in the back of my mind,

00:31:34.804 --> 00:31:37.013
I would say, "Well, I think
a lot of those efforts there

00:31:37.013 --> 00:31:38.569
are just spent on bureaucracies

00:31:38.569 --> 00:31:39.836
and people talking about things,

00:31:39.836 --> 00:31:41.418
but I wouldn't say that.

00:31:41.418 --> 00:31:43.207
My response was, "Well,
you know, you're right.

00:31:43.207 --> 00:31:44.306
"I don't think it's gonna, you know,

00:31:44.306 --> 00:31:45.709
"I just wanna do my
own little small thing.

00:31:45.709 --> 00:31:47.306
"If it has any impact, it has an impact,"

00:31:47.306 --> 00:31:49.486
but in the back of my mind
it made me really angry,

00:31:49.486 --> 00:31:51.339
and it motivated me even more

00:31:51.339 --> 00:31:56.442
to make more and better
videos, and to do it.

00:31:57.641 --> 00:31:59.267
To some degree, that's what,

00:32:00.067 --> 00:32:01.865
like the history videos you talked about.

00:32:01.865 --> 00:32:05.933
Every time I meet a small set of videos,

00:32:05.933 --> 00:32:07.129
I started with pre-algebra and algebra,

00:32:07.129 --> 00:32:08.146
I'd always get some push back.

00:32:08.146 --> 00:32:09.562
"Oh yeah, that's nice and
cute what you have there,

00:32:09.562 --> 00:32:12.771
"but this won't work for calculus,

00:32:12.771 --> 00:32:15.488
"or this won't work for
differential equations or physics,"

00:32:15.488 --> 00:32:17.560
and I'm going, "Oh, maybe you're right."

00:32:17.560 --> 00:32:18.472
But then I'd go home, and it's like,

00:32:18.472 --> 00:32:19.241
"I'm gonna show that person.

00:32:19.241 --> 00:32:21.435
"I'm gonna fix up the calculus
and the differential equations."

00:32:21.435 --> 00:32:23.566
Then you immediately get the push back,

00:32:23.566 --> 00:32:24.776
"Oh, this might work for that,

00:32:24.776 --> 00:32:26.182
"but it won't work for the humanities,

00:32:26.182 --> 00:32:27.842
"it won't work, and you
won't be able to do that.

00:32:27.842 --> 00:32:28.947
"You're gonna have to get other people."

00:32:28.947 --> 00:32:31.268
I mean it's amazing how
many people still tell me,

00:32:32.313 --> 00:32:33.898
"So, you're gonna have
to get more people on."

00:32:33.898 --> 00:32:36.267
I'm open to it. I'm not
like against getting others.

00:32:36.267 --> 00:32:37.230
In fact, when I started,

00:32:37.230 --> 00:32:39.047
I thought that's how this would happen,

00:32:39.047 --> 00:32:41.636
that there'd be 20 of us doing a large,

00:32:41.636 --> 00:32:42.902
but it was actually hard to.

00:32:42.902 --> 00:32:44.574
A lot of people would say,
"Yeah, that's awesome."

00:32:44.574 --> 00:32:46.106
At parties, they'd be like,
"Yeah, I want to make videos,

00:32:46.106 --> 00:32:47.446
"and that would be so cool,"

00:32:47.446 --> 00:32:49.095
but when it actually comes
down to actually sitting down

00:32:49.095 --> 00:32:51.353
with the tablet and
recording YouTube videos,

00:32:51.353 --> 00:32:53.610
no one really did it.

00:32:53.610 --> 00:32:56.212
Even now, there's a lot
of assumption of like,

00:32:56.212 --> 00:33:00.032
"Oh, well, you're not gonna
be able to do all of K-12,"

00:33:00.032 --> 00:33:03.364
and I'm like, "Part time, for 4 years,

00:33:03.364 --> 00:33:06.642
"you know, I was working in a
hedge fund most of the time.

00:33:07.734 --> 00:33:11.459
"It's pretty much 90% of
K-12 math has been done.

00:33:11.459 --> 00:33:13.205
"If you extrapolate that full-time,

00:33:13.205 --> 00:33:14.431
"it's not gonna take long to do it."

00:33:14.431 --> 00:33:16.409
I'm not gonna say I'm the
only person that has to.

00:33:16.409 --> 00:33:18.042
I actually want other people to do this,

00:33:18.042 --> 00:33:19.772
but they're not doing it,

00:33:19.772 --> 00:33:22.139
so if they're not doing it,
and I want to do it anyways,

00:33:22.139 --> 00:33:23.659
so I'm gonna do it.

00:33:25.104 --> 00:33:27.675
It is a bit of a motivating force

00:33:27.675 --> 00:33:30.241
when people kind of question your validity

00:33:30.241 --> 00:33:32.928
or your ability to execute on something.

00:33:32.928 --> 00:33:35.999
It ignites a little fire
in my belly a little bit.

00:33:35.999 --> 00:33:37.025
(laughs)

00:33:37.025 --> 00:33:37.661
Andrew: Yeah, I've seen that.

00:33:37.661 --> 00:33:39.626
I've felt that in myself, too.

00:33:40.610 --> 00:33:41.795
All right, so how do you do it?

00:33:41.795 --> 00:33:42.862
How do you do it so well?

00:33:42.862 --> 00:33:43.717
Let me just ...

00:33:43.717 --> 00:33:45.553
Actually, why don't you
start out by describing it?

00:33:45.553 --> 00:33:47.143
Maybe I should have done that
earlier in the interview,

00:33:47.143 --> 00:33:51.163
but I think, why don't we start
out with you describing it first?

00:33:52.039 --> 00:33:54.302
Salman: Yeah, you know, the
videos, you don't see me.

00:33:54.302 --> 00:33:56.112
They're black background
almost universally.

00:33:56.112 --> 00:33:57.436
Some of them don't have black backgrounds,

00:33:57.436 --> 00:33:58.663
but they have black backgrounds,

00:33:58.663 --> 00:34:01.644
and I'm just writing in
colors that I think look nice

00:34:02.352 --> 00:34:04.866
while I talk, while I narrate the video,

00:34:04.866 --> 00:34:07.902
and the form factor started, two things,

00:34:07.902 --> 00:34:09.580
this was essentially what
Nadia was experiencing

00:34:09.580 --> 00:34:13.025
when I was doing those initial
live virtual sessions with her.

00:34:13.025 --> 00:34:13.903
She didn't see me.

00:34:13.903 --> 00:34:15.179
We just had a conference call going,

00:34:15.179 --> 00:34:17.150
and she just saw what I was writing,

00:34:17.150 --> 00:34:17.921
and so it worked with her,

00:34:17.921 --> 00:34:19.336
so I said that'll probably work.

00:34:19.336 --> 00:34:23.623
I also wanted it to, I didn't
have good recording equipment.

00:34:23.623 --> 00:34:25.297
I didn't have a video camera.

00:34:25.297 --> 00:34:27.483
Even if I did, I even
thought about at one point,

00:34:27.483 --> 00:34:30.080
maybe buying one, but
it's really difficult.

00:34:30.080 --> 00:34:31.294
Even if you get a really
nice video camera,

00:34:31.294 --> 00:34:32.705
you have to get your lighting right,

00:34:32.705 --> 00:34:34.182
then you have to get your own microphone.

00:34:34.182 --> 00:34:35.491
I mean, all sorts of crazy
things you have to do

00:34:35.491 --> 00:34:36.823
to make it look professional,

00:34:36.823 --> 00:34:39.242
but if you just do a screen capture

00:34:39.242 --> 00:34:40.628
with a USB headset,

00:34:40.628 --> 00:34:42.188
and I started with Microsoft Paint,

00:34:42.188 --> 00:34:43.809
and now I'm using little fancier stuff,

00:34:43.809 --> 00:34:46.521
but it's all, I'm still
using Smooth Draw 3.

00:34:46.521 --> 00:34:48.859
It's a piece of freeware.

00:34:48.859 --> 00:34:51.330
It comes off a lot better,

00:34:51.330 --> 00:34:54.111
and the feedback I get from people,

00:34:54.111 --> 00:34:56.415
and it's kind of obvious now in hindsight,

00:34:56.415 --> 00:34:58.325
that it's actually much
more intimate form factor.

00:34:58.325 --> 00:35:00.823
It doesn't feel like I'm
on the other side of a room

00:35:00.823 --> 00:35:02.207
lecturing to you.

00:35:02.207 --> 00:35:03.857
It literally feels like we're
either beside each other,

00:35:03.857 --> 00:35:05.987
and we're looking at the same blackboard

00:35:05.987 --> 00:35:06.980
or the same piece of paper,

00:35:06.980 --> 00:35:10.352
or it even feels like I'm, what
my narration is your thoughts

00:35:10.352 --> 00:35:12.011
on some level.

00:35:14.072 --> 00:35:17.619
So the form factor both,
I think, is compelling

00:35:17.619 --> 00:35:20.412
to a lot of students, and
it's really easy for me.

00:35:20.412 --> 00:35:23.309
I literally just have to press record,

00:35:23.309 --> 00:35:25.281
start the screen capture going.

00:35:25.281 --> 00:35:26.378
I don't have to comb my hair.

00:35:26.378 --> 00:35:27.370
I don't have to shave.

00:35:27.370 --> 00:35:28.720
I don't have to do anything,

00:35:28.720 --> 00:35:33.317
and I just start talking
and start teaching.

00:35:33.317 --> 00:35:34.190
The question of how I do it,

00:35:34.190 --> 00:35:37.020
things like a lot of the algebra content,

00:35:37.020 --> 00:35:40.792
I do a lot of that in real
time, very conversational,

00:35:40.792 --> 00:35:42.341
a lot of the example problems I do,

00:35:42.341 --> 00:35:45.258
in the early videos, I actually
made them up on the fly,

00:35:45.258 --> 00:35:48.051
which I realize that kind of
wastes a little bit of time,

00:35:48.051 --> 00:35:51.554
but I always do them on the fly,

00:35:51.554 --> 00:35:55.950
and I think that gives
students a lens into concepts

00:35:55.950 --> 00:35:57.090
that they don't normally see.

00:35:57.090 --> 00:35:59.812
I mean, in a textbook, or
in a traditional lecture,

00:35:59.812 --> 00:36:01.588
you always have a finished product,

00:36:01.588 --> 00:36:03.388
that the teacher is seeing the example,

00:36:03.388 --> 00:36:04.240
they've done the example.

00:36:04.240 --> 00:36:05.825
Maybe they've done it 6 times that day

00:36:05.825 --> 00:36:08.887
for the last 20 years,
and you never see them,

00:36:08.887 --> 00:36:10.796
you never see the art of the problem,

00:36:10.796 --> 00:36:12.258
and you never see it solved in real time,

00:36:12.258 --> 00:36:13.769
and I get a lot of feedback.

00:36:13.769 --> 00:36:16.286
Students like to see me go
down a little path and say,

00:36:16.286 --> 00:36:17.322
"Oh wait, wait. That's not right,

00:36:17.322 --> 00:36:19.110
"but I did it because it looked like that.

00:36:19.110 --> 00:36:20.850
"Let me back up and go
down this other path."

00:36:20.850 --> 00:36:23.847
They really appreciate that
informal conversational

00:36:23.847 --> 00:36:27.708
kind of thinking out loud style.

00:36:27.708 --> 00:36:30.834
For the more preparation-intensive topics,

00:36:30.834 --> 00:36:32.374
like when I did cellular respiration,

00:36:32.374 --> 00:36:34.920
or the French Revolution.

00:36:34.920 --> 00:36:35.818
These aren't things that,

00:36:35.818 --> 00:36:38.876
you know, I was exposed
to them in my education,

00:36:38.876 --> 00:36:40.062
but they weren't something
that I would, like,

00:36:40.062 --> 00:36:42.106
if you had bumped into
me 2 years ago and said,

00:36:42.106 --> 00:36:43.246
"Sal, tell me everything about,

00:36:43.246 --> 00:36:45.061
"tell me how many ATPs are
generated by this stage

00:36:45.061 --> 00:36:45.941
"of cellular respiration."

00:36:45.941 --> 00:36:48.570
I would have been like, "Well,
I took it a long time ago."

00:36:48.570 --> 00:36:50.055
Those type of things I
do spend a lot of time

00:36:50.055 --> 00:36:51.398
immersing myself in the subject matter.

00:36:51.398 --> 00:36:52.336
Andrew: So tell me about that.

00:36:52.336 --> 00:36:53.244
Tell me about the process.

00:36:53.244 --> 00:36:54.939
How do you absorb that knowledge,

00:36:54.939 --> 00:36:56.933
and then we'll get into how do you share

00:36:56.933 --> 00:36:58.545
a tough topic with someone else?

00:36:58.545 --> 00:36:59.233
How do teach it?

00:36:59.233 --> 00:37:02.019
How do you get the knowledge
in your head so quickly?

00:37:02.019 --> 00:37:06.969
Salman: You know, well, I try to,

00:37:07.676 --> 00:37:09.642
I just try to read as
many things as I can.

00:37:09.642 --> 00:37:11.601
I think, you know, to some degree,

00:37:11.601 --> 00:37:13.670
obviously Khan Academy
is dependent on the web.

00:37:13.670 --> 00:37:15.105
You'd need YouTube and all of that,

00:37:15.105 --> 00:37:17.235
but it also needed the
web for my own preparation

00:37:17.235 --> 00:37:19.428
because in kind of the old days,

00:37:19.428 --> 00:37:20.439
you'd only have one source.

00:37:20.439 --> 00:37:21.546
You'd have your textbook or whatever,

00:37:21.546 --> 00:37:23.704
and that's very limiting,

00:37:23.704 --> 00:37:27.199
but now you literally, you have textbooks,

00:37:27.199 --> 00:37:28.765
you have things like Wikipedia,

00:37:28.765 --> 00:37:31.150
you have random professors,
random people on the web,

00:37:31.150 --> 00:37:32.539
explaining concepts.

00:37:32.539 --> 00:37:34.592
You know, 90% of them are
explaining it the same way,

00:37:34.592 --> 00:37:36.371
but that 10%, they'll say something,

00:37:36.371 --> 00:37:37.311
and it just clicks in your brain,

00:37:37.311 --> 00:37:39.354
and it was like, "Oh, why
didn't everyone just say that?"

00:37:39.354 --> 00:37:40.329
That's the most,

00:37:40.329 --> 00:37:42.370
and then you have all
these other, you know,

00:37:42.370 --> 00:37:44.888
I'm actually a big fan of, I think,

00:37:44.888 --> 00:37:46.999
well, this is kind of a commentary
in the publishing industry.

00:37:46.999 --> 00:37:49.207
I think textbooks are
written not to teach.

00:37:49.207 --> 00:37:51.218
Textbooks are written
to impress school boards

00:37:51.218 --> 00:37:53.055
and to be these impressive, weighty,

00:37:53.055 --> 00:37:55.044
you know, tombs, as opposed to something

00:37:55.044 --> 00:37:56.613
that a student could digest.

00:37:56.613 --> 00:37:59.314
I actually think a lot of the, whatever,

00:37:59.314 --> 00:38:00.925
teach-yourself books that
you get in the library

00:38:00.925 --> 00:38:06.423
for $10 or the Barron's
Calculus the Easy Way,

00:38:06.423 --> 00:38:08.685
Biology the Easy Way, these
are actually really good texts.

00:38:08.685 --> 00:38:10.295
They shouldn't be downplayed.

00:38:10.295 --> 00:38:12.061
You start with something like that,

00:38:12.061 --> 00:38:13.733
and when you have questions, you're like,

00:38:13.733 --> 00:38:15.160
"Okay, that kind of gave me the overview,

00:38:15.160 --> 00:38:17.108
"but I still don't understand
exactly what happens

00:38:17.108 --> 00:38:19.025
"at this stage or that stage."

00:38:19.025 --> 00:38:20.941
Then you can use texts
as reference, dig deeper,

00:38:20.941 --> 00:38:22.503
use Wikipedia as a reference.

00:38:22.503 --> 00:38:25.311
Then when I really get to
some really core question,

00:38:25.311 --> 00:38:27.579
I was doing immunology,
which I'm not an expert in,

00:38:27.579 --> 00:38:31.912
and in one part of my
wife's immunology textbook,

00:38:31.912 --> 00:38:35.167
she's a doctor, so she has
her immunology textbook

00:38:35.167 --> 00:38:36.650
from medical school, and
I was digging through it.

00:38:36.650 --> 00:38:40.101
In one part of it, it
was saying, "B-cells,

00:38:40.101 --> 00:38:44.977
"they need to be exposed to
the antigen to be activated,"

00:38:44.977 --> 00:38:46.168
and then another part, it says,

00:38:46.168 --> 00:38:48.063
"Well, helper T-cells activate B-cells."

00:38:48.063 --> 00:38:49.240
I had these questions, I was like,

00:38:49.240 --> 00:38:51.746
does both have to happen,
or just one of them,

00:38:51.746 --> 00:38:53.469
and I couldn't find it anywhere.

00:38:53.469 --> 00:38:55.120
I couldn't find the answers, so I
literally just called up a friend

00:38:55.120 --> 00:38:59.298
whose a professor of virology
at Duke, and I asked him.

00:38:59.298 --> 00:39:00.874
I was like, "Look, I know this
is a really stupid question.

00:39:00.874 --> 00:39:02.106
"You're gonna judge
me, because you're like

00:39:02.106 --> 00:39:05.052
"why does Sal, I shouldn't
be doing immunology videos

00:39:05.052 --> 00:39:06.264
"if I don't know the
answer to this question,"

00:39:06.264 --> 00:39:07.166
and I asked him.

00:39:07.166 --> 00:39:08.084
I was like, which one?

00:39:08.084 --> 00:39:09.553
He's like, "Oh, that's actually
a very interesting question.

00:39:09.553 --> 00:39:10.719
"There are certain types of B-cells ..."

00:39:10.719 --> 00:39:13.662
and he's like, "It's an area
of research of why that is,"

00:39:13.662 --> 00:39:15.979
and this and that, and it's
completely not in the textbook.

00:39:15.979 --> 00:39:19.927
I think, very quickly, as
long as you're really kind of,

00:39:20.573 --> 00:39:22.153
if you're asking yourself
the right questions,

00:39:22.153 --> 00:39:24.852
and you really are focused
on getting down to a

00:39:24.852 --> 00:39:27.988
distilled intuition of a subject,

00:39:27.988 --> 00:39:30.298
it doesn't take long before
you can really get to

00:39:30.298 --> 00:39:31.705
kind of fundamental questions

00:39:31.705 --> 00:39:33.166
that even experts in the field say,

00:39:33.166 --> 00:39:34.320
"Hey, that's an interest ..."

00:39:34.320 --> 00:39:36.599
There's this other, I
talk to a lot of friends

00:39:36.599 --> 00:39:40.316
who have PhDs, are professors,
or doing PhDs, or whatever,

00:39:40.977 --> 00:39:43.072
and sometimes if I meet them at a party,

00:39:43.072 --> 00:39:44.961
I'm like, "Oh, you know,
I'm gonna do a video on this

00:39:44.961 --> 00:39:46.933
"probably next week, and I have this one

00:39:46.933 --> 00:39:49.159
"question about, it's like
a fundamental concept,

00:39:49.159 --> 00:39:51.976
"something that a first-year
grad student should know."

00:39:51.976 --> 00:39:53.790
And they're like, "You know what?

00:39:54.297 --> 00:39:56.807
"That's something I always wondered,

00:39:56.807 --> 00:40:00.532
"but I didn't really have time
to address it in my education,

00:40:00.532 --> 00:40:02.184
"and I had qualifiers to pass,

00:40:02.184 --> 00:40:04.193
"and I was probably
embarrassed to even bring it up

00:40:04.193 --> 00:40:07.300
"inside of my department, and so

00:40:07.300 --> 00:40:08.562
"I really don't know the answer to that."

00:40:08.562 --> 00:40:10.356
One, that makes me feel a lot better,

00:40:10.356 --> 00:40:12.296
but then we would kind of
become on a mission combined

00:40:12.296 --> 00:40:13.400
to get that question answered,

00:40:13.400 --> 00:40:15.508
and I would be kind of their
layperson that would say,

00:40:15.508 --> 00:40:16.501
"Hey, this guy's wondering, you know,"

00:40:16.501 --> 00:40:23.225
so if you want to know where
I think I'm adding value

00:40:23.225 --> 00:40:25.541
beyond people who have
spent more time in the field

00:40:25.541 --> 00:40:28.993
is that I have the luxury
of spending as much time

00:40:28.993 --> 00:40:31.740
as I want on core concepts,

00:40:31.740 --> 00:40:33.300
and I think core concepts
are the most important

00:40:33.300 --> 00:40:35.062
because that's where you build
your intuition of a subject.

00:40:35.062 --> 00:40:37.010
When I started chemistry,
before I even started,

00:40:37.010 --> 00:40:39.910
I just played with the
Periodic Table for like a week,

00:40:39.910 --> 00:40:41.164
just to make sure I understood the nuance,

00:40:41.164 --> 00:40:42.822
why was it structured that way,

00:40:42.822 --> 00:40:43.632
why is the pattern,

00:40:43.632 --> 00:40:46.535
how did it come about,

00:40:46.535 --> 00:40:48.749
as opposed to it's just there,
and how do you interpret it?

00:40:48.749 --> 00:40:50.486
How did the first people even think

00:40:50.486 --> 00:40:52.778
of making a periodic table
and things like that.

00:40:53.239 --> 00:40:56.971
I get that luxury, and
PhDs and grad students

00:40:56.971 --> 00:40:58.516
and professors don't have that luxury

00:40:58.516 --> 00:41:01.709
of really understanding the core.

00:41:01.709 --> 00:41:02.763
You know, a friend of mine,

00:41:02.763 --> 00:41:04.641
I haven't done quantum
mechanics videos yet,

00:41:04.641 --> 00:41:06.690
and I had a friend who was
explaining to me a little bit,

00:41:06.690 --> 00:41:07.454
and he was like, "Oh, yeah.

00:41:07.454 --> 00:41:10.327
"If you have this electron,
it's moving in this chamber,

00:41:10.327 --> 00:41:11.291
this theoretical chamber,"

00:41:11.291 --> 00:41:14.027
and I was like, "Oh, why
is it changing direction?"

00:41:14.027 --> 00:41:16.710
He's like, "That's a good question."

00:41:16.710 --> 00:41:18.320
I mean, it's like one of
these fundamental examples

00:41:18.320 --> 00:41:21.421
that every first-year quantum
mechanics student learns,

00:41:21.421 --> 00:41:23.096
and the teacher doesn't go over that.

00:41:23.096 --> 00:41:25.653
They just say, "Oh,"
and they give equation,

00:41:25.653 --> 00:41:27.302
and you kind of learn to mimic
in and so on and so forth,

00:41:27.302 --> 00:41:29.966
but everyone's afraid to ask
these very basic questions.

00:41:29.966 --> 00:41:32.081
I ask them, eventually
I get an answer to them,

00:41:32.081 --> 00:41:34.628
and I think when I teach it,
I'll answer those questions,

00:41:34.628 --> 00:41:36.666
and then people don't have
those gaps in their head.

00:41:36.666 --> 00:41:38.111
Andrew: It seems like the Khan Academy

00:41:38.111 --> 00:41:42.704
is great for teaching
Khan, for teaching you,

00:41:42.704 --> 00:41:45.532
because you now are going
through the ideal university.

00:41:45.532 --> 00:41:49.750
Can you talk about how knowing
that you're going to teach

00:41:49.750 --> 00:41:52.751
what you're learning affects
what you're learning?

00:41:52.751 --> 00:41:54.133
Salman: Oh, yeah.

00:41:54.702 --> 00:41:57.315
Well, you know, it puts
the bar so much higher.

00:41:57.315 --> 00:41:59.343
I mean, I think in most,
like I'm gonna start doing

00:41:59.343 --> 00:42:00.725
organic chemistry soon,

00:42:00.725 --> 00:42:02.368
and when you're taking organic chemistry,

00:42:02.368 --> 00:42:04.206
and I took organic chemistry in college.

00:42:04.206 --> 00:42:06.426
You're goal is really to get an A,

00:42:06.426 --> 00:42:09.614
and if you're especially
intellectually inspired,

00:42:09.614 --> 00:42:11.714
maybe to get another
level of understanding,

00:42:11.714 --> 00:42:13.821
but there's all these other pressures

00:42:13.821 --> 00:42:15.299
that are going on in college,

00:42:15.299 --> 00:42:17.397
your grades and social
pressures and other classes

00:42:17.397 --> 00:42:18.351
and all of that,

00:42:18.351 --> 00:42:21.618
and now, I know I'm gonna explain it,

00:42:21.618 --> 00:42:24.513
and I know, from the math
videos, there's a certain brand,

00:42:24.513 --> 00:42:26.257
there's a certain standard
that people expect,

00:42:26.257 --> 00:42:27.933
that I'm not just gonna
throw something at you

00:42:27.933 --> 00:42:29.413
and say memorize this,

00:42:29.413 --> 00:42:31.531
or I'm not just gonna say,
like, "Oh, this is beyond you.

00:42:31.531 --> 00:42:32.588
"Don't try to understand it."

00:42:32.588 --> 00:42:35.362
The standard people expect from me

00:42:35.362 --> 00:42:37.319
is that I will give them an intuition,

00:42:37.319 --> 00:42:39.022
and I will distill it down into concepts

00:42:39.022 --> 00:42:40.484
where people say, "Oh
wait, that's obvious.

00:42:40.484 --> 00:42:42.528
"That's all that thing is
saying about the universe."

00:42:42.528 --> 00:42:45.602
And so that's the standard I
hold myself to when I learn it,

00:42:45.602 --> 00:42:48.409
so it doesn't take long,
actually, to learn something

00:42:48.409 --> 00:42:50.630
of a level where you can
get an A on most exams

00:42:50.630 --> 00:42:54.060
at most schools, but
it's a whole other level

00:42:54.060 --> 00:42:55.736
where you're getting to the really deep,

00:42:55.736 --> 00:42:57.185
why is this intuitive,

00:42:57.185 --> 00:42:59.182
or why does that expression
look the way it does,

00:42:59.182 --> 00:43:00.925
or how is it related
to another expression?

00:43:00.925 --> 00:43:02.560
It's hugely motivating while I'm learning.

00:43:02.560 --> 00:43:06.951
I mean, it keeps me
going a little bit deeper

00:43:06.951 --> 00:43:08.668
than I think most anyone would

00:43:08.668 --> 00:43:11.725
if they were just doing it
for getting a credential.

00:43:11.725 --> 00:43:15.318
Andrew: Don't medical
schools teach by showing,

00:43:15.318 --> 00:43:18.884
doing teaching method, where
the student gets to learn it,

00:43:18.884 --> 00:43:21.581
gets to do it, and then has
to teach it to someone else

00:43:21.581 --> 00:43:24.087
because when you teach
it, you really absorb it?

00:43:24.087 --> 00:43:27.336
Salman: Yeah. No, and I'm
a huge believer in that.

00:43:27.336 --> 00:43:28.911
I mean, that's, you know, when
I talk about the virtual school.

00:43:28.911 --> 00:43:32.280
That's why I think the
peer to peer is huge.

00:43:32.280 --> 00:43:34.941
I think mastery comes
not just from being able

00:43:34.941 --> 00:43:35.582
to do a lot of problems.

00:43:35.582 --> 00:43:37.528
It really comes from that
exercise of teaching it.

00:43:37.528 --> 00:43:39.169
I mean, I found it with my own experience,

00:43:39.169 --> 00:43:41.232
but if you have kids all over
the world teaching each other,

00:43:41.232 --> 00:43:42.604
and that's why you have
that 1-room schoolhouse

00:43:42.604 --> 00:43:43.387
all of a sudden,

00:43:43.387 --> 00:43:45.451
I think you're just gonna
have a whole other level

00:43:45.451 --> 00:43:47.560
of mastery that doesn't exist right now.

00:43:47.959 --> 00:43:49.334
Andrew: All right, so how do you teach?

00:43:49.334 --> 00:43:51.187
How do you teach tough topics?

00:43:51.756 --> 00:43:52.988
Teach us how to teach,

00:43:52.988 --> 00:43:54.786
because we're all gonna
have to teach our employees,

00:43:54.786 --> 00:43:56.705
we're gonna have to teach
people who we work with,

00:43:56.705 --> 00:43:59.437
we're gonna have to teach others online.

00:43:59.437 --> 00:44:00.186
Salman: Right.

00:44:00.186 --> 00:44:01.791
Well, you know, I think there's
a couple of things here.

00:44:01.791 --> 00:44:03.530
You brought up an
interesting point just now

00:44:03.530 --> 00:44:04.901
when you talk about teaching employees

00:44:04.901 --> 00:44:05.813
and teaching others.

00:44:05.813 --> 00:44:07.399
I'm actually advising some tech companies,

00:44:07.399 --> 00:44:09.566
where they want to build
Khan-type applications

00:44:09.566 --> 00:44:11.124
on their platform and this and that.

00:44:11.124 --> 00:44:14.095
At first, I was writing traditional specs,

00:44:14.095 --> 00:44:15.884
like you would expect a
product manager or whoever

00:44:15.884 --> 00:44:16.892
would write at a company.

00:44:16.892 --> 00:44:18.374
I was like, this is silly.
I make YouTube videos,

00:44:18.374 --> 00:44:21.064
why don't I just do YouTube specs?

00:44:21.064 --> 00:44:22.296
I would literally just make a screen shot,

00:44:22.296 --> 00:44:24.334
and I would just explain what
the interaction should look like,

00:44:24.334 --> 00:44:25.996
and it's 10 times better,

00:44:25.996 --> 00:44:27.247
so I think to a large degree,

00:44:27.247 --> 00:44:30.363
just the form factor makes it way better

00:44:30.363 --> 00:44:31.630
than if I were to write a white paper,

00:44:31.630 --> 00:44:34.572
write a spec, or even if I
were to sit at a whiteboard

00:44:34.572 --> 00:44:36.827
and use my hands and face to drive it.

00:44:36.827 --> 00:44:38.452
One, I think the form
factor of screen capture

00:44:38.452 --> 00:44:42.410
with hand-drawn writing
is pretty powerful.

00:44:42.410 --> 00:44:44.775
Some people told me that cognitively,

00:44:44.775 --> 00:44:47.001
just seeing typing or seeing
a powerpoint presentation

00:44:47.001 --> 00:44:48.309
doesn't really stimulate the brain,

00:44:48.309 --> 00:44:50.964
but seeing someone write
something handwritten

00:44:50.964 --> 00:44:54.312
actually does, and I
kind of feel like that.

00:44:54.312 --> 00:44:56.082
It's also easier for me to produce.

00:44:57.497 --> 00:45:00.587
Beyond that, I think there's,

00:45:01.111 --> 00:45:02.363
you know, what I do is

00:45:02.363 --> 00:45:05.842
just get as comfortable as you
possibly can with the subject,

00:45:05.842 --> 00:45:10.635
and once you get that comfort,
don't script the video.

00:45:10.635 --> 00:45:13.934
Make it as relaxing as possible,
have fun while you're doing it.

00:45:13.934 --> 00:45:15.485
There's actually a gentleman
who's going to start

00:45:15.485 --> 00:45:17.496
translating some of the videos into Urdu,

00:45:17.496 --> 00:45:20.513
and my one feedback, he
did some great videos,

00:45:21.728 --> 00:45:23.795
but I was like, have more fun.

00:45:23.795 --> 00:45:25.934
Energy carries over in our voice,

00:45:25.934 --> 00:45:27.411
especially when you don't see the face.

00:45:27.411 --> 00:45:29.280
You really have to have a
lot of energy in your voice,

00:45:29.280 --> 00:45:32.880
and if you're not having fun,
the student won't have fun.

00:45:32.880 --> 00:45:36.569
Have fun, be relaxed, but really
know what you're talking about.

00:45:36.569 --> 00:45:37.838
Like, don't throw out buzzwords

00:45:37.838 --> 00:45:40.783
without really knowing
what is going on behind it.

00:45:40.783 --> 00:45:41.916
If you're at a company,

00:45:41.916 --> 00:45:45.907
I actually think the
way Khan Academy teaches

00:45:45.907 --> 00:45:48.280
would actually be ideal
instead of whitepapers,

00:45:48.280 --> 00:45:51.942
instead of a lot of what
goes on inside of companies

00:45:51.942 --> 00:45:53.436
to teach people how to do things.

00:45:53.436 --> 00:45:56.260
Just teach your peers, and
teach it as it really is.

00:45:56.260 --> 00:45:58.626
Don't try to look smart yourself
by throwing out buzzwords

00:45:58.626 --> 00:46:00.122
that you don't necessarily understand,

00:46:00.122 --> 00:46:03.010
or that you heard someone
else you think is smart say.

00:46:03.010 --> 00:46:06.577
Just say it in as down-to-earth
of a style as you can.

00:46:06.577 --> 00:46:09.026
Be frank if there is something
that you don't understand,

00:46:09.379 --> 00:46:12.251
and I think people will
respond well to it.

00:46:12.251 --> 00:46:13.862
Andrew: What about the way
that you give background

00:46:13.862 --> 00:46:15.796
before you get into the subject?

00:46:15.796 --> 00:46:17.214
How do you do it?

00:46:17.814 --> 00:46:24.112
Salman: You know, I think
throughout this process

00:46:24.112 --> 00:46:25.102
of making 1,500 videos,

00:46:25.102 --> 00:46:27.021
I've gotten very good at
being a train of thought,

00:46:27.021 --> 00:46:29.008
and I think a lot of
people when they teach,

00:46:29.008 --> 00:46:30.295
they actually close down,

00:46:30.295 --> 00:46:31.808
they actually shut off
a lot of their thoughts

00:46:31.808 --> 00:46:33.293
that may be embarrassing,

00:46:33.293 --> 00:46:35.455
that like, you know,
but when I do a problem,

00:46:35.455 --> 00:46:37.507
there is a little bit of a
neuron that reminds yourself

00:46:37.507 --> 00:46:39.363
that a negative times a
negative is a positive,

00:46:39.363 --> 00:46:40.974
and maybe even remind
yourself why that is,

00:46:40.974 --> 00:46:42.894
and remind yourself, you
know, all of these things

00:46:42.894 --> 00:46:43.863
while you're doing a problem,

00:46:43.863 --> 00:46:47.061
and I lay all that stuff out there.

00:46:47.061 --> 00:46:49.835
Even if you're watching
the vector calculus videos,

00:46:49.835 --> 00:46:52.162
it's literally, I don't assume anything.

00:46:52.162 --> 00:46:53.714
I'm literally doing
stream of consciousness.

00:46:53.714 --> 00:46:55.257
Every thought that's going in my brain,

00:46:55.257 --> 00:46:57.662
you're actually getting on paper,

00:46:57.662 --> 00:47:01.374
so there's no skipped steps, if you will.

00:47:01.374 --> 00:47:02.468
I think there's that.

00:47:02.468 --> 00:47:05.638
Before I do the video, I
do try to really make sure

00:47:05.638 --> 00:47:07.544
I understand the big picture really well,

00:47:07.544 --> 00:47:09.247
and probably, what I think
you're talking about,

00:47:09.247 --> 00:47:10.510
where I give the background,

00:47:10.510 --> 00:47:12.570
that's me articulating the big picture,

00:47:12.570 --> 00:47:14.013
just so I have a framework in my head

00:47:14.013 --> 00:47:15.142
of what we're even doing.

00:47:15.142 --> 00:47:17.080
I think a lot of times, in all subjects,

00:47:17.080 --> 00:47:18.274
once you start getting into it,

00:47:18.274 --> 00:47:20.583
you almost forget what you're
doing in the first place,

00:47:20.583 --> 00:47:24.352
and while I'm doing it,
I like to remind myself,

00:47:24.352 --> 00:47:25.765
"What are we even doing?

00:47:25.765 --> 00:47:28.500
We're on step 50 of this equation.

00:47:28.500 --> 00:47:29.796
What was the whole point to begin with?

00:47:29.796 --> 00:47:31.502
It's good to remind yourself,

00:47:31.502 --> 00:47:33.039
it's good to remind
yourself from the beginning.

00:47:33.039 --> 00:47:34.988
It's not some artificial
teaching technique.

00:47:34.988 --> 00:47:36.273
It's literally, I'm reminding myself.

00:47:36.273 --> 00:47:37.858
I'm reminding myself this is why

00:47:37.858 --> 00:47:39.077
we're doing this problem right now,

00:47:39.077 --> 00:47:40.813
and I think it's valuable for the student.

00:47:40.813 --> 00:47:42.901
I think whatever keeps my energy level up

00:47:42.901 --> 00:47:45.041
while I do the video, will
also keep up the engagement

00:47:45.041 --> 00:47:47.222
and the energy level of the
person observing the video.

00:47:47.222 --> 00:47:48.077
Andrew: I see.

00:47:48.077 --> 00:47:50.548
People have to get that French Revolution.

00:47:50.548 --> 00:47:53.209
I can recommend it before I've
even finished watching it.

00:47:53.209 --> 00:47:54.155
It was so good.

00:47:54.155 --> 00:47:55.450
You even gave us a
little bit of background,

00:47:55.450 --> 00:47:59.110
and you said, "Well, the
French supported America,

00:47:59.110 --> 00:48:01.496
"in the American Revolution,"
and I just thought,

00:48:01.496 --> 00:48:02.967
wow, I wouldn't have
even thought to include

00:48:02.967 --> 00:48:04.197
something like that, but
it really does help me

00:48:04.197 --> 00:48:07.315
understand what's about to happen here.

00:48:08.268 --> 00:48:09.825
It does, it's a great reminder.

00:48:10.517 --> 00:48:13.542
How do you make it feel
interactive, when it's just you

00:48:13.542 --> 00:48:16.305
and it's not even your face in the video,

00:48:16.305 --> 00:48:19.389
how do you make it feel like
you're engaging the person?

00:48:20.189 --> 00:48:22.396
Well, you know, I think
there's a couple of things.

00:48:22.396 --> 00:48:24.569
I think, once again, we
talked about the form factor,

00:48:24.569 --> 00:48:25.970
how it looks, but it's also the videos are

00:48:25.970 --> 00:48:27.118
on average 10 minutes.

00:48:27.118 --> 00:48:28.709
These history videos go a
little bit longer than that.

00:48:29.724 --> 00:48:31.145
But I think because it's 10 minutes,

00:48:31.145 --> 00:48:33.958
the person goes into that
video wanting that video.

00:48:34.250 --> 00:48:36.034
It's not like they're
getting a 90-minute lecture

00:48:36.034 --> 00:48:38.796
which may engage them for part of it.

00:48:38.796 --> 00:48:41.639
I mean, it's almost like, the
act of clicking on a video

00:48:41.639 --> 00:48:43.152
is almost like asking a question.

00:48:43.152 --> 00:48:45.929
Like, "Tell me more about
the French Revolution,"

00:48:45.929 --> 00:48:48.971
or, "Tell me more about
Napoleonic Campaigns in Russia,"

00:48:48.971 --> 00:48:50.748
and so it's literally just addressing

00:48:50.748 --> 00:48:52.754
that exact need you have right there,

00:48:52.754 --> 00:48:53.930
and I think the other thing's just,

00:48:53.930 --> 00:48:55.368
you know, I think it's the form factor.

00:48:55.368 --> 00:48:56.454
it's a little bit of my tone.

00:48:56.454 --> 00:48:57.245
I'm conversational.

00:48:57.245 --> 00:48:59.761
I mean, literally, the
tone I use in the video

00:48:59.761 --> 00:49:01.924
is not at all different than
the tone I'm using right now.

00:49:01.924 --> 00:49:04.125
it's not at all like a lecture.

00:49:04.125 --> 00:49:05.206
"The next step in this,"

00:49:05.206 --> 00:49:06.506
it's not that at all.

00:49:07.121 --> 00:49:09.309
Andrew: How many of them do you do a day?

00:49:09.309 --> 00:49:10.131
Salman: It depends what I'm doing.

00:49:10.131 --> 00:49:12.363
When I was doing French Revolution

00:49:12.363 --> 00:49:14.291
or when I'm doing some of the more complex

00:49:14.291 --> 00:49:17.030
biological biochemistry-type mechanisms,

00:49:17.030 --> 00:49:20.519
then I'm lucky to be able
to do 2 or 3 in a day.

00:49:20.519 --> 00:49:23.120
There's other things that
are taking up my time now,

00:49:23.120 --> 00:49:24.742
which I'm trying to shut off.

00:49:24.742 --> 00:49:26.477
I mean, running an organization,

00:49:26.477 --> 00:49:28.066
well, I'm trying to automate
as much of that as possible,

00:49:28.066 --> 00:49:31.039
but right now, I'm doing
a lot of worked examples

00:49:31.039 --> 00:49:34.930
for the Monterey Institute
in Algebra 1 worked examples,

00:49:34.930 --> 00:49:36.228
where they just gave
me a bunch of examples.

00:49:36.228 --> 00:49:37.300
I'll say, "Yeah, I'll do them for you,

00:49:37.300 --> 00:49:38.597
"as long as I can put
them on Khan Academy."

00:49:38.597 --> 00:49:41.322
These are just literally
just algebra problems,

00:49:41.322 --> 00:49:43.670
so I'm doing right now
about 10 videos a day

00:49:43.670 --> 00:49:45.902
for the algebra problems.

00:49:45.902 --> 00:49:46.852
Andrew: And who is this for?

00:49:46.852 --> 00:49:47.784
For the Monterey ... ?

00:49:47.784 --> 00:49:50.369
Salman: Monterey Institute
of Technology and Education.

00:49:50.369 --> 00:49:52.682
They got a grant to build this course

00:49:52.682 --> 00:49:55.637
and this and that, and this
is another interesting thing.

00:49:55.637 --> 00:49:56.734
As you know, going back
to what we talked about

00:49:56.734 --> 00:49:57.286
in the very beginning.

00:49:57.286 --> 00:49:59.294
A lot of people in the
world are talking about

00:49:59.294 --> 00:50:01.510
making open video content available,

00:50:01.510 --> 00:50:03.421
and we should get good
teachers to put stuff up,

00:50:03.421 --> 00:50:04.371
and we'll do all this analytics.

00:50:04.371 --> 00:50:05.546
When it comes to execution,

00:50:05.546 --> 00:50:09.253
there's, you know, they had
gotten this, and I told them,

00:50:09.253 --> 00:50:10.418
I was like, "Look, I don't
know what you're doing,

00:50:10.418 --> 00:50:11.554
"or how much money you're spending on it,

00:50:11.554 --> 00:50:13.226
"but whatever you're
spending on it, you know, "

00:50:13.226 --> 00:50:17.084
I'm sure I'll be able to do it
for, like, a tenth of the cost,

00:50:17.084 --> 00:50:19.133
"as long as you're willing
to donate it to Khan Academy,

00:50:19.133 --> 00:50:20.798
"and I think you're gonna
find it more engaging

00:50:20.798 --> 00:50:22.762
"because it's not gonna be
scripted, it's just gonna be."

00:50:22.762 --> 00:50:23.700
And they're like, "Oh, great.

00:50:23.700 --> 00:50:24.307
"We've written all the problems.

00:50:24.307 --> 00:50:24.918
"We can send you the scripts."

00:50:24.918 --> 00:50:25.704
And it's just like, "Don't
send me the scripts.

00:50:25.704 --> 00:50:30.035
"It'll ruin everything that is
good about the Khan Academy."

00:50:30.035 --> 00:50:30.910
And so they sent it,

00:50:30.910 --> 00:50:34.403
and I've, over 10 videos
a day, you very quickly,

00:50:34.403 --> 00:50:36.894
you can churn out about
100 videos in not too long,

00:50:36.894 --> 00:50:37.834
and they'd be done.

00:50:37.834 --> 00:50:39.202
I think when they probably started,

00:50:39.202 --> 00:50:40.896
they thought it was this
huge, grand project,

00:50:40.896 --> 00:50:42.717
that'll actually be
done in a couple weeks.

00:50:43.778 --> 00:50:44.997
Andrew: I've got one other question here,

00:50:44.997 --> 00:50:46.258
and I wasn't sure if I
should ask it or not,

00:50:46.258 --> 00:50:48.306
but I've got to ask it because
I think it's important.

00:50:50.013 --> 00:50:51.624
You and your wife, you moved to one of

00:50:51.624 --> 00:50:54.550
the most expensive parts of the country.

00:50:54.550 --> 00:50:56.101
you're living in Northern California.

00:50:56.101 --> 00:50:59.849
You're living around people
who are making tons of cash.

00:51:00.495 --> 00:51:03.992
I gotta believe you've got
some expectation of lifestyle

00:51:03.992 --> 00:51:05.653
and your wife does too,

00:51:05.653 --> 00:51:07.284
and suddenly you come home September,

00:51:07.284 --> 00:51:08.863
and you say, "Honey, I quit."

00:51:08.863 --> 00:51:09.907
How do you deal with that?

00:51:09.907 --> 00:51:12.028
How did the two of you ...

00:51:12.028 --> 00:51:13.166
How do you deal with that?

00:51:13.166 --> 00:51:14.700
What's the story there?

00:51:14.700 --> 00:51:17.702
Salman: Well, you know, I think it's ...

00:51:17.702 --> 00:51:23.285
Well, you know, I think
the Sal before marriage

00:51:23.285 --> 00:51:27.878
and before son would have
been much more obsessed

00:51:27.878 --> 00:51:31.304
with kind of keeping up with the peers,

00:51:31.304 --> 00:51:33.835
in terms of lifestyle and all of that.

00:51:33.835 --> 00:51:35.701
Well, you know, I think once you ...

00:51:37.024 --> 00:51:40.963
When I really seriously introspect
on where I find joy in my life,

00:51:40.963 --> 00:51:43.381
it really does not come from a,

00:51:43.381 --> 00:51:45.155
we're not living like,

00:51:45.155 --> 00:51:49.956
I have saved enough
from my hedge fund days.

00:51:49.956 --> 00:51:53.028
Not a lot by Valley standards,

00:51:53.028 --> 00:51:55.831
but enough for me to not feel like

00:51:55.831 --> 00:51:58.156
living off of savings for
a year was going to kill us

00:51:58.156 --> 00:52:00.575
or prevent my kid from going to
college or anything like that,

00:52:00.575 --> 00:52:02.602
so I'd saved enough there.

00:52:02.602 --> 00:52:07.470
You know, we live in a
2,200-square foot house,

00:52:07.470 --> 00:52:10.016
in a nice part of Mountain View,

00:52:10.016 --> 00:52:12.150
which is not the fanciest neighborhood,

00:52:12.150 --> 00:52:13.351
but it's a really nice neighborhood,

00:52:13.351 --> 00:52:15.445
and the weather's good.

00:52:15.445 --> 00:52:16.827
Andrew: Did you have to convince her,

00:52:16.827 --> 00:52:17.860
did you have to explain to her,

00:52:17.860 --> 00:52:19.451
"Listen, I gotta do this,"

00:52:19.451 --> 00:52:21.266
or did she understand?

00:52:21.266 --> 00:52:22.535
Salman: She, no, you know,

00:52:22.535 --> 00:52:25.334
well, I think, a couple of the ...

00:52:25.334 --> 00:52:27.243
The first few iterations
when I thought about it,

00:52:27.243 --> 00:52:30.363
she was very like, "What,
you're gonna give up that job

00:52:30.363 --> 00:52:33.147
"where every year you're making 50% more

00:52:33.147 --> 00:52:34.892
"than the year you made before?"

00:52:34.892 --> 00:52:37.854
I mean, the thing about
these careers lke hedge funds

00:52:37.854 --> 00:52:39.699
or banking, really, is that they say,

00:52:39.699 --> 00:52:41.223
well, you know, hey,
stick around next year,

00:52:41.223 --> 00:52:42.224
and you're gonna make more than you made

00:52:42.224 --> 00:52:43.607
the last 5 years combined,

00:52:43.607 --> 00:52:44.568
and you're like, "Gee, that's, you know.

00:52:44.568 --> 00:52:46.049
"Maybe I should," and she's like,

00:52:46.049 --> 00:52:48.363
my wife is not materialistic at all,

00:52:48.363 --> 00:52:51.165
but for anyone, it's just like,
"Gee, that would really like,

00:52:51.165 --> 00:52:53.470
"not only allow us, yeah,
we could buy a nice house

00:52:53.470 --> 00:52:55.436
and then we could even
support our parents."

00:52:55.436 --> 00:52:56.470
I mean, there's all sorts of things.

00:52:56.470 --> 00:52:58.464
You can always think of more
things to do with resources,

00:52:58.464 --> 00:53:02.808
but when you really kind of
sit down and think about,

00:53:03.654 --> 00:53:06.718
you know, I used to play a
game with a lot of friends.

00:53:06.718 --> 00:53:08.621
It was like, "How much is enough?"

00:53:08.959 --> 00:53:11.111
What do you need so that
you really don't need,

00:53:11.111 --> 00:53:12.690
and everything above that is just gravy

00:53:12.690 --> 00:53:15.647
in some type of competitive
whatever, you know, who knows?

00:53:15.647 --> 00:53:18.736
You know, people out here,
they throw out 5 million,

00:53:18.736 --> 00:53:20.570
10 million, 15, I mean, you know.

00:53:21.923 --> 00:53:23.559
That's way above enough.

00:53:23.559 --> 00:53:28.416
I mean, for me, enough
was below 7 figures.

00:53:28.416 --> 00:53:31.865
I mean, I'm now taking a
salary with Khan Academy.

00:53:31.865 --> 00:53:36.617
I quit my job convinced that,
"Gee, I'm a complete dummy

00:53:36.617 --> 00:53:37.930
"if I don't convince someone that this is

00:53:37.930 --> 00:53:40.985
the highest return on social investment."

00:53:40.985 --> 00:53:43.697
I mean, for the cost of a preschool,

00:53:43.697 --> 00:53:46.920
we can be educating millions
of people for all of time,

00:53:46.920 --> 00:53:47.903
and it's not even like a school where

00:53:47.903 --> 00:53:49.775
if the funding dries out,
that the school disappears.

00:53:49.775 --> 00:53:50.868
No, the content will be there.

00:53:50.868 --> 00:53:54.058
It'll be there on iTunes
and YouTube forever.

00:53:54.058 --> 00:53:57.480
I was like, "Gee, I gotta be
able to convince somebody,"

00:53:57.480 --> 00:53:58.422
and it is kind of,

00:53:58.422 --> 00:54:00.460
and being in the Valley
is a big benefit there

00:54:00.460 --> 00:54:02.073
because I think people
here more than anywhere,

00:54:02.073 --> 00:54:03.679
one, there is capital.

00:54:03.679 --> 00:54:05.285
People have resources,

00:54:05.285 --> 00:54:06.263
and they see that.

00:54:06.263 --> 00:54:08.080
They don't, you know, they don't,

00:54:08.080 --> 00:54:12.526
they're not as swayed by the
touchy-feely nice picture

00:54:12.526 --> 00:54:15.779
and please give some money and help.

00:54:15.779 --> 00:54:17.946
They understand things at scale.

00:54:17.946 --> 00:54:19.787
They understand when there's something

00:54:19.787 --> 00:54:21.121
that has broad impact,

00:54:21.121 --> 00:54:22.999
and they understand return on investment,

00:54:22.999 --> 00:54:27.224
and so yeah, I kind of veered
off track a little bit,

00:54:27.224 --> 00:54:28.126
but I think the simple answer's

00:54:28.126 --> 00:54:31.467
I had enough, and enough
was below 7 figures,

00:54:31.467 --> 00:54:33.872
but enough that I could put a down payment

00:54:33.872 --> 00:54:35.935
on a 4-bedroom house in Mountain View.

00:54:35.935 --> 00:54:39.061
We have 2 relatively-new Hondas,

00:54:39.061 --> 00:54:42.210
and I'm now able to take
a salary from Khan Academy

00:54:42.210 --> 00:54:44.328
doing exactly, you know,
I tell people if I had,

00:54:44.328 --> 00:54:48.734
if you wrote me a check
for $5 billion 5 years ago,

00:54:48.734 --> 00:54:50.732
I would have probably bought a house

00:54:50.732 --> 00:54:52.106
maybe a little nicer than this house,

00:54:52.106 --> 00:54:55.514
but my day would have been spent

00:54:55.514 --> 00:54:56.597
making YouTube videos.

00:54:56.597 --> 00:54:57.486
It wouldn't have changed.

00:54:57.486 --> 00:54:58.747
Now I get to do it anyway,

00:54:58.747 --> 00:55:01.591
and so why chase the $5 billion,

00:55:01.591 --> 00:55:03.397
which already would have a low probability

00:55:03.397 --> 00:55:04.219
of happening anyway,

00:55:04.219 --> 00:55:07.626
and I'd probably just end
up 40 or 50 years old,

00:55:07.626 --> 00:55:10.326
just probably with some
amount of money in my bank,

00:55:10.326 --> 00:55:11.839
and just say, "Gee, what have I done?"

00:55:11.839 --> 00:55:12.618
I haven't had ...

00:55:12.618 --> 00:55:14.469
Now, with Khan Academy,
every day I'm excited

00:55:14.469 --> 00:55:15.349
about what I've done.

00:55:15.349 --> 00:55:16.307
I was like, "Okay, I've done these videos.

00:55:16.307 --> 00:55:17.402
"Kids are already watching it.

00:55:17.402 --> 00:55:18.884
"This is churning, gaining momentum.

00:55:18.884 --> 00:55:20.190
"It could turn into a new type of school."

00:55:20.190 --> 00:55:22.622
I mean, it boggles the mind.

00:55:22.622 --> 00:55:24.208
I tell my wife every day,

00:55:24.208 --> 00:55:26.602
I mean, literally every
night, I'm boggled by

00:55:26.602 --> 00:55:29.934
how fortunate I am that
this wide-open opportunity

00:55:29.934 --> 00:55:31.277
to do something really big

00:55:31.277 --> 00:55:33.020
is just there, and no one's been doing it.

00:55:33.020 --> 00:55:34.678
I mean, I want more people to do it.

00:55:34.678 --> 00:55:36.283
I don't want it to be like only Sal,

00:55:36.283 --> 00:55:39.521
but it's this wide-open opportunity
to really change things,

00:55:39.521 --> 00:55:41.156
and all the technology has
kind of fallen into place,

00:55:41.156 --> 00:55:45.492
and I think the way to do
it is on a not-for-profit,

00:55:45.492 --> 00:55:47.678
because I think that's what
allowed all of the inertia

00:55:47.678 --> 00:55:48.603
and the good will,

00:55:48.603 --> 00:55:50.256
and it actually kept me straight,

00:55:50.256 --> 00:55:51.479
in terms of my goals.

00:55:51.479 --> 00:55:53.758
I think if I did it on a for-profit basis,

00:55:53.758 --> 00:55:55.432
very quickly, I'd be like,

00:55:55.432 --> 00:55:56.419
"Oh, in order to monetize it,

00:55:56.419 --> 00:55:58.358
"I have to go to this part of
the market, and I have to get,"

00:55:58.358 --> 00:56:00.763
and I start charging for some
part earlier than I should,

00:56:00.763 --> 00:56:02.905
and that people wouldn't even learn.

00:56:02.905 --> 00:56:04.646
Like you experienced a Khan Academy video,

00:56:04.646 --> 00:56:06.512
and you say, "Wow. That's
a really good video."

00:56:06.512 --> 00:56:09.203
If I put even a 50-cent
barrier on that video,

00:56:09.203 --> 00:56:10.336
you would have never experienced it,

00:56:10.336 --> 00:56:12.242
and for me, that wouldn't have been fun.

00:56:12.242 --> 00:56:13.204
Let me put it this way,

00:56:13.204 --> 00:56:16.855
if I had $10 million in the bank,

00:56:16.855 --> 00:56:20.219
and 5,000 people watching these videos

00:56:20.219 --> 00:56:23.080
versus I have 100 grand in the bank,

00:56:23.080 --> 00:56:27.090
and 50 million people
are watching the videos,

00:56:27.090 --> 00:56:29.230
that is a much more
satisfying outcome for me

00:56:29.230 --> 00:56:30.741
than the former.

00:56:30.741 --> 00:56:32.740
That's why I'm doing it like this.

00:56:32.740 --> 00:56:35.567
Andrew: This is an
incredibly inspiring story.

00:56:35.567 --> 00:56:36.919
I'll leave it there.

00:56:36.919 --> 00:56:39.181
I'm grateful to you for coming here

00:56:39.181 --> 00:56:40.033
and doing this interview.

00:56:40.033 --> 00:56:41.143
I know you probably could have whipped up

00:56:41.143 --> 00:56:43.305
5 different videos today for Khan Academy.

00:56:43.305 --> 00:56:44.285
Salman: Oh, I know. I
have to catch up now.

00:56:44.285 --> 00:56:45.297
Andrew: Sorry?

00:56:45.297 --> 00:56:46.716
Salman: I have to catch up now.

00:56:46.716 --> 00:56:47.852
Andrew: You have to catch up now.

00:56:47.852 --> 00:56:49.194
(Sal laughs)

00:56:49.194 --> 00:56:50.280
A few people, as we were talking,

00:56:50.280 --> 00:56:52.418
came up with suggestions
for what you should do

00:56:52.418 --> 00:56:55.448
to tweak your YouTube video
channel to get more viewers.

00:56:55.448 --> 00:56:57.710
I couldn't understand it well enough

00:56:57.710 --> 00:56:59.219
to explain to you what
they were suggesting,

00:56:59.219 --> 00:57:00.707
are you open to those suggestions?

00:57:00.707 --> 00:57:01.929
Should they email you directly?

00:57:01.929 --> 00:57:03.111
Salman: Yeah, well, you know,

00:57:03.111 --> 00:57:04.144
there's a couple of ...

00:57:04.144 --> 00:57:08.021
Yeah, they should email
sal@khanacademy.org.

00:57:08.021 --> 00:57:11.160
The software piece is
an open source effort,

00:57:11.160 --> 00:57:13.090
and the few developers
who've started working on it,

00:57:13.090 --> 00:57:14.165
I mean, they've been rock stars,

00:57:14.165 --> 00:57:15.428
and I'm very open.

00:57:15.428 --> 00:57:17.051
They're like, "Hey, you
know your knowledge map

00:57:17.051 --> 00:57:19.035
that you drew out, it should
have arrows instead of arcs,

00:57:19.035 --> 00:57:19.689
because, you know ..."

00:57:19.689 --> 00:57:20.918
I was like, "Yeah, put arrows in there."

00:57:20.918 --> 00:57:23.688
I'm a big believer in put stuff out there

00:57:23.688 --> 00:57:25.931
and iterate, and keep repeating
as quickly as possible,

00:57:25.931 --> 00:57:29.423
and it should, as long as
the people iterating it

00:57:29.423 --> 00:57:31.461
aren't doing really silly things,

00:57:31.461 --> 00:57:32.800
it should move forward.

00:57:32.800 --> 00:57:34.043
Andrew: All right.

00:57:34.043 --> 00:57:35.171
Well, thanks, guys.

00:57:35.171 --> 00:57:36.775
If you have any feedback, any suggestions,

00:57:36.775 --> 00:57:38.177
if you want to be a
part of this in any way,

00:57:38.177 --> 00:57:41.479
sal@khanacademy.com

00:57:41.479 --> 00:57:42.673
Salman: Dot org.

00:57:42.673 --> 00:57:44.436
Andrew: dot org, right.

00:57:44.436 --> 00:57:46.190
sal@khanacademy.org,

00:57:46.190 --> 00:57:47.456
but you also have the dotcom.

00:57:47.456 --> 00:57:48.685
Salman: No, I don't.

00:57:48.685 --> 00:57:49.842
Andrew: You don't?

00:57:49.842 --> 00:57:51.135
has the dotcom. I don't own the dotcom.

00:57:51.135 --> 00:57:54.723
Andrew: Who is the evil son
of a bitch who has the dotcom,

00:57:54.723 --> 00:57:56.052
who does not love kids enough to ...

00:57:56.052 --> 00:57:58.621
Salman: I don't know.
It actually came off of,

00:57:58.621 --> 00:58:00.999
I almost was able to get
it, and then someone got it.

00:58:00.999 --> 00:58:01.758
I don't know.

00:58:01.758 --> 00:58:03.447
There are people more sophisticated

00:58:03.447 --> 00:58:05.278
at squatting domain names than I am.

00:58:05.278 --> 00:58:07.899
Andrew: I guess so. Somebody
get that domain back for him.

00:58:07.899 --> 00:58:09.441
If anyone out there is listening,

00:58:09.441 --> 00:58:11.153
get that domain back.

00:58:11.153 --> 00:58:12.650
All right. Thank you.

00:58:12.650 --> 00:58:14.289
In all seriousness, thank
you for doing this interview,

00:58:14.289 --> 00:58:15.932
and I'm really looking
forward to this weekend

00:58:15.932 --> 00:58:16.969
and watching your videos.

00:58:16.969 --> 00:58:18.273
Salman: Oh, great. Thanks a lot.

00:58:18.273 --> 00:58:20.448
Andrew: Cool. Bye.