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從斯坦福走向硅谷的大學教授

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從斯坦福走向硅谷的大學教授

It is less than a quarter of an hour’s drive down Route 101 from the village-like campus of Stanford University to Mountain View, the Silicon Valley home of Udacity.

從莊園般的斯坦福大學(Standford University)校園出發,沿着101號路,駕車來到Udacity所在的硅谷山景城(Mountain View),只需要不到一刻鐘的時間。

This was the journey Sebastian Thrun, the online education company’s chief executive and co-founder, made in 2012 when he cleared his desk at the computer science department to focus on a way of teaching business skills differently.

這正是這家在線教育公司首席執行官兼共同創始人塞巴斯蒂安礠飼(Sebastian Thrun)在2012年走過的路。當時,他清空了在計算機系的辦公桌,將精力集中於一種全新的傳授商業技能的方式。

His new life as a tech entrepreneur is about as different to his tenured faculty post as Udacity’s modern headquarters, in an office block next door to the sprawling car park of a Target hypermarket, is from the Spanish colonial architecture of Stanford.

作爲科技企業創業者的新生活,與他終身教職生活之間的區別,大約和Udacity的現代化總部大樓與斯坦福大學西班牙殖民時代建築之間的區別差不多。Udacity的總部在一個辦公大樓內,旁邊是一家塔吉特(Target)超市的巨大停車場。

While this new life among the tech industry’s elite may make some professors wince, the 48-year-old Mr Thrun, a German expat, looks every inch the Valley entrepreneur when we meet, with his shaved head, black T-shirt, jeans and flame red running shoes.

這種在高科技產業精英中的新生活,可能會令某些大學教授望而卻步。然而,在我們相見之時,現年48歲的德國人特龍,看起來卻是一名十足的硅谷企業家。他剃着光頭,身着黑色T恤、牛仔褲、以及一雙火紅色的跑鞋。

“The beauty of Silicon Valley is that people are literally fearless,” Mr Thrun says, after we settle into one of the glass walled meeting rooms, named after characters in the Doctor Who and Transformers franchises.

我們在一間玻璃牆面的會議室坐定之後,特龍說:“硅谷的美妙之處在於,這裏的人們真正是無所畏懼。”這裏的會議室都是以《神祕博士》(Doctor Who)和《變形金剛》(Transformers)系列中的人物命名的。

The belief that the education market is ripe for “disruption”, as it is put in the Silicon Valley vernacular, has led to a mushrooming in ed tech start-ups seeking to create new platforms for teaching. Downloadable videos, known as Moocs (massive open online courses), for example, are now a tool for delivering learning to anyone with Internet access.

用硅谷的流行語言來說,“顛覆”教育市場的時機已經成熟。在這種信念的影響下,一系列教育類科技創業型企業如雨後春筍般出現,試圖建立新的教學平臺。比如,被稱爲“大型網絡公開課”(Massive Open Online Courses,簡稱“慕課”(Mooc))的可下載視頻,如今已成爲向所有互聯網用戶提供學習機會的工具。

With Google X – a semi-secret facility dedicated to making technological advancements, including driverless cars and Internet-connected glasses -also on his CV, Mr Thrun is seen as the market’s most innovative thinker. He is credited with creating the first big Mooc hit, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, while he was still teaching at Stanford.

曾在Google X工作的特龍,被視爲這一市場中最具創新能力的思想家。Google X是一個處於半保密狀態的部門,致力於開展包括無人駕駛汽車和互聯網眼鏡在內的高科技研發。特龍因開設了首門轟動性慕課——《人工智能導論》(Introduction to Artificial Intelligence)——而受到讚譽,當時他還在斯坦福大學教書。

Udacity is one of the “big three” in the market, alongside neighbouring start-up Coursera and Boston-based EdX, which between them boast the largest collections of Moocs.

Udacity是在線教育市場的“三巨頭”之一。另外兩大巨頭分別是同爲硅谷鄰居的創業型企業Coursera,以及位於波士頓的EdX,這兩家總共擁有的慕課數量是最多的。

Although his presentations at the time were extremely low-tech, recorded on a digital camera in his living room, 160,000 people from 190 countries signed up to the course within days, including young men dodging attacks in Afghanistan.

當時,他的課程使用的技術十分低級,是在他的起居室裏用一臺數碼攝像機錄製的。儘管如此,幾天之內就有來自190個國家的16萬人報名參加了這一課程,其中包括正在躲避襲擊的阿富汗年輕人。

The power of networks and sharing

網絡與分享的力量

As Moocs evolved, however, it became apparent that as few as three per cent of students signing up to courses would complete them. So while others tried to copy Mr Thrun’s model, he was among the first to claim that Moocs were not actually the panacea to the market they had first appeared.

不過,隨着慕課的發展,人們發現,在報名參加慕課的學生中,似乎只有3%能完成課程學習。因此,雖然其他人也試圖複製特龍的成功模式,特龍卻較早提出,在線教育市場上最先出現的慕課,其實並不能一勞永逸地解決這個市場的所有問題。

Instead, he created a model at Udacity based on supplying credentials, called nanodegrees, that cost a fraction of the cost of traditional programmes and are endorsed by employers.

於是,他在Udacity創立了一種新模式,提供被稱爲微學位(nanodegree)的證書。這種證書所需成本只有傳統教育項目成本的零頭,並且得到僱主的認可。

“We want to be the Uber of education,” Mr Thrun claims, following the start-up convention of comparing one’s business model to the current darling of the VC community.

特龍聲稱:“我們想成爲教育界的優步(Uber)。”這番言論沿襲了創業型企業將自己的商業模式與風投圈現在的寵兒相比擬的習慣。

There is some justification for this metaphor given that both Udacity and Uber use a network of freelancers paid per piece of work they perform. In the case of Uber, this means taxi drivers, while Udacity uses the marking skills of academic staff, cross checking nanodegree students’ work through a process of peer review.

這一比喻有一定道理,原因是Udacity和優步都使用了由自由職業者組成的網絡,按照他們完成的每份工作支付報酬。優步使用的是指出租車司機組成的網絡,而Udacity使用的則是學術人員的打分技能,通過一種同行評議的過程,實現對微學位學員學習成果的交叉檢查。

The list of academics on Udacity’s books is now in triple figures, many of whom are retired computer science professors. “We have a guy in South Africa who makes $11,000 a month,” says Mr Thrun.

如今,Udacity賬本上的學者名單有三位數之多,其中許多都是計算機科學領域的退休教授。特龍表示:“我們有一位老師在南非,每個月賺1.1萬美元。”

The selling points of such “sharing economy” models are not just that they provide work to professionals and enable companies to expand operations relatively easily, but that they create a network effect where the service gets better the more people get involved.

這種“分享經濟”模式的賣點,不僅僅是向專業人士提供了工作,令企業能夠相對容易地擴大業務,還在於它產生了一種網絡效應——參與的人越多,服務越好。

Mr Thrun’s premise is that the way people learn and the way companies are prepared to fund this has changed so dramatically that old models of teaching need to be replaced with more flexible techniques.

特龍的假設是,人們學習的方式和企業準備爲這一過程提供資金的方式已發生了極大改變,舊的教學模式必須由更加靈活的技術代替。

Flexibility is key to competition

靈活性是競爭力的關鍵

The first of Udacity’s online courses, in web development and data analytics, was launched in September 2014 through a partnership with US telecoms provider AT&T. To date, some 5,000 people have enrolled on it with AT&T offering 100 paid internships to those completing the course. Some 20 other tech companies have since become Udacity partners, including Google, Salesforce and Cloudera.

Udacity第一門在線課程是有關網絡開發和數據分析的,該課程於2014年9月與美國電信服務提供商AT&T合作推出。截至今天,已有約5000人註冊了這一課程,AT&T面向完成這一課程的人提供100個帶薪實習崗位。自那以來,包括谷歌(Google)、Salesforce、和Cloudera在內,已有另外約20家高科技企業成爲Udacity的合作伙伴。

“We get 90 per cent finishing rates on courses,” Mr Thrun boasts. However, he cannot afford to rest on his laurels as competition in the market is heating up (see sidebar). There is also a need to keep Udacity’s business model flexible, given that online teaching is still an evolving market, where the one certainty is that no one has yet gained a clear lead.

特龍自豪地說:“我們的課程完成率達到了90%。”不過,在線教育市場競爭日益激烈,他也不敢躺在過往的成績上睡大覺。此外,他還必須保持Udacity商業模式的靈活性,原因是在線教育是個仍在發展變化的市場,關於這個市場唯一確定的一點是還沒有人明顯領先。

Rewards for educational innovation

教育創新的回報

Mr Thrun knows what he doesn’t want for his company; professors in tenure, which he claims limits the ability to react to market demands. “Android has over a billion users now, but you would be hard pressed to hear of a single college that provides courses in Android.”

特龍知道他不希望他的企業有什麼,那就是擁有終身教職的教授。他聲稱,終身教職會限制他們迴應市場需求的能力。“目前,Android擁有逾10億用戶。但是,你很難聽到任何一所大學提供有關Android的課程。”

He is clearly keen to stimulate more blue sky thinking about solving the education challenge he has set himself.

很明顯,對於如何解決他自己提出的教育領域的挑戰,他急於激發出一些更加天馬行空的想法。

“What I have done instead is hire some very young people. Almost 50 per cent female. Average age is 28.

“我所做的是聘用一些非常年輕的人。其中將近一半是女性,平均年齡是28歲。

“I want people with fresh ideas. People with a passion for it. What I do is just unleash their potential.”

“我想要的是擁有新鮮觀點的人,是對此充滿熱情的人。我所做的只是釋放出他們的潛能。”

Being in Silicon Valley’s heartlands, where working on a start-up is the norm, is vital for this reason, explains Mr Thrun. He claims it would be harder to develop such a business in another part of the world and certainly not in an existing academic institution. “People in education are risk averse,” he says. “They want to build Steinways. I like to think of us having the impact Ikea has.”

特龍解釋說,出於這個原因,把公司設在硅谷心臟地帶至關重要,因爲在這裏爲創業型企業工作是種常態。他聲稱,在世界其他地區發展這樣的企業將更加困難,而在現有學術機構中發展這類企業則完全不可能。他說:“教育系統中的人都不喜歡冒險。他們想要打造的是像施坦威(Steinway)那樣的百年老店。我則喜歡把我們視爲與宜家(Ikea)有同樣影響的企業。”

One of Mr Thrun’s ideas to stimulate creative thinking in Udacity has been to reward suggestions with bottles of wine. In less than a month, he has given more than 12 away. “I want to make it almost mandatory what people can do without fear,” he says.

在Udacity,特龍激勵創造性思維的一個辦法是,提建議就獎葡萄酒。在不到一個月的時間內,他已發放了不止12瓶葡萄酒。他說:“我想要把人們拋棄恐懼後可以做到的事情變成他們必須做到的事情。”

Edtech competitors find partners to scale up

教育科技業競爭者借合作伙伴擴大規模

Down the road from Udacity, Coursera has been building partnerships with commercial organisations and the world’s top universities, including Stanford (photo of campus on left), to offer free courses online for the masses.

在Udacity旁邊不遠處,Coursera已經和多家商業機構以及斯坦福等全球頂尖大學建立了合作關係,向公衆提供免費的在線課程。

NovoEd, also created by former Stanford professors, is building similar partnerships for online learning.

同樣由曾經的斯坦福大學教授創辦的NovoEd,正在爲在線學習建立類似的合作關係。

These companies have considerable war chests to fund the competitive battle. Coursera has raised more than $85m for its effort, an increase on the $55m Udacity has raised since its launch three years ago.

這些企業都坐擁大量資金,供他們開展激烈的競爭。Coursera已募集逾8500萬美元用於競爭,超過了Udacity自三年前成立以來籌集的5500萬美元。

In his defence, Udacity co-founder and chief executive Sebastian Thrun says: “Taking on all of education is like boiling the ambition is to make the experience of working at Udacity the best experience of people’s lives. But letting go of people [is] a liberation. I make them a task to find a new job. Many times I find people say thank you for firing doesn’t always work but I think it works most of the time.

這位Udacity的共同創始人兼首席執行官這樣爲自己辯護:“意圖拿下全部教育市場無異於想要燒開整個海洋……我的志向是,令在Udacity的工作經歷,成爲人們生命中的最佳體驗。不過,讓人們離開是對他們的一種解放。我讓他們把找到新工作當做一項任務。我曾多次遇到人們對我說,謝謝您解僱我……這種方式並不總是有效,但我認爲多數情況下是奏效的。”

“I have an ego but I don’t [say] I know everything. A lot of the decisions I have made were bad decisions,” he adds. “People in the Valley are both arrogant and extremely humble.”

他還說:“我比較自信,不過我不會(說)我什麼都知道。我所做的決策許多都很糟糕。硅谷人既自負,同時又極度謙卑。”