从斯坦福走向硅谷的大学教授

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　　从庄园般的斯坦福大学(Standford University)校园出发，沿着101号路，驾车来到Udacity所在的硅谷山景城(Mountain View)，只需要不到一刻钟的时间。

　　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.

　　这正是这家在线教育公司首席执行官兼共同创始人塞巴斯蒂安礠饲(Sebastian Thrun)在2012年走过的路。当时，他清空了在计算机系的办公桌，将精力集中于一种全新的传授商业技能的方式。

　　His new life as a tech entrepreneur is about as different to his tenured faculty³ post as Udacity’s modern headquarters, in an office block next door to the sprawling⁴ car park of a Target hypermarket, is from the Spanish colonial architecture of Stanford.

　　作为科技企业创业者的新生活，与他终身教职生活之间的区别，大约和Udacity的现代化总部大楼与斯坦福大学西班牙殖民时代建筑之间的区别差不多。Udacity的总部在一个办公大楼内，旁边是一家塔吉特(Target)超市的巨大停车场。

　　While this new life among the tech industry’s elite⁵ may make some professors wince⁶, 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.

　　这种在高科技产业精英中的新生活，可能会令某些大学教授望而却步。然而，在我们相见之时，现年48岁的德国人特龙，看起来却是一名十足的硅谷企业家。他剃着光头，身着黑色T恤、牛仔裤、以及一双火红色的跑鞋。

　　“The beauty of Silicon Valley is that people are literally⁷ fearless,” Mr Thrun says, after we settle into one of the glass walled meeting rooms, named after characters in the Doctor Who and Transformers franchises⁸.

　　我们在一间玻璃墙面的会议室坐定之后，特龙说：“硅谷的美妙之处在于，这里的人们真正是无所畏惧。”这里的会议室都是以《神秘博士》(Doctor Who)和《变形金刚》(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 vernacular⁹, 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.

　　用硅谷的流行语言来说，“颠覆”教育市场的时机已经成熟。在这种信念的影响下，一系列教育类科技创业型企业如雨后春笋般出现，试图建立新的教学平台。比如，被称为“大型网络公开课”(Massive Open Online Courses,简称“慕课”(Mooc))的可下载视频，如今已成为向所有互联网用户提供学习机会的工具。

　　With Google X – a semi-secret facility dedicated¹⁰ to making technological¹¹ advancements¹², including driverless cars and Internet-connected glasses -also on his CV, Mr Thrun is seen as the market’s most innovative¹³ 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工作的特龙，被视为这一市场中最具创新能力的思想家。Google X是一个处于半保密状态的部门，致力于开展包括无人驾驶汽车和互联网眼镜在内的高科技研发。特龙因开设了首门轰动性慕课——《人工智能导论》(Introduction to Artificial Intelligence)——而受到赞誉，当时他还在斯坦福大学教书。

　　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是在线教育市场的“三巨头”之一。另外两大巨头分别是同为硅谷邻居的创业型企业Coursera，以及位于波士顿的EdX，这两家总共拥有的慕课数量是最多的。

　　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 dodging¹⁴ attacks in Afghanistan.

　　当时，他的课程使用的技术十分低级，是在他的起居室里用一台数码摄像机录制的。尽管如此，几天之内就有来自190个国家的16万人报名参加了这一课程，其中包括正在躲避袭击的阿富汗年轻人。

　　The power of networks and sharing

　　网络与分享的力量

　　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 panacea¹⁵ to the market they had first appeared.

　　不过，随着慕课的发展，人们发现，在报名参加慕课的学生中，似乎只有3%能完成课程学习。因此，虽然其他人也试图复制特龙的成功模式，特龙却较早提出，在线教育市场上最先出现的慕课，其实并不能一劳永逸地解决这个市场的所有问题。

　　Instead, he created a model at Udacity based on supplying credentials¹⁶, called nanodegrees, that cost a fraction of the cost of traditional programmes and are endorsed¹⁷ by employers.

　　于是，他在Udacity创立了一种新模式，提供被称为微学位(nanodegree)的证书。这种证书所需成本只有传统教育项目成本的零头，并且得到雇主的认可。

　　“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.

　　特龙声称：“我们想成为教育界的优步(Uber)。”这番言论沿袭了创业型企业将自己的商业模式与风投圈现在的宠儿相比拟的习惯。

　　There is some justification¹⁸ for this metaphor¹⁹ given that both Udacity and Uber use a network of freelancers²⁰ 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.

　　这一比喻有一定道理，原因是Udacity和优步都使用了由自由职业者组成的网络，按照他们完成的每份工作支付报酬。优步使用的是指出租车司机组成的网络，而Udacity使用的则是学术人员的打分技能，通过一种同行评议的过程，实现对微学位学员学习成果的交叉检查。

　　The list of academics on Udacity’s books is now in triple figures, many of whom are retired²¹ computer science professors. “We have a guy in South Africa who makes $11,000 a month,” says Mr Thrun.

　　如今，Udacity账本上的学者名单有三位数之多，其中许多都是计算机科学领域的退休教授。特龙表示：“我们有一位老师在南非，每个月赚1.1万美元。”

　　The selling points of such “sharing economy” models are not just that they provide work to professionals and enable companies to expand operations relatively²² easily, but that they create a network effect where the service gets better the more people get involved.

　　这种“分享经济”模式的卖点，不仅仅是向专业人士提供了工作，令企业能够相对容易地扩大业务，还在于它产生了一种网络效应——参与的人越多，服务越好。

　　Mr Thrun’s premise²³ 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.

　　特龙的假设是，人们学习的方式和企业准备为这一过程提供资金的方式已发生了极大改变，旧的教学模式必须由更加灵活的技术代替。

　　Flexibility²⁴ is key to competition

　　灵活性是竞争力的关键

　　The first of Udacity’s online courses, in web development and data analytics, was launched in September 2014 through a partnership²⁵ with US telecoms provider AT&T. To date, some 5,000 people have enrolled²⁶ 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第一门在线课程是有关网络开发和数据分析的，该课程于2014年9月与美国电信服务提供商AT&T合作推出。截至今天，已有约5000人注册了这一课程，AT&T面向完成这一课程的人提供100个带薪实习岗位。自那以来，包括谷歌(Google)、Salesforce、和Cloudera在内，已有另外约20家高科技企业成为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 laurels²⁷ 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.

　　特龙自豪地说：“我们的课程完成率达到了90%。”不过，在线教育市场竞争日益激烈，他也不敢躺在过往的成绩上睡大觉。此外，他还必须保持Udacity商业模式的灵活性，原因是在线教育是个仍在发展变化的市场，关于这个市场唯一确定的一点是还没有人明显领先。

　　Rewards for educational innovation

　　教育创新的回报

　　Mr Thrun knows what he doesn’t want for his company; professors in tenure², 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.”

　　特龙知道他不希望他的企业有什么，那就是拥有终身教职的教授。他声称，终身教职会限制他们回应市场需求的能力。“目前，Android拥有逾10亿用户。但是，你很难听到任何一所大学提供有关Android的课程。”

　　He is clearly keen to stimulate²⁸ more blue sky thinking about solving the education challenge he has set himself.

　　很明显，对于如何解决他自己提出的教育领域的挑战，他急于激发出一些更加天马行空的想法。

　　“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轻的人。其中将近一半是女性，平均年龄是28岁。

　　“I want people with fresh ideas. People with a passion for it. What I do is just unleash²⁹ their potential.”

　　“我想要的是拥有新鲜观点的人，是对此充满热情的人。我所做的只是释放出他们的潜能。”

　　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.”

　　特龙解释说，出于这个原因，把公司设在硅谷心脏地带至关重要，因为在这里为创业型企业工作是种常态。他声称，在世界其他地区发展这样的企业将更加困难，而在现有学术机构中发展这类企业则完全不可能。他说：“教育系统中的人都不喜欢冒险。他们想要打造的是像施坦威(Steinway)那样的百年老店。我则喜欢把我们视为与宜家(Ikea)有同样影响的企业。”

　　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 mandatory³⁰ what people can do without fear,” he says.

　　在Udacity，特龙激励创造性思维的一个办法是，提建议就奖葡萄酒。在不到一个月的时间内，他已发放了不止12瓶葡萄酒。他说：“我想要把人们抛弃恐惧后可以做到的事情变成他们必须做到的事情。”

　　Edtech competitors find partners to scale up

　　教育科技业竞争者借合作伙伴扩大规模

　　Down the road from Udacity, Coursera has been building partnerships³¹ 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旁边不远处，Coursera已经和多家商业机构以及斯坦福等全球顶尖大学建立了合作关系，向公众提供免费的在线课程。

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

　　同样由曾经的斯坦福大学教授创办的NovoEd，正在为在线学习建立类似的合作关系。

　　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.

　　这些企业都坐拥大量资金，供他们开展激烈的竞争。Coursera已募集逾8500万美元用于竞争，超过了Udacity自三年前成立以来筹集的5500万美元。

　　In his defence, Udacity co-founder and chief executive Sebastian Thrun says: “Taking on all of education is like boiling the ocean...My 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 me...It doesn’t always work but I think it works most of the time.

　　这位Udacity的共同创始人兼首席执行官这样为自己辩护：“意图拿下全部教育市场无异于想要烧开整个海洋……我的志向是，令在Udacity的工作经历，成为人们生命中的最佳体验。不过，让人们离开是对他们的一种解放。我让他们把找到新工作当做一项任务。我曾多次遇到人们对我说，谢谢您解雇我……这种方式并不总是有效，但我认为多数情况下是奏效的。”

　　“I have an ego³² 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 arrogant³³ and extremely humble³⁴.”

　　他还说：“我比较自信，不过我不会（说）我什么都知道。我所做的决策许多都很糟糕。硅谷人既自负，同时又极度谦卑。”

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