Gabe Dalporto: CEO of Udacity (Raise the Line)

Hi, I'm Shiva Glan and today on raise the line, I'm happy to be joined by Gabe Delport, who's the CEO of UAC, an online learning platform that focuses on making career advancement possible for its learners through mastery of in demand skills.

And prior to joining udacity, uh he held senior leadership roles at Lendingtree and helped drive that businesses growth into a multimillion multibillion dollar financial services marketplace.

So thanks Dave for being with us today, a pleasure enjoying. So I'd love to start by learning more about your background in career path.

Uh For example, how did you go from earning a bachelor's and master's degree in nuclear engineering to now running one of the most popular L learning sites.

So I'm a little bit of a purple unicorn in terms of background. It's very unusual.

Um I think the theme that runs through it is uh I just love learning and I and I am personally a lifelong learner, which I really think is in a way the skill of the future.

So, so I studied nuclear engineering because I thought it was fascinating. Um I got out into industry and realized, you know, I'm working for a nuclear utility, which is the slowest moving organization on the planet by design because last year the co didn't meltdown.

So you just don't do anything different. And, um, so I shook things up a little bit.

Uh did a tour of duty and strategy consulting and kind of cut my business teeth, uh then moved into marketing because it was like the exact opposite of engineering, you know, much more emotional and creative.

Um I worked my way up through the marking rings and got the nod as the CMO of Lendingtree uh back in 2011. And uh and really helped the lending tree uh initially build like a world class marketing and growth engine uh to really ignite the growth of the company.

But then over time, take over as president and um and shift the strategy a bit and diversified, the business launched to eight or nine different lines of businesses.

It worked out really well. So, and then one Friday night, I got a call from our CEO Doug Lebda who turned out to be, you know, a real mentor for me in my career.

And he said, hey, Gabe, do you wanna be the CFO? And I'm like, what are you talking about?

He said, look, you know, the business inside now, you know how to grow the business. But I need someone in finance who can drive the business drive the PNL uh you know, from a strategic perspective.

And uh and really build a world-class Analytics organization for decision making and said, ok, that kind of makes sense.

Let me give it a shot. So it was, it was a little uncomfortable for the first couple of weeks and months as I, you know, figured out the ropes of the finance role, but it turned out to be just a, you know, a fantastic opportunity for me to stretch myself and expand my skill set.

Um And, you know, over the course of my tenure there from 2011 to 2018, we grew the company's stock price from $5 to $251.

The number three returned on the NASDAQ and, um I learned a ton, you know, company was, uh, you know, did great and, and went through a ton of growth and it was just a, a really great relationship.

Um which kind of brings me through today, which is, uh, you know, after I left Lendingtree and I joined the board, um, you know, I was thinking, I spent a lot of my time thinking about my home state of West Virginia and I grew up, uh in the, you know, seventies and eighties um in West Virginia.

And at the time it was a pretty vibrant economy. But then I go back today and I see, you know, towns boarded up country clubs shut down and people working in, you know, minimum wage, service industries and it's very acute, uh, pain and, and I see what happens when people don't res skill when the world changes.

And so that was very much top of mind when I met Sebastian, the founder of UDA and they were looking for a CEO. And he said, yeah, yeah.

Why don't you instead of trying to figure out how to help West Virginia do that too, but also help the world and help the world figure out how to Respi themselves.

So they don't have to go through the pain that West Virginia went through. And I said, you're right.

And um, so that's what brought me to UDACITY. Uh It is absolutely my passion.

You know, the product is amazing and it, and it changes people's lives for the, for the better. That's a, that's quite a career and quite an amazing story about how you got involved.

Um I actually didn't know that about the West Virginia connection. Um So that actually brings me to my next question which is, you know, we're in the heart of the COVID pandemic and we're seeing record levels of unemployment worse.

Uh Nothing's been worse since the Great Depression and, and even there's some predictions that will get worse than the Great Depression.

I'm just curious, have, have you seen at U da see, like, um uh increase in enrollment as a result of this? I'm curious like, how is that affecting the business at this point?

Yeah. So, so the answer is yes.

And um the interesting thing over time, you actually started off focusing on consumers. And, you know, one of the um you know, amazing things is we can take someone, uh we have examples of taking people from like being a truck driver to being a software developer, right?

And so we can take anyone from elementary skills all the way up through like self driving cars or machine learning or A I.

So when I think about our, our core businesses, we have a consumer business, which is how everybody knows gas. We also have an enterprise business that is growing like crazy and uh will probably be our largest business this year.

So we're selling to fortune 500 companies to, you know, retrain their workforces and digitally transform them. And then we have a government business that is, you know, helping governments retrain their populations and build the skills they need within their uh their national borders.

And um we kind of expected a spike in the consumer business which we saw. And so we've seen like, you know, a 10 X increase in daily sign ups.

Um We expected an increase in the government business, which we've seen. So we've seen strength in that business, uh enterprise business.

We didn't really know because we thought, you know, enterprises might cut back their, their training spend and workforce development spend.

Um But it turns out we're not seeing that we're actually seeing a lot of strength in the enterprise business. And the reason is we have um we've really attached to business transformation.

And so, you know, we, we typically partner with Cio S and CTO S uh understand, you know, the fact that these giant corporations need to go through digital transformation, they need to build A I skills and need to build software development skills.

Those skills are hard to come by in the market and we're helping them build those skills internally. Um And then those people help them transform their businesses.

So we're kind of viewed as, as mission critical in that respect. So to answer your question across all of our business, we've seen an uptick even though we maybe you weren't totally expecting the enterprise piece.

Uh And certainly on the consumer side, we've seen, you know, a big uh upswing in, in sign ups. So II know udacity kind of distinguished itself initially with like the nano degrees and the fact that there was a heavy, heavy focus on cutting edge uh A I training, that's where sebastian through I know came from and leading the Google car development, for example, um I'm curious is that still the secret sauce of UDACITY or what else has, has, have you guys kind of added that have made you distinguish from other education platforms?

So it's a, it's a really important question and a great question. Um If you think about just this massive flood of people that are now unemployed, if you tried to retrain them on the university system, you would break the university system, there's just not enough capacity and you would also probably bankrupt the country, right?

You know, it's very, very slow and expensive to educate someone through the university system. Um You'd actually helped create a whole category called moocs, which initially MOOCS, a massively open online courses which initially took university content videotape professors put it online.

Now you could watch um you know, a University of Michigan or MIT professor deliver a lecture and, and, and the moocs made it free or cheap, which is great.

So you could be in Argentina or Germany or wherever and watch an MIT professor. That was awesome.

Uh The problem with that is you don't learn karate by watching Bruce Lee movies and the problem with, you know, the tr just taking a traditional university lecture and putting it online.

It's like, it's kind of interesting maybe you get some information but you don't learn like hands-on practitioner level skills.

And so Sebastian and my predecessors that you'd asked, you came up with a better model right in between those two, which is, you know, we start with project-based learning.

So we start with an employable job resume. So if you wanna be a machine learning engineer, if you wanna be a data analyst, if you wanna be a self-driving car engineer, like your resume has these 44 bullet points.

Like I've actually done this, done this, done this and done this. I haven't read about it or watched a video like I've done it and then we work backwards and we say, well, how do we get them that hands on experience?

So we create like deep immersive projects where you take software, you apply it to massive datasets, you apply machine learning algorithms and you deliver it in a real world industry specific context where you can actually say like I delivered a credit model for a credit card company or I delivered, you know, a software for you know, this security application.

Um And then we go into industry, not into academia and partner with people like Google and Amazon and Intel and core the actual content, right?

So think of our experience as like a 45 minute video lecture led by someone at Google or, or Amazon um followed by uh um you know, hands on key keys, coding, followed by another lecture, coding, lecture, coding, reinforcement learning end of the month, go deep into immersive project.

Deliver a real world tangible industry outcome. Repeat that for 4 to 5 months, 10 hours a week, part time, 2 a.m.

four AM 6 p.m. doesn't matter.

And you come out of this with like a resume that you've actually done it and you can actually uh do something like in and is it like an example of this in our self driving car engineer?

Of course, your capsum project, you upload your code into our self driving car that drives around our parking lot with your code and it stops in red and goes on green and doesn't hit stuff.

So that's really the core of what we do. It's a lot harder than taking a university professor and putting their content online.

Right. But it just works 10 times better.

And so for about 100 the cost of a university degree, about 1/10 the cost of a boot camp, you come out of these programs with employable practitioner level skills.

All right, I have to ask the followup question, which is uh you mentioned that people upload uh their software to your own self-driving car.

Uh Have you ever been very positively or very negatively surprised by the outcome of that? Well, you know, the beauty of project based learning is you upload that code and it either works or doesn't and you know, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and if it works, you pass and if you uh if it doesn't work, then uh we have what's called project reviewers and whatever project you, whether you pass or fail, uh you get line by line code reviews back.

And so if you upload it and it runs into a wall or something, well, then you know, they're gonna review it and give you feedback and you're gonna submit it again.

So uh the beauty of the of the model is like your, your code actually has to work to pass the class. Yeah, I love, I love that model a lot.

I mean, in, in medical education, we have a lot of problem based learning and obviously you have to go see the patients and take care of the patients before you can actually get your degree.

So um you mentioned earlier um that uh you know, you're seeing a lot of demand uh because of um COVID, uh we call this podcast raise the line because essentially what our focus is at osmosis is how do we increase healthcare capacity through workforce training?

And I believe that uh you all have launched an A I in healthcare course. I'd love to learn more about that and what is doing in healthcare.

Yeah, absolutely. Um Healthcare is uh obviously like right now an absolutely crucial field, but always a super important field.

Um And we're seeing a lot of uh a lot of innovation in healthcare. So, you know, as we, as you mentioned, we just launched um an A I for healthcare nanod degree.

And so think about this as um how you use A I across a bunch of different and applications in, in healthcare. So, you know, 11 of our projects is, you know, looking at x-rays and applying A I to diagnose um you know, x-rays.

Um there's, there's tons of applications uh that you can apply to COVID uh like tracking patients, like predicting the spread uh of a pandemic and uh they can really inform governments on how to respond and how quickly to respond.

Uh So, um so I think it's like A I in healthcare has never been more critical or more relevant with COVID. But also beyond just your typical COVID applications in terms of creating uh smart hospitals and um like augmented decision making where um you, you may have a physician, but you also have an A I sitting there looking at the same data and coming at it from a different angle, you know, forcing each other to think about it.

Um You know, in different ways. Uh Also really interesting um is the, the kind of the mobile medicine market and that's projected to be a $23 billion market uh in the next couple of years.

Um Both just living, you know, delivering medicine online through video streaming, but also like diagnosis and, you know, tracking, you know, your heart rate to predict different health issues.

So there's, there's just tremendous applications of A I machine learning to healthcare and we're just rashing the service.

So it's a A I and healthcare has always been interesting to me because uh actually, right before I started osmosis, um I wrote a, a paper with a, a guy named Eric Topol who I'm sure, you know, um he's literally wrote the book on A I and health care.

And uh one of the p one of the articles we published was um on mobile medicine and how it can be used to improve health education.

Um So it's really cool to see that is leaving in charge in that curious of the people who enroll in A I in health care and medicine.

Um, do you see a lot of clinicians doing that or is it more software engineers who are interested in healthcare or uh, how, how are you seeing that, uh, map out?

Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a great question. I think it's probably a bit of both, you know, it's a, it's uh there's a big industry around just research, right?

Um And uh so it's gonna obviously be the research centers. Um anyone who's kind of interested in how, how to apply A I to their situation and make it more efficient uh hospitals obviously can, can benefit here.

Uh But yes, I mean, for sure, it's, it's a broad mix and we see this across our programs. We find people who are, um, you know, wanting to just learn, we find people who are wanting to upskill themselves and do their jobs better.

We're finding people who want to move into a new area, right? Um And, you know, our program is really just designed to give you those hands-on practitioner level skills.

So no matter what angle you're taking, um you're coming out of that with like real applicable skills. So you can actually apply it to it, you know, machine learning or, or A I to a data set and, and see the outcomes as you go.

That's wonderful. And, and you know, it, it actually reminds me of another uh famous person who um who I heard speak a couple of years ago, Vino Kola, uh who uh at one point got a little controversy, but he said, he said 80% of what uh doctors will do will be replaced by machines uh in the next decade.

Um And I'm, it was controversial because I think he was misinterpreted as be believing that 8% of doctors wouldn't be needed, but it will change the role of doctors.

I'm just curious, um you know, since so many of our audience members are currently your future health professionals and, and you all are doing so much around A I and healthcare.

Um What do you see as the role of a clinician being over the next decade? Um you know, based on all the air that's coming down the pipeline?

Yeah, I think um A I does really well um with, for example, um taking huge data sets and then predicting, you know, likely outcomes.

Um A I and, and software in general does really well of taking anything that could be repeated and, and automating that um where A I doesn't do well, at least not for the next several years is uh and really the creative thought, right?

So there's gonna be a lot of situations where, you know, what thought of as the core value of uh of a doctor or a clinician is automatable uh through A I.

Um but there's gonna be a lot of other areas where, where, you know, it's not. And so I think you should constantly be looking at your skills, you should not assume that what you're doing is going to be what you're doing five years from now.

Um And you should, you know, be thinking about how do I upscale myself in those areas that A I is not good at. Um And, and really kind of emphasize there or how do I become the person who's creating the, you know, the technology that is automating and you'll probably make, you know, a lot of money doing that.

So one of those two passes is fine. I think assuming that your job is not gonna be touched is not a really good strategy.

Make that makes sense. I mean, we get a lot of talk about how retail workers or transportation workers will be automated.

Uh their jobs will be automated away. So they have to re skill, but it's important for health professionals to remember that maybe this can help them focus on lessen me memorizing things and regurgitating facts and more on uh the care aspect of being a caregiver or a clinician.

So, um good empathy is not something A I is particularly good at, right? So like, you know, understanding, you know, the the specific situations and you know, you know, being creative and being empathetic and, and things like that.

I think it, it's, that's something that's quite hard for, for the eye, totally 100%. Um So I'm curious, do you have any kind of final thoughts or comments uh that you'd like to share with our audience?

Um Look, there are more people out of work as you mentioned um than at any time since the Great Depression. Um who knows where it goes from here.

But my guess is it's gonna be a really hard year or two. I think personally, uh this is the time for individuals, governments and enterprises all to step up and take upskilling seriously.

Right? Many of those jobs uh that have been eliminated are just not coming back.

You better believe that this is the COVID is going to accelerate digital transformation and automation. And so many of the jobs that weren't eliminated will be eliminated.

And um and if we don't res skill, if we don't take this seriously, a lot of us are gonna be sitting, you know, in me menial service uh industries and um making minimum wage and that's not what anybody wants.

So, uh I think number one government has an important role and, you know, I put forth a specific plan which is, I think we should take our whole notion of spending all of our federal dollars against.

Um Universities is, is a terrible idea. I mean, universities playing a really important role.

Um, but, you know, I think we should take about, if we took 10% of our budget and spending on universities and spent that on upskilling programs, you could res skill 3.5 million people.

Right. That's a big number.

Um, if we gave tax credits, even small tax credits and corporations for retraining, uh, those corporations would match those tax credits and then take, invest in res skilling their workers instead of laying them off.

Um And then individuals need to take responsibility for, um, you know, for, for upscaling themselves. Don't, don't assume that your employer is gonna do it right?

Because, you know, some of them will, but most of them won't. And uh and you need to really think about your career going forward and, and what are the skills of the future and making sure you're on the bleeding edge?

Look, I started marketing back, uh as I mentioned at a time when most marketing was TV. And Direct Mail, my first job was in direct mail.

Um And uh you know, that entire industry is mostly digital now and the people who made the transition actually got better jobs and made more money and the people that didn't kind of got left behind in this way.

And uh and I think the true will be the same will be true of every industry. So I, you know, I would just encourage everybody to think about that, think about what the future looks like, think about how to, you know, continue to add to your skill set, what, and it doesn't have to get you a, it doesn't have to be training in A I or, or software development.

Um But, you know, figure out what the, the jobs of the future are and go for those and, and, you know, continually evolve yourself.

That's uh definitely great advice and, and super fascinating conversation. I really appreciate how uh specific some of your proposals have been.

And, and again, all the work that you and uh your team at are doing so with that, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to be with us today, Gabe.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

I appreciate being on your show and uh and it was great speaking with you. Thank you.

And with that, I'm Shla. Thank you for checking out today's show and remember to do your part to raise the line and gladen the curve.

Remember we're all in this together. Thank you.