Entrepreneurs. Educators. Investors. Policymakers. Hosted by GSV Founder & CEO Michael Moe, Ed on the Edge covers the “who” and the “how” of driving change in the global education landscape.

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Daniel Diermeier is an internationally renowned political scientist, management scholar and visionary leader and has served as Vanderbilt University’s ninth chancellor since late 2019. He has led major growth and innovation efforts, including expanding research funding, increasing financial aid, launching new campuses and programs, and strengthening Vanderbilt’s national and global reputation. Diermeier is also a prominent advocate for higher education reform, emphasizing institutional neutrality, civil discourse, and universities’ role in driving innovation, economic prosperity, and societal progress.

Bio via Vanderbilt

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Join me Tuesday, March 24, for a live book talk with Jim Collins— bestselling author of Good to Great and Built to Last and named one of Forbes’ “100 Greatest Living Business Minds”—sharing early reflections on What to Make of a Life, his first book since 2020 and the result of a decade-long research project on how individuals navigate pivotal moments and construct meaningful lives.

Join me live at 6:30pm CT for an exclusive early look at this highly anticipated work. This conversation offers a rare preview into how Collins is thinking about life’s defining moments, transitions, and the pursuit of purpose in a new era—exploring what it takes to build, sustain, and continually renew a meaningful life. “Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.” – Jim Collins

You can also pre-order your copy of What to Make of a Life—every purchase made supports Black-owned bookstores as part of our ReaddIT! partnership with NAB².

This conversation is part of ReaddIT!, advancing the power and joy of reading with book talks, book club discussion groups, book signings, challenges, curated reading lists, and more.

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Welcome to Edreform in 10, a flash action-cast powered by CER in partnership with Dash Media, for and by people who are motivated to take action and accelerate innovation and impact in the learning ecosystem.

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Live from the Miami Accelerator, Jeanne sits down with entrepreneur and developer Mike Hoque to explore his journey from Bangladesh to leading a purpose‑driven enterprise in Dallas. Mike shares how early hardship shaped his commitment to education, why he believes every young person deserves the chance to attend college, and how persistence fuels community‑lifting development in overlooked neighborhoods. He explains the partnerships, mindset, and long‑term planning that guide his work—including a new innovation and education hub—and offers practical advice for entrepreneurs seeking opportunity in unlikely places.

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Live from the Miami Accelerator, Jeanne talks with Ron Matus of Step Up For Students about why Florida has become the epicenter of modern education opportunity. Ron traces the state’s journey from struggling academic outcomes to a thriving, choice‑rich landscape where more than half of students attend something other than their zoned school. They dig into who’s moving to Florida for education, how scholarship programs are reshaping options for families of all backgrounds, and why long‑standing myths about school choice don’t match reality. Ron closes with a clear call to action: come see Florida firsthand.

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Live from the Miami Accelerator, Cris sits down with EMG.AI founder and Mission Corporation co‑author Michael Carter to unpack what it really means to build mission‑driven ventures in education. They explore how the Seven Declarations apply to edtech and schools, how to tell if an idea is solving yesterday’s problem or creating tomorrow’s opportunity, and why advisory boards, clear roadmaps, and bold but reality‑tested planning matter. Michael shares hard‑won lessons from building and selling companies, plus practical steps educators, investors, and founders can act on today.

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January 1, 2027

As has become expected, 2026 was a year of the unexpected.

Heading into January, many on the Left feared our 250 year old Republic celebrated on July 4th wouldn’t survive another year under the Trump Presidency and many on the Right predicted NYC would become a the People’s Republic of Gotham under Mayor Mamdani.

Neither occurred.

What continued was President Trump’s domination of the news thru his Truths, tariffs, transactions and transitions.

Despite conventional wisdom that America was facing headwinds, the economy ripped in 2026 fueled by $500 billion in tax cuts that were part of the “Big Beautiful Bill” and augmented by the aforementioned tariffs which: 1) started to level the global trading playing field 2) brought in hundreds of billions of dollars to the U.S. Treasury 3). Catalyzed major investment in the United States from domestic and international enterprises.

Contrary to Wall Street strategists projecting persisting inflation, the CPI for the year was 2%. This allowed the surprise new Fed Chairman Scott Bessent to lower the Fed Funds rate to 2.5% by mid-year. GDP growth came in at a roaring 4%.

Add this all up and the stock market proxied by the S & P 500 defied probabilities and to some degree valuations, advanced for the fourth year in a row. The Magnificent 7 (Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Apple and Tesla) which represent approximately 35% of the S & P had been leading the charge during the BULL run took a bit of a breather as the Market breadth broadened. Going into the year, the Mag 7 was expected to grow their collective earnings by a healthy 20% versus expected EPS growth for the S & P 500 of 15%.

In fact, both the Mag 7 and the S & P results exceeded forecast but the forward P/E of 29X for the Mag created a bit of a ceiling. Not coincidentally, the small cap Russell 2000 was the top performing stock index in 2026 increasing more than 20% which got the double whammy benefit of high earnings growth and an expanding P/E multiple.

In kind, the IPO Market in the United States had a good year with approximately 250 Companies going public versus 202 in 2025. Key new issues included the largest IPO in history SpaceX with a Market Value exceeding $1 trillion, Stripe, Canva, Anthropic and Kraken. Notable for those in the investment World, innovative Boston based VC General Catalyst became the first venture capital firm to ever go public following it acquiring growth manager Janus Henderson.

Building on the momentum of 2025 where $4.5 trillion of mergers and acquisitions were completed globally, 2026 was a record year in M & A. The megatrend of mega mergers continued, with Warner Brothers being acquired by Paramount for $90 billion and Electronic Arts going private with Silver Lake for $55 billion as prime examples. Lower interest rates and more friendly regulatory environment contributed to the fertile landscape for deals.

Clearly, the “animal spirits” that John Maynard Keynes described were alive and well in 2026.

Since the Civil War, the Party in Power with Presidency has lost congressional seats 90% of the time. Accordingly, that historical reality coupled with bad electoral showing for Republicans in 2025 made it a “given” the Republicans were going to give up the House if not the Senate, too.

It didn’t. The strong economy, robust stock market, increased global peace along with an equally disliked opposition Party kept the Republicans controlling both the House and the Senate.

The AI Bubble that the smart guys said was about to burst never happened… as it rarely does when everybody is expecting it. Instead, the $450 billion that was invested in AI infrastructure into the “hyperscalers” accelerated the AI Revolution.

Rapidly, AI went from a cool “magic trick” to impress your friends and neighbors to a measurable return on investment for both money and time. In 2026, AI was like air, it was invisible, it was ubiquitous and you needed it to live.

OpenAI, the poster boy for the AI Revolution with insatiable appetite for capital (its raised $60 billion to date), got hit hard on two fronts.

First, the Empire Struck back with Gemini leveraging all its advantages from Android, Chrome and Search surpassing ChatGPT in DAU’s, MAU’s and mindshare. Some historians had deja vu comparing OpenAI to Netscape from the Browser War days.

Second, Elon Musk’s suit alleging OpenAI violated its fiduciary responsibility by abandoning its original mission of being open source and not for profit started to have traction.

This put the brakes on what was anticipated to be one of the hottest IPO’s of 2026 and one of the largest of all time. OpenAI’s record shattering compensation per employee of $1.5 million helped keep the “Yankees of AI” players in tact for the time being.

While most of the attention was directed at the massive investments that were made in AI LLM’s, infrastructure, chips and the energy to power it all, the return juice was in the companies that were enabled by AI or leveraging it for competitive advantage. The success of Coca Cola was made possible by electricity… similarly, AI is catalyzing completely new business models. Key areas of opportunity were in sectors such as health care, manufacturing, financial services and education.

Perhaps the biggest change in people’s daily lives was how autonomous everything became front and center. Autonomous cars have been bandied about for years but seemed more science fiction than real World. In 2026, driverless cars were everywhere. Waymo (owned by Alphabet) went from 4 million rides in 2024, and 14 million rides in 2025, to over 40 million rides last year. Tesla’s Robotaxi also finally got out of the gates and instantly seemed ubiquitous.

Speaking of which, another part of Elon’s empire, the Boring Company, was the talk of the town in Las Vegas and Nashville where autonomous Tesla’s were transporting people underground from point A to point B at a fraction of the accustomed time. Boring could burrow a tunnel at a $10 million a mile in six weeks versus something like the Big Dig in Boston which cost $2 billion a mile and took sixteen years. New projects in Dallas, Austin and Dubai couldn’t come fast enough to relieve the soul sucking gridlock in those booming hubs.

Trends forecaster Faith Popcorn coined the term “Cocooning” in 1981 to describe the social shift of people doing more and more in their home. This forty year megatrend accelerated during Covid where one’s home became their operating system for life…where you worked, where you learned, where you were entertained, etc. The autonomous home became in vogue in 2026 with AI invisibly, intelligently and intuitively having your home do what you want it to do without needing a computer science degree. Hi Solutions (disclosure, I’m Chairman and an investor) was a leader in this emerging space.

AI capabilities advanced on an exponential curve with one of the results being the technology replaced the technologist. No code software meant an Arts History major could “vibe code” their way to a technology start up. Accordingly, innovation flourished and many of the unemployed software programmers became start up entrepreneurs creating an even bigger wave of transformation. Where it used to be standard to spend 60% or more of salaries on engineers for a start up, that shifted to sales in marketing in 2026. The World’s first one person “unicorn” was created by an out of work MIT graduate.

With 25% of Americans 60 years or older, wellness and especially longevity continued to be a major theme. In the United States, $2 trillion was spent on wellness in 2026 and globally, $80 billion was spent on longevity. Wellness in all variations is expected to grow around 8% annually with longevity growing closer to 12% reaching $180 billion by 2034. Function Health, founded by longevity guru Dr. Mark Hyman, achieved a valuation above $2.5 billion in less than five years and wellness centers such as Fountain Life and Alive and Well continued to boom.

A Negatrend spotted in 2026 was people were getting worn out on wearables. Oura and Whoop which had become status symbols if not fashion glam, were in search of a now what? The answer to that, in part, came roaring with the emergence of Frequency Exchange (disclosure, I’m an investor) a.k.a. “Freak Tech” which didn’t monitor how much sleep you got but helped you get better sleep. Ditto relieving pain, allergies and even Lyme Disease. Exposure to Freak Tech on the Superhuman 2 documentary created soaring demand.

Sports continued to be a hot category for investment with private equity and sovereign funds scouring the planet to get involved. Football remained King with 85 of the 100 most watched programs being the NFL and 98 being sports overall. The Winter Olympics in Italy was a must watch with 41 year old downhill racer Lindsey Vonn becoming the oldest person ever to win a Gold Medal. Spain won the World Cup with its Superstar Lamine Yamal becoming a global favorite.

Not wishing to miss out in all the fun, the original Barbarian at the Gate KKR purchased sport focused private equity firm Arctos for $5.5 billion. Pro Athlete Community (disclosure, GSV is an investor) became the platform that current and former professional athletes got connected to opportunities.

The University of Utah rumored to having received $125 million for 35% interest in its athletic program at the end of 2025, and subsequent $500 million investment in the Big 12 by CAS (College Athletic Solutions) turned out to be the tip of the iceberg for the re-organization of college sports. The transfer portal and related NIL which brought Indiana its first National Football Championship ever changed the game where either you had to pony up to participate or get left behind. Models such as Vestible partnered with Universities to get them up front capital for a percentage of the athletic departments revenue became the rage.

The Experiential Economy thought to be enjoying a cyclical boom post Covid, turned out to be a secular trend. Overloaded with always on digital connectivity, people couldn’t get enough of live events. Super premium bolt on experiences to events such as the World Economic Forum, the Milken Conference and ASU GSV Summit were coveted.

Live Music continued to surge with new age venues such as the Sphere in Las Vegas transforming the entertainment experience. Riding the wave of live, Broadway and the West End both had record years with Titanique and Dolly battling each other for Tony’s. My Pet Dragon continued to gain critical and commercial praise as this generation’s version of Rent.

Powering the AI Revolution was an obvious investment theme with leaders such as GE Vernova and Constellation having strong tailwinds.

Fusion is a different type of energy that became THE transformative force of 2026.
Fusion is the power created by the combination of two seemingly unrelated objects. Different than a mere combination, fusion changes the equation itself… 1+1=11

The World in 2026 changed at an unprecedented pace with Artificial Intelligence putting gas on what already seemed like an out of control fire. Driverless cars, no code software, gene editing, digital twins, commercial space travel, drone warfare…all unimaginable even a decade ago.

Many experts predicted that the disruption that was taking place made humankind obsolete effectively checkmated by technology. Education, acquiring knowledge to apply against future opportunity, seemed futile as the “intelligence” of Large Language Models (LLM’s) was crossing the Singularity.

We had a different, more optimistic view of the road ahead and how perpetual learning will be at the core of a limitless future which played out in spades in 2026.

Our belief is that people are wired to work and be productive. Moreover, human potential is only capped by our lack of imagination. The North Star that will continue to drive civilization forward is the relentless search for meaning and purpose.

Artificial Intelligence won’t replace the human race, it will enhance our ability to run faster and farther. And learn at the speed of light.

Historically, we faced a reality there is a finite amount of time in a day and a week. AI manufactures time and how we apply that time dividend available to all of us will determine whether AI is a force for good or not.

Initially, the separation between what machines do exceptionally well and what only people can do creates a modern division of labor. We call this “multiplication by division” this resulted in an explosion of innovation.

The Industrial Model of schools with its batch processing was upended with students progressing (or not) based on competency, not the calendar. One size fits all education was replaced by AI enabled individualized learning.

School choice, charter schools, ESA’s, Home-School, micro-schools, continued to have overwhelming support and momentum. 75% of adults were in favor of alternative school options. The entrenched status quo said “give us more time and more money”. The good news was the American public said, “250 years is long enough, we need change today!”.

It’s not Man versus Machine….its the fusion between them that creates a positive force of change that transforms society as we know it. AI is unbeatable for complicated problems like math where humans are designed to solve complex issues like relationships.

Fusion is a potent Megatrend that revolutionizes nearly every aspect of life and is especially powerful in education.

The fusion between learning and earning. No longer are these activities siloed but merged thru apprenticeships, internships and entrepreneurship.

The fusion between learning and playing. You can’t learn if you aren’t engaged. Students today spend more time on average playing games than they do in the classroom. Through “invisible learning,” fun activities that have the benefit of acquiring knowledge and skills are fundamental to the future.

The fusion between physical and virtual learning. Lifelong learning means everybody is student and will be learning without distinction between the real world and online.

The fusion of the teacher with a robot teacher assistant or digital twin will provide an always on and personalized learning environment for students and the opportunity for teachers to be more of a coach.

The fusion of smarts and hearts will power the great enterprises of tomorrow. Along with fusion of purpose and profits….the great businesses in the future will have the ambition of a for profit and the heart of not for profit.

When the Apple iPhone was introduced not even twenty years ago, the magic was the fusion between mobile computing, the cloud, GPS and the App Store business model. This fusion resulted in catalyzing game changing start-ups such as Uber, Instagram, AirBNB and TikTok…last year alone, over $1.3 trillion of business was done over the iPhone platform.

There was an even more powerful platform that emerged on the horizon…love.

The fusion between love and education is World changing. If we love our neighbors children as we love our own, we create a society where no child is left behind. We will be living in a World where people have the education, knowledge and skills to fully participate in a future that is limitless.

This fusion is human flourishing. Here’s to an amazing 2027!

Toon for the New Year

Year-end-Review Rap

@maggiemoeyo2025 YEAR END WEEKLY RAP #Mamdani #Trump #Musk #DOGE #CharlieKirk

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Connecting the Dots & EIEIO…

Old MacDonald had a farm, EIEIO. New MacDonald has a Startup…EIEIO: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Education, Impact and Opportunity. Accordingly, we focus on these key areas of the future.

One of the core goals of GSV is to connect the dots around EIEIO and provide perspective on where things are going and why. If you like this, please forward to your friends. Onward!

Make Your Dash Count!

-MM

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Live from the Miami Accelerator, Cris sits down with Paul Quinn College President Michael Sorrell to explore how the school’s urban work college model is reshaping students’ lives. They discuss democratizing work on campus, the impact of integrating real professional experience into college, and how partnerships like Guild Education are opening doors for working adults. Michael shares candid insights on shifting mindsets, confronting proximity to poverty, and why institutions should “just start” if they want to build a true culture of work.

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Live from the Miami Accelerator, Sam Caucci of 1Huddle joins Edreform in 10 to talk about reimagining workforce training, unlocking hidden talent, and why continuous, challenging, game‑based learning can transform both employees and organizations. He also shares insights from his new book, Wasted Talent, urging leaders — and workers — to invest in skills, embrace curiosity, and “go for it” in today’s rapidly shifting world of work.

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Welcome to Edreform in 10, a flash action-cast powered by CER in partnership with Dash Media, for and by people who are motivated to take action and accelerate innovation and impact in the learning ecosystem.

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Dr. Maureen Dunne, author of The Neurodiversity Edge, discusses creating a culture where neurodivergent people feel they can bring their best selves — their true selves — to work and school. Her advice to each of us, “No matter who you are or what role you have, it goes a long way to take a step back sometimes, rethink your foundational assumptions, try to have a little more empathy, and put effort into building communication bridges across neurotypes.”

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Amy Riker, Vice President of Government Affairs & State Partnerships for Panorama Education, talks with Friendship Schools’ Pat Brantley about how AI, data, and surveys provide actionable support plans for teachers, a voice for parents and students, and insight into the education ecosystem of a district or state for leaders.

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Entrepreneurs. Educators. Investors. Policymakers. Hosted by GSV Founder & CEO Michael Moe, Ed on the Edge covers the “who” and the “how” of driving change in the global education landscape.

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John Fallon served as CEO of Pearson PLC for eight years. He is now Professor of Practice at Northeastern University, an executive fellow at London Business School, and works with a range of public and private organizations on education technology and digital transformation.

Bio via Bloomsbury

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Cornell Ellis, Executive Director of Brothers Liberating Our Communities (BLOC), discusses BLOC’s work to increase representation of Black male educators in schools, making opportunities that inspire young students to explore future leadership roles, and untethering teachers from tradition in order to rethink education from the ground up.

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EIEIO…Fast Facts

Entrepreneurship: 204x – The DPI achieved by Chris Sacca’s $8 million Lowercase Capital Fund I launched in 2010. (Dealroom)

Innovation: 20 mph – The top speed of Dot, DoorDash’s new autonomous delivery robot. (DoorDash)

Education: $94,050 – The annual tuition at New York’s THINK Global School, a “traveling high school where students live and learn in four countries each year, making unforgettable connections between their studies and the world around them.” (kw3)

Impact: $9,557 – The average credit card balance for Gen X Americans in 2024. (Experian)

Opportunity: $17 billion – The amount already deployed by Apollo’s managed funds in the broader sports and entertainment space to date. The firm announced the launch of Apollo Sports Capital on September 29th. (Apollo)

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“Whenever you see darkness, there is extraordinary opportunity for the light to burn brighter.” – Bono

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

“Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems.” – Sun Tzu

“Education is the most powerful weapon to change the World.” – Nelson Mandela

There are 8,250,000 people on Earth.

Every day, 225,000 babies are born.

Every day, 105,000 people die.

19,000 people starved to death today and another 2,000 people died because they didn’t have access to clean water.

About 10 billion cigarettes are smoked every day, killing 10,000 people daily. Alcohol related illness takes nearly 2 million people a year.

235,000 mothers die during child birth or over 640 a day.

UNESCO estimates there are 739 million illiterate adults in the World. Approximately $7.2 billion is spent a day on public education.

6.8 billion people are on the Internet with average screen time at 7 hours a day. Over 200 million spent a day on video games.

1.8 billion people are overweight, with 900 million being obese. $430 million is spent a day on obesity related illness out of the $11 billion spent a day on public health.

In America, the most prosperous country the earth has ever known, it’s not nearly as scary as what’s going on in the rest of the World, right?

Not so fast.

Out of 340 million people, 40 million are considered poor with 20 million in “extreme poverty”. Astonishingly, 15% of Senior Citizens are poor with this segment of poverty growing faster than any other demographic.

2 million people in the United States are incarcerated, more than any other country on Earth. Approximately 66% of people released from prison commit another crime within 3 years. 80% of the prison population is made up of high school dropouts with the vast majority of those coming from poverty.

In America, 47 million people use illicit drugs spending approximately $150 billion a year on them. 82,000 people, mostly young adults, died of drug overdoses last year. 55,000 died in the entire Vietnam War.

If you look at almost every major issue facing America and the World today, it comes back to education.

The horrible truth is, despite spending $8 trillion globally on education, far too many of us are being left behind.

Public Schools were supposed to be the great equalizer and while there are a number of great public schools, they are few and far between. In the “Nation’s Report card” a.k.a. NAEP, only ~30% of 12th graders were proficient in Math and Reading.

If you are born into poverty, you have only a 52% chance of starting kindergarten ready to learn at grade level. If you start from behind, it’s next to impossible to catch up. If you are poor, you are 5X more likely to drop out of school and 8X more likely to go to prison.

In the United States of America, if you are born poor, you have a 70% probability of remaining poor. The American Dream is just that, a dream. Effectively, your future is determined by how well you selected your parents.

Obviously, if we want to have a more perfect Union, and sustainable society, we need to not only figure out the K-12 problem but the Zero to Five problem, too. And we need to make prisons into prep schools.

The Internet was going to be the silver bullet by increasing access and lowering the cost, but as we learned during Covid, it didn’t improve the quality. While I’m optimistic in the Internet’s critical role in the future of educating our populace, it’s not enough.

Artificial Intelligence is the double edged sword…where it has the opportunity to dramatically accelerate learning, it can also result in outsourcing our brains to a machine.

The greatest investment opportunities are where there is a problem…the bigger the problem the bigger the opportunity. There isn’t a greater problem or opportunity than how to more effectively educate our populace in a Knowledge Based Economy and Global Marketplace. It makes the difference for an individual, a company and a country.

I believe we are entering the Golden Age of Purpose enabled by the power of the breathtaking technology available at our fingertips.

Finding purpose through learning and meaning through Work.

Make your dash count!

Market Performance

Market Commentary

When the clock struck midnight on Tuesday, September 30th the United States Government shutdown but nobody seemed to notice. The Federal Government spends approximately $7 trillion a year, which is nearly 25% of the overall economy, yet the sun came up in the east again on Wednesday morning.

For the week, stocks continued to rock with the Dow and S&P 500 each advancing 1.1% and the NASDAQ rising 1.3%. Year-to-date, NASDAQ is up 18%, the S&P has risen 14.4% and the Dow is nearly 10% higher.

Artificial Intelligence stocks have been the darlings of Wall Street with sentiment going from throwing caution to the wind to worrying we are in a 1999 type of AI bubble. What has given some credibility to the anxious class has been the outsized performance from AI leaders such as Nvidia (+37% YTD), Palantir (+125% YTD), Oracle (+71% YTD and making Larry Ellison the richest person on Earth), CoreWeave (+237% since IPO), and Snowflake (+45% YTD).

The Technology Empire of Alphabet, Amazon, META and Microsoft are all looking to strike back and will be spending $400 billion in AI infrastructure investment in 2026. Meanwhile, former software heroes such as Salesforce and Workday are struggling to catch the AI beat and have languished.

While it’s always important to have clear sight of the exit, I believe the AI Party has only just gotten started and looking for ways to participate in AI applications and services. Moreover, there is a robust pipeline of new issues that we are expecting to hit the market which contributes to our optimistic stance.

Accordingly, we remain BULLISH. 🐂

Need to Know

READ: Intel and the Rise of US Tech Nationalization | Contrary Research

WATCH: DoorDash CEO Tony Xu & Patrick O’Shaughnessy | TBPN

LISTEN: Richard Sutton – Father of RL thinks LLMs are a dead-end | Dwarkesh Podcast

GSV’s Four I’s of Investor Sentiment

GSV tracks four primary indicators of investor sentiment: inflows and outflows of mutual funds and ETFs, IPO activity, interest rates, and inflation.

#1: Inflows and Outflows for Mutual Funds & ETFs

#2: IPO Market

#3: Interest Rates

#4: Inflation

Chart of the Week

Maggie Moe’s GSV Weekly Rap

Chuckles of the Week

FEEDBACK: We love it when our readers engage with us. Send your thoughts, comments, and feedback to dashmediagsv@gmail.com – we read every email!

Connecting the Dots & EIEIO…

Old MacDonald had a farm, EIEIO. New MacDonald has a Startup…EIEIO: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Education, Impact and Opportunity. Accordingly, we focus on these key areas of the future.

One of the core goals of GSV is to connect the dots around EIEIO and provide perspective on where things are going and why. If you like this, please forward to your friends. Onward!

Make Your Dash Count!

-MM

Subscribe now

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Welcome to Edreform in 10, a flash action-cast powered by CER in partnership with Dash Media, for and by people who are motivated to take action and accelerate innovation and impact in the learning ecosystem.

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Dr. Laura Cassidy, founder of Louisiana Key Academy, speaks with Jeanne Allen about the struggles faced by dyslexic students and their families, the science behind building up reading proficiency, and the freedom her learning model enjoys by being a charter school.

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Entrepreneurs. Educators. Investors. Policymakers. Hosted by GSV Founder & CEO Michael Moe, Ed on the Edge covers the “who” and the “how” of driving change in the global education landscape.

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Andrew Grauer is the Cofounder and CEO of Learneo, a platform of builder-driven productivity and learning businesses.

Learneo is on a mission to supercharge productivity and learning for everyone and currently comprises eight businesses, serving over 100 million monthly active users. In 2006, Andrew cofounded the first business in Learneo’s portfolio, Course Hero, an online learning platform for course-specific study resources. Andrew started the company while attending Cornell University and led the company for 16 years. Starting in 2020, Andrew expanded the company from one business to eight, and created the parent company, Learneo, in 2022. Andrew has been named one of Forbes 30 Under 30, he’s a 2022 Silicon Valley Business Journal 40 Under 40 honoree and a Bay Area finalist of EY’s 2022 Entrepreneur Of The Year. Andrew holds a BA in Spanish from Cornell University.

Bio via ASU+GSV Summit

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“Where there is no vision, the people parish.” Proverbs 29:18

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.” John C. Maxwell

“You can get everything in your life you want, if you help enough other people get what they want.” Zig Ziglar

Three stories from my life…all of which have affected me profoundly.

Vignette #1.

It was the dead of winter 1984 in Minneapolis, and things were looking bleak. The formerly mighty Golden Gophers football team, of which I was a member, had just finished a season where we were the worst Division I football team in the country. Rice beat us. Northwestern whupped us. Nebraska destroyed us 84–13, and it wasn’t that close. Worse, the squad was in complete disarray. Fingers were pointed everywhere except inward. Fights would routinely break out amongst ourselves. White players ate with other white players. Black players ate with other black players. Nobody went to class. Drugs were everywhere.

Then, with a miraculous intervention, Lou Holtz was hired to be the head coach. He said when he was recruited to take the job, supersalesman Minnesota alumnus Harvey “Swim With Sharks” Mackay told him that the Gophers only lost to national champion Nebraska by 11… nobody told him it was 11 touchdowns!

We were all called to a meeting to introduce Coach Holtz, and as he walked into the room, people had their feet up on the desk, hats on backward, and were basically oblivious to the hurricane they were about to experience. Immediately, Holtz told people to sit up straight, take their hats off inside a room, and that being on time meant whenever he decided to start, which was usually five minutes early… instantly, the clock speed turned up for everything.

The first thing he asked us was, “How many people in the room think we can have a winning season next year?”

Remember, this was a team that was truly awful and got smoked by nearly everybody. So it wasn’t a huge surprise that, while most hands went up, not everybody’s did. The next question he asked was, “How many people think we can win the Big Ten Championship next year?” Maybe a third of us kept our hands up. Then, he asked, “How many believe we can win the Rose Bowl?” Maybe ten hands were still raised. Lastly, he asked, “How many think we can win the National Championship?” Two hands remained, and one of them wasn’t mine.

Coach then made a declarative statement: “If your goal isn’t to win a National Championship next year, you should leave now.” All of a sudden, somebody was in charge with a vision, an expectation of excellence, and a plan to get there. Yes, Coach Holtz was a phenomenal recruiter and said, “The heart and soul of the team needs to come from Minnesota, but the arms and legs need to come from somewhere else.”

Coach Holtz set seemingly impossible goals but had a very simple, clear philosophy we lived by:

• Do what’s right

• Do your best

• Show people you care

Included in that simple framework was that everybody was expected to go to class and participate, and in fact, we had to have a signed sheet from our professor every week saying we were at class and we were involved. What did that have to do with winning football games? Nothing and everything. We had random drug tests. We had rules for our conduct, which included that you could go to a bar but you couldn’t wear anything with Minnesota Football on it. Our playbook went from the most sophisticated offense imaginable to basically six plays. But we were expected to run those six plays flawlessly.

What was the result? The team that was the laughingstock of college football, in two short years with basically the same cast of misfits, competed for a Big Ten Championship and won a bowl game.

The lesson? Leadership is everything, and little things make the big difference.

Vignette #2.

It was 1992, and I was a wet-behind-the-ears research analyst covering everything that moved between Minneapolis and Seattle. I was visiting companies in the Emerald City, and the last meeting I had for the day was this little coffee company off of Interstate 5. I was tired after a busy week and seriously contemplated canceling my meeting with Starbucks because the concept sounded ridiculous to me, and getting home early was alluring. Ultimately, I figured the company was on the way to the airport, and I’d make it quick.

The minute I walked in the door, I could feel something was different. The receptionist treated me like a best friend from high school. The energy in the building was off the charts. Then I met 38-year-old Howard Schultz, who had braces on his teeth but articulated this powerful vision of not only how Starbucks was going to have more units than McDonald’s, but how he was going to change the world one cup of coffee at a time.

It wasn’t about the coffee… it was about the community. One of the key ingredients of creating the “third place” was the people who worked there. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Howard’s philosophy was to put the employee first. Why? If they were happy, that would be reflected in how they interacted with customers. Schultz almost created a revolt on his board when he proposed giving even part-time employees health care because of the added cost. He showed that even if the added benefit reduced turnover by 15%, it would pay for itself. Starbucks’ employee turnover went from 150% to 50% and, at the same time, resulted in not just a monetary return on investment; he showed his people he cared, and in turn, customers received a superior experience.

There were maybe 50 Starbucks then, and few had heard of the company outside the Puget Sound area. Today, there are nearly 40,000 Starbucks, and it is a global iconic brand with roughly a $100 billion market cap.

The lesson? Leadership is caring about other people and having them thrive.

Vignette #3.

It was September 2002, and my oldest daughter, Maggie, had just started going to Sacred Heart in Atherton. I received an email from a father of one of Maggie’s new classmates saying that “dads and daughters” were going to a Giants baseball game to get to know each other. I show up at the Catholic school parking lot Sunday morning at 10 a.m., where a bus awaited to bring us to the game. A guy with blue jeans and an “Old Pro” baseball cap greets me, flips open a Bud Light, shakes my hand, and says, “I’m Bill Campbell, what’s your name?”

We sit on the bus next to each other on our way up to the game, and he asked me what I did for a living. I puffed out my chest and said, “I’m the CEO of this new investment bank in San Francisco… ThinkEquity Partners.” I then asked him what he did. He said, “I’m retired.” Well then, I asked him, what business were you in? Bill said, “I was in the software industry.” I then asked who he worked for. He replied, “Intuit.” What was your position? “I was the CEO.”

I’m now slumping in my seat, embarrassed by what a big shot I thought I was and not knowing I was sitting next to somebody who actually was important. We then get to the game, and everybody from the person taking tickets to the president of the Giants is giving Bill a hug.

Bill later became known as “the Trillion Dollar Coach” because he was the CEO whisperer to everybody from Steve Jobs to Eric Schmidt, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, and Marc Andreessen. They called Bill “the Coach” because, before he became a Silicon Valley executive, he was the head football coach at Columbia. Not being a great gig, and with a young family, his wife told him to get a real job, and he ended up at Apple selling computers. The rest, as they say, is history.

We became friends from our shared passion for football and entrepreneurship, and I had the privilege of coaching 8th-grade boys’ and girls’ flag football with Bill for 12 seasons. Bill was arguably the most in-demand person in Silicon Valley, but from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in the fall and spring, he was over at Sacred Heart coaching kids. In a weak moment, Bill agreed to join my board at GSV Capital, which was humbling, for sure.

The magic behind Bill Campbell was he cared about people and didn’t care if you were the groundskeeper at the school or the CEO of a gazillion-dollar business. People loved him because he loved them, and he made you want to be a better person. Bill had a weekly “TGIF” at the sports bar he owned in Palo Alto called the Old Pro. The rules were you couldn’t talk business, you couldn’t talk politics, and you couldn’t be a “jagoff”… just enjoy each other. Bill had his rules for business and was very systematic in his approach to management, but what he did was motivate people to want to be their very best. He knew when to hug you after you made a mistake and when to kick you in the tail when you were getting too full of yourself.

| The Trillion Dollar Coach >

The lesson? Leadership is truly caring about people, whether they can do anything for you or not.

For many years, I’ve had my formula for investing in the most dynamic growth companies in the world (the Stars of Tomorrow), which I call the “5 P’s”… People, Product, Potential, Predictability, and Purpose. While all the P’s are important, the paramount fundamental is People, and with People, it’s all about leadership. To find and invest in the Stars of Tomorrow, follow the leader.

Market Commentary

With NASDAQ up over 40% since the market low on April 8, and the S&P 500 up 30%, it’s natural and healthy to take a breath. Accordingly, last week stocks mainly took a step back, with NASDAQ off 0.7%, the S&P down 0.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fractionally off 0.1%.

The big news last week was NVIDIA’s announcement that it was investing up to $100 billion into OpenAI. On the surface, the $100 billion seemed outrageous because: 1) that’s a lot of money, and 2) at quick glance, NVIDIA has “only” $57 billion of cash on its balance sheet.

Upon deeper analysis, NVIDIA has actually generated $112 billion of free cash in the past six quarters and has also bought back $58 billion of stock. Bears say the deal is simply vendor financing and circular. Bulls say the investment could generate up to $500 billion in revenue for NVIDIA. NVIDIA’s track record looks good, with its investment in CoreWeave a grand slam home run.

Memory chip maker Micron delivered huge results driven by AI data growth. For the quarter, revenues were up 44% and EPS surged 157%. President Trump signed an executive order to allow a group led by Oracle to buy TikTok from its Chinese parent, ByteDance. Also rumored to be included in the deal are Andreessen Horowitz, Abu Dhabi’s MGX, and Silver Lake.

Amazon was ordered to pay $2.5 billion for using deceptive methods to secure Prime memberships. Electronic Arts was rumored to be going private at a $50 billion takeout price.

Economic growth led by consumers appears to be strong, with tame inflation giving us a backdrop that we think continues to be favorable for growth companies. We also expect to see a robust IPO market that provides fresh names for investors. Accordingly, we remain BULLISH. 🐂

Need to Know

READ: Opportunities Live Between Fields of Expertise | David Haber

WATCH: How Successful Entrepreneurs Manage Time | Kevin O’Leary

LISTEN:

GSV’s Four I’s of Investor Sentiment

GSV tracks four primary indicators of investor sentiment: inflows and outflows of mutual funds and ETFs, IPO activity, interest rates, and inflation.

#1: Inflows and Outflows for Mutual Funds & ETFs

#2: IPO Market

#3: Interest Rates

#4: Inflation

Chart of the Week

Maggie Moe’s GSV Weekly Rap

Chuckles of the Week

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Connecting the Dots & EIEIO…

Old MacDonald had a farm, EIEIO. New MacDonald has a Startup…EIEIO: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Education, Impact and Opportunity. Accordingly, we focus on these key areas of the future.

One of the core goals of GSV is to connect the dots around EIEIO and provide perspective on where things are going and why. If you like this, please forward to your friends. Onward!

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The Big 10:

1. The Education Revolution Is Here and Parents and Children Are Winning | Civitas Institute

   And not a moment too soon. Academic results for the Nation as a whole are not just abysmal but dangerous. We are for multiple choice options, including pathways that lead to (high paying) blue collar work. Tax credits, ESA’s, micro-schools, charters, home school and private schools can only make the system more competitive.

2. Math crisis began a decade ago and has only worsened, report says | Los Angeles Times

   It’s the Pandemic’s fault is becoming a lame excuse for why students are doing worse when they were already doing bad. Roughly 4 in 10 eighth graders are below proficiency in Math. Math being cumulative, don’t expect the results to look better by 12th grade. Sadly, the gains that had been achieved for girls, low income students, Blacks and Hispanics has vanished.

3. The Elite College Myth | WSJ

   Our friend Jeff Selingo makes the case that going to an elite college doesn’t guarantee life success and that there are many paths to career victory. The view from the caboose shows some advantage to graduates from elite schools, if I was to project the brand equity damage that’s been happening, having an Ivy Degree 20 lbs more to carry up the hill.

4. American students are getting dumber | Slow Boring

   So we’ve beaten the dead horse for how bad the Nation’s Report was released September 9th and this article has a number of ways that people interested can slice and dice some more, which come up with the same dismal/depressing message. Here is the stunning statistic, while 12th graders just recorded the worst reading results since 1992, 90% of parents think their own kid is at grade level or above.

5. A look at trends in college consolidation since 2016 | Higher Ed Dive

   For an industry which has had remarkable tailwinds for hundreds of years, it’s not so much a bed of roses anymore for the 4500 or so colleges and universities that exist in the United States. Tuitions, which grew at 2.5X inflation for 50 years, has felt pressure. The number of high school graduates has shrank. Most problematic, the given that college was a great investment is being challenged by the reality for recent college graduates.

6. Vanderbilt Eyes National Expansion | Inside Higher Ed

   Nashville is certainly one of the hottest cities in America and Vanderbilt might be the hottest university. Not only is its 5-0 football team led by QB Diego Pavia turning national heads but its aggressive expansion plans and its strategic Chancellor are all the buzz in education circles. Building a $520 million campus in Palm Beach makes statement, so does going into NYC and California. Chancellor David Diemeier isn’t going along to get along, he’s looking to win on every level.

7. ChatGPT Doesn’t Cause Brain Damage. Academia Does. | Pirate Wires

   It was headline news when the sensational MIT Research came out that concluded ChatGPT was harmful to our brains. Turns out, not surprisingly, that the research was flawed and wasn’t as scientific the affiliation with MIT would suggest. Limited pool of students in the study, no peer review, and human nature’s desire to want to hate change all contributed to an imperfect process. Definitely worth reading full report.

8. Start-Up Culture Comes to K–12 Accreditation | Education Next

   Michael Horn is one of our favorite pundits on the education industry and he identifies some friction in the ESA boom. Accreditation agencies, as former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, “is often a watchdog that doesn’t bite.” However, lawmakers fearing abuse have created a system where the established players have advantages over the upstarts who often face a massive amount of red tape. Help is on the way with new initiatives and realization that status quo is over.

9. 4 in 5 hiring managers say high schoolers not prepared for workforce | K-12 Dive

   84% of hiring managers say high school graduates aren’t ready to enter the workforce. Moreover, 80% say that recent high graduates are less prepared than the previous generation. The answer? 94% of hiring managers say high schools should teach more business courses. Smelling an obvious opportunity, the College Board has come out with an AP Business Course.

10. 🎙️ Ep. 55 · Fernando Zulueta, President of Academica | Ed on the Edge

    Fernando Zulueta is founder and CEO of Academica, an innovative global education organization. Academica serves more than 200 charter schools in 22 states.

    BONUS:

    The Exponential Enterprise… AI and the Flourishing Workforce | GSVTV

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Welcome to Edreform in 10, a flash action-cast powered by CER in partnership with Dash Media, for and by people who are motivated to take action and accelerate innovation and impact in the learning ecosystem.

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Dr. Steve Taylor, Policy Director and Senior Fellow of Economic Mobility at Stand Together Trust, speaks with Jeanne Allen about the importance of workplaces and higher education fields accepting accredited workforce pathways to allow learners to pursue their many passions.

Learn more about EdReform in 10.

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Entrepreneurs. Educators. Investors. Policymakers. Hosted by GSV Founder & CEO Michael Moe, Ed on the Edge covers the “who” and the “how” of driving change in the global education landscape.

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🎥 Watch Episode 55 on YouTube:

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Fernando Zulueta is founder and CEO of Academica, an innovative global education organization. Academica serves more than 200 charter schools in 22 states. More than 3,000 schools in 33 countries offer Academica’s International Dual Diploma program.

For 30 years, Mr. Zulueta has helped establish public charter schools. Academica schools rank among the nation’s best, recognized for many achievements. The US Department of Education has awarded them more than 20 National Blue Ribbons.

He was inducted into the National Charter School Hall of Fame. He has served on the Board of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. He chaired Florida’s Charter School Review Panel. He is a co-founder of the Florida Consortium of Charter Schools.

He is the founder of Doral College — an accredited four year non-profit college. Doral provides free dual enrollment and college acceleration. It has awarded thousands of concurrent college degrees to high school students.

He has received awards for his work advancing the education of disadvantaged students. Academica schools reduce the income achievement gap. He presents at conferences on how charter schools disrupt the poverty cycle.

Bio via Fernando Zulueta (LinkedIn)

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