Alexander Sarlin  0:04  
Welcome to Ed Tech insiders. In this podcast, we talk to educators and educational technology investors, thought leaders, founders and operators about the most interesting and exciting trends in the field. I'm your host, Alex Sarlin, an educational technology veteran with over a decade of work at leading edtech companies.

Ben Kornell  0:28  
Hello, everyone, it is June of 2022. And we are kicking off our summer with another edition of the weekend ed tech. I'm Ben Kornell. And here with me is my co host, Alex Sarlin. Alex, how you doing this week?

Alexander Sarlin  0:44  
I'm good. There's been just such fascinating news coming from every direction, in education and in the economy at large. I'm so excited to jump in and chat about some of this with the event. Where should we start?

Ben Kornell  1:07  
Let's start big picture. You know, as Alex mentioned, every week seems to be new developing trends in edtech, in our economy in general, and the economy, you know, has been tightening. And so a lot of people are asking, how is that going to affect edtech? There's actually an article and EdSurge that was really well written, why some investors say ed tech doom and gloom is overhyped, you can find that on EDD search. And really, the question is, what is going to happen in the long run, what is going to happen in the short run, ultimately, what we're seeing macro wise, is venture capital firms are telling their startups to conserve cash, some of the venture capital firms have lots of money sitting on their balance sheet ready to deploy, and it is a buyers market now. So they are going to be able to have seed series A Series B, and C rounds that are much lower valuations and much better value on the dollar for the VCs. Other VCs, though, don't have a fund, and they might be going out to raise a fund now. And it is, you know, some calling it a tech winter. And so you know, there is a real difference between those who have the cash on their balance sheet and those that don't, and they will behave differently. Also, in terms of companies, we're seeing that seed stage companies are still getting funded, because they're on like a seven year eight year timeline to fund and, you know, it's the B and the C's that are having the hardest time because they really need to show profitability, and not just revenue, traction or user growth. There's also a bunch of companies that are in later rounds that were probably thinking about an exit either through an IPO or m&a. And now they've got to look in the mirror and say, Okay, how do we push that off two or even three years to when the economy is back up again, because of course, the founders and their investors do not want to cash out at that time. So there's not really I think the key for our listeners is, it's not a one size fits all experience. When things tighten up. It actually affects different players in different ways. Also, we're going to cover in the show, but we can also cover in the segment, some specific areas where that's playing out. But as you think about the macro, Alex, what are you seeing, and how do you think that's affecting our space?

Alexander Sarlin  3:36  
Yeah, I mean, I think that the sort of vibe in the EdTech community right now is a little bit of disappointment, in that the sector has grown so much over the last few years, and the pandemic has sort of been seen as this enormous potential inflection point. And in some ways, it was an inflection point, you saw huge growth in tutoring, you saw huge growth in user bases for many ad tech companies. But you also see the public ed tech company stocks get totally slammed, they're still really low as a lot of the tech market. And haven't sort of seen that fundamental transformation. And we'll talk more in this episode about sort of how the transformation may sort of still be happening a little bit behind the scenes. But that moment that I think all of us in ad tech dreamt of, of like then the pandemic happened, and Ed Tech took off. And it was, and that was it. That was the ad tech moment where it was ad tech from here on out. We sort of haven't seen that manifest. And I think it's just getting the field just to be a little cautious, combined with everything you just said Ben about the nuanced approach. You know, when the money starts to dry up when investors you know are less likely to put money into an ed tech fund or the type of investor you know, VCs who were looking at Tech as a possible expansion or maybe not looking at it quite as closely anymore. It does potentially lead to a feeling of doom and gloom but as our friend of the Part 10 Batra says in EdSurge, it's overhyped, I think there's a, there's a little bit of a rebuilding season feeling to the tech landscape right now. And that's not necessarily bad. You can do amazing things in down economies, or when you sort of aren't flush with cash and just trying to find ways to spend your new round, I think there's, there may be some really interesting innovations that come directly out of this time.

Ben Kornell  5:25  
Yeah, and ottesen recommends three things. One, his recommendation is unit economics are crucial. Number two is cut early and cut deep. And number three is used the time to reset and build. These are certainly not the mantras or advice we were getting 612 months ago where it was grow, baby grow, you know, capture, share, burn cash, to grab more market. And so I do feel like people experienced that as whiplash. It does also have the effect that those who build during bear times tend to have a more durable, robust business. I also think your point about clearing the field is an important one, we have a lot of like moonlighting big VCs in ed tech that don't really understand the dynamics that are rapidly pulling out. Of course, all their crypto assets got hammered hard. And so they're going to have to like double down or exit crypto. And so we are still a relatively niche space. And what this means is the major ed tech funds are going to have much more of a role in shaping the future of our space. It also there's some geographic things that are happening to in we've been covering India quite a bit. And in the last couple of weeks, you've heard about layoffs, you've heard about investment diversity kind of pivoting or shutting down, you've heard about, you know, white hat, which is a big subsidiary, unit Academy also had an announcement this week in TechCrunch, where they predicted a dry funding spell for at least 18 months, they have raised over $100 million, and are valued at 3.4 billion as of August. But it was definitely very sobering message from CEO Cara Munjal, who said, they need to focus on profitability at all costs to quote unquote, survive the winter. So clearly, people are taking the advice of Tim Batra and others, and really doubling down on that profitability. That said, for those entrepreneurs that are out there that are kind of feeling the squeeze from both ends. This is also a time where the m&a can get quite creative. And so you know, combinations when people are, you know, looking at existential issues, and they could combine with your company or you could combine with theirs, and create a breakeven structure. You know, a lot of times m&a works well when it's around, let's grow and expand. But it can also work in times where it's like let's consolidate our overhead and like build together a multipronged efficient business. So I do expect that to continue to happen going forward. So you know, headline number one ad tech funding landscape continues to dramatically change in a totally different direction than where it was a year ago. But we hope as you head out to summer vacations, that you're coming up with that right long term plan to to survive the winter.

Alexander Sarlin  8:34  
Absolutely. And and I think those are such great points. I think that what's really interesting about this moment is that even with the economic uncertainty with the pullback and some of the tech investment from again, from some and not others, there is still enormous uncertainty and disruption to traditional education. And that still leaves enormous through lines and openings for tech companies. And, you know, our second headline this week is there was a really big report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center about college enrollments, basically showing that college enrollments for this has been many, many quarters in a row declined by quite a lot. And you basically saw undergraduate enrollment down by almost 5%. That's really a pretty significant decrease Graduate School and Professional school enrollment, which had actually been a bright spot they say during the pandemic, and they have sort of continued to at least grow a little bit went down by less by about 1%. Community college enrollment is down by almost 8% enrollment. It's also divided by race. So enrollment among black freshmen in undergraduate is down by almost 7%. So that's more than the overall undergraduate decrease. So you're seeing this real struggle for schools to retain students and they all know this, but it's continuing to go in one direction. And then you combine that with a couple of other things that are coming out and sort of came out this week. One was a global survey conducted by the anthology group that said that four out of five students want at least some of their courses to take place online. And 40% wanted fully online learning. So there's this continuing to be a deep interest in online and people are just not convinced that they, they should be back in person. And there's also and this is the one that really sort of blew my mind. And interesting report from CNBC, which was quoted in Inside Higher Ed this week. 73% of high schoolers think a direct path to a career is essential in post secondary education. So they really are saying, and they've been saying this for a while, but more and more that career readiness and career growth is the core goal of post secondary education, and the likelihood for high schoolers to attend a four year school sync in the past two years from 71% to 51%. And that, that is a big number. So the idea that 51% of high school students are saying that they want to attend a four year school, I think that's probably lower than it's been in decades. So we're seeing some real changes in attitude among high schoolers, and leading to with other factors, decreased enrollment sort of across the board right now, Ben, what do you make of these headlines all put together?

Ben Kornell  11:29  
I mean, it questioned some of our fundamental assumptions around education, that, you know, the goal is for every child to have a four year degree in college, which that has been kind of universally accepted from the 80s on the number two is that the goal of higher education is an informed citizenry, like a thoughtful society, you know, of coming together of different people from different backgrounds, you know, meaning your best friends, you know, all these kind of societal norms that have grown up around college experiences. And let's just also recognize that not everyone, even in those kind of dream scenarios, days were having those experiences. But you know, there was this aspiration to offer that to everyone. And, you know, I did Teach For America as a Teach for America corner member, I remember for years, it was like, the goal is four year college persistence. And then you saw the numbers and you're like, you know, what is wrong with our colleges kids aren't completing or what is wrong with our low income schools kids aren't attending? And now you have this whole re questioning have? Actually, was that ever really worth it in the first place? For the vast majority of people and 20% drop off? From 71% to 51%? You take that trendline? And you have to wonder, is this the steady state? Or is it actually going to, like a third of high school graduates go to a four year college, and two thirds do other things related to career pathways? That's a landscape change that we've never seen before. And no matter what kind of ad tech winner you're in, there's like opportunity, a plenty. And it may be that it's a rounding error to University of California system or something like that. But it could, you know, we're talking, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of businesses and from an impact standpoint, you know, hundreds of 1000s if not millions of students that one could reach. What do you what do you think we need to think about this right or wrong? Like, are we actually at the point where the moral clarity of a four year college degree is good? Is that like in question now? Or how do you even think about that, Alex?

Alexander Sarlin  13:51  
Yeah, is a huge question. So I think that the drop happening in the last two years is not a coincidence. The last two years have been extremely unusual for the college landscape. And I think that some of that, you know, cultural social experience that you mentioned, Ben has just evaporated, right. I mean, anybody who's been trying to go to college over the last two years, has been had huge disruptions, has been sent home and sent back and been online. And so I think that the social piece just sort of literally went out the window. And without it, I think there's very the Emperor maybe doesn't have that many clothes left of people wanting to spend that much money on tuition and that much energy and that much time and that meant commute and all the things that it takes to go to college. I think people are starting to really question the core value of it. I mean, you mentioned two possible futures, one is steady state here the other as it continues to go down to a third, there is a third possibility, which is that through either just bounce back from the pandemic or institutes of higher education getting really clever or about how they, you know, sell college as an experience in the in the next few years, there is a possibility that it will, it would bounce back that the pandemic is sort of, you know, an exception to the rule, not a continuation. But I think the overall trend is pretty clear. And it's that students have been saying for many years that they want career outcomes, they want to have a solid, middle class or more life and college has been their ticket to that. And as there have been more and more alternatives, and more and more types of programs out there that seemed like ways to get to that gays to get to that type of life without the investment of a full four year college and a full all the student loans and everything that entails. I think it's starting to become mainstream in a way that you know, we are obviously us, everybody, all the listeners to this podcast in ed tech can name many different alternative scholarship and credit different credentials and apprenticeships and internships and work study and Co Op programs. But I think the general population still, for the most part, thought of it as college or not. And college is sort of the answer. It's the key parents, their parents told him that for a long time. I don't know if that's the story anymore. I think the story is starting to be what is right for me, how do I make it work? How do I put together the pieces to have a great life? And it's not? There's not only one answer anymore? What do you think,

Ben Kornell  16:29  
coming back to we need guidance counselors that understand this landscape, we need some guiding way to help people navigate all of this, because inevitably, you know, your information as a high school senior or your information as a low income family is going to be worse than the information that others who've been through it or who are connected would have. Just to emphasize the point on this week, there's five articles from Forbes EdSurge, Ed scoop Ed Week and higher education today on this topic. So we'll close here on this topic, but go check that out. I mean, it's popping this week, because the new data is out around what people are doing post graduation. And we'll be watching it

Alexander Sarlin  17:18  
here. Before we leave this just one more stat I want to throw out there because it's related to what you said about the graduation rates. The same report is talking about great six year graduation rates, you know, and those are always being updated. And we're still at a moment where for a Latino or black student, the Latino six year graduation rate is 49%. And but graduation rates within six years are 39%. And, you know, you mentioned all the Teach for America, you know, everybody trying to aim everybody to a four year college. But after years of numbers like that, and community college is even lower. A Native American is also a 38%. By the way, after years of that push, I think there's just maybe a mass realization that, you know, no college is it may be worse than some college. And if the majority of students in these demographics are not graduating within six years, it really is not a sure thing to the middle class. In fact, it's a sort of becoming a longshot

Ben Kornell  18:19  
yet, especially with the amount of debt that people also have to take on may actually be detrimental. I mean, we've basically are embracing personalized or learner centered education in K 12. Are there ways that you can personalize pathways for you know, each learner so that they can reach their full potential, maybe a one size fits all four year degree or going to a research focus institution that doesn't really even specialize in instruction is like not the golden path that might once have been perceived to be? Well, speaking of that path and these alternative pathways, one of the biggest areas we've seen an explosion of is bootcamps, where tech is content. And there's a number of headlines today around technology as actual course content. You know, I tend to focus more on the K 12. And there's a great article around teaching AI to all students that's coming from getting smart love, Tom Vander Ark and their team there. And what's interesting about the K 12 version of this, it's not necessarily about career pathways. It's also the informed citizenry value proposition that if you teach AI to students, and they understand how AI works, they're also going to be more informed consumers of what AI is giving them and they can understand where things might be coming from. Another article was a white children around the world need crypto education. You know, we've heard a lot about financial literacy as a life skill that is not taught at school nor home. The Grace who writes us Article is also talking about crypto is this great framework for students to understand like, what is money at the end of the day? Structurally, how does it move? And how is it vetted or certified? And how do you convey ownership. And so I think tech as content is often viewed through the let's train peoples for jobs. In K 12. What I'm really enjoying is tech, not just as content but also as a way of creating a new discipline of thinking much that like scientific method, you may not be a scientist, but it's worth knowing scientists tick method as a framing. There were also some other, you know, higher ed, or work upskilling stuff, Alex that came out with tech as content. You know, how are you seeing that space evolved? And specifically with some of the news this week? What does it portend for future expectations around tech content?

Alexander Sarlin  20:59  
Yeah, I think we've seen the sort of coding as content movement be in place for a while now, at least a decade. And it's made some progress in some places. And you've definitely seen a number of states start to add sort of, you know, development, software development and coding as part of the curriculum, even for K 12. And tried to grow that there aren't always enough teachers, but they've been trying to grow that I think it's really interesting to see really cutting edge technology like artificial intelligence, and crypto. And you know, web three people starting to sort of shorten that cycle and say, Yeah, this is still pretty new technology. And we're still evolving it. But even now, we should start getting this into the curriculum, we should start making sure students understand that because we know that it's going to be a huge part of the future, I just want to shout out digital promise here. Digital promise has been working on these computational thinking curricula and bad systems for a while. And I think they've done a really interesting job of sort of similar to what you're seeing with the scientific process, Ben, of sort of breaking down. What about computing, you can use even outside of computing, you know, use in any field, they talk about, like algorithms, for example, you know, algorithmic thinking, how to think in repeatable algorithms that will work in any circumstance, in any situation, how to sort of build a system that can handle any kind of input. That's part of computer science and part of coding, but it's also sort of a core way to see the world that's really, really interesting. On the higher ed side, we saw two interesting headlines this week. So speaking of coding, code.org, just announced that they're going to offer an equity minded AP computer science curriculum. Nationwide, it's focusing on underrepresented groups, because underrepresented racial and ethnic groups are much less likely to take the AP Computer Science exam for AP. So there's a new curriculum coming out that's trying to reduce that gap. It's trying to be used more real world connections, be visually rich, and sort of get away from the traditional CS education and try to bring, you know, they have a bigger tent, so more power to them. That's really exciting. And then Singapore, Singapore's Institute of technical education is collaborating with Microsoft, to equip over 4000 Students with what they're calling responsible AI skills. And if there's one thing I've learned over the last few years, it especially with my Coursera experience, it's that where Singapore goes, the rest of the world will, will soon follow if they can figure it out. Singapore is way ahead of the curve on AI. And the fact that they're thinking about not just AI, but responsible AI, that's ethical AI, digitally inclusive AI, you know, resilient AI, they're thinking about artificial intelligence on another level, and actually already teaching it there. So that's, you know, even further than AI to all students, that's responsible AI. I think these movements are great. I'm really, really in favor of the things that are happening in the world making their way into the classroom with very little delay. Yeah, this

Ben Kornell  24:06  
is one also where the parents who are listening, this is, you know, how do you set your children up to be informed citizens they may not be and a software engineer or an AI expert, but having like core understanding of the building blocks of your digital world is now an essential set of skills for anyone to navigate. You know, coming speaking of navigating, what's coming, our next headline, Alex's around by Jesus, tell us more.

Alexander Sarlin  24:41  
Yeah, so some interesting headlines and also a little bit of a sort of like buzz about by Jews right now. So it's sort of a two sided headline. One is that by Jews is starting to open global operations at the in the US It's starting to think about how to expand to the US market in a more serious way that it has. And they're apparently in talks to raise another billion dollars for global expansion, perhaps with the US as as a core market there, there have been valued at $22 billion by Jews, as you know, we talk about it on the show a lot. It's a massive, you know, becoming almost a conglomerate of edtech companies out of out of India started from a tutoring and sort of test prep enterprise, and now has bought many different companies to add to its offerings, but you're also hearing this sort of backlash. So some of the thinking is, they're coming to the US partially because the Indian ad tech market is starting to wane. And people are actually starting to turn to turn on by Jews. In some ways, there's been some really interesting sort of viral LinkedIn posts and various things going around the internet about people complaining about by Jews customer service, complaining that they feel like it's sort of not doing well by their students or not refunding money or things. And there's an interesting article about from Indian media about, you know, the, quote, sudden downfall of by Jews and white hat, Jr, which is a subsidiary talking about both the economic downturn, they sort of have been making less money, and they've lost employees, but also the sort of salespeople like very intense sales practices. And I've actually, you know, seen this in real time, in the last few days on LinkedIn, where people are starting to complain very openly about buy juice surface. And it's such a big name company, it's one of the biggest start, you know, startups of any kind private companies of any kind in India, they should really, I think they got to watch their reputation, because the combination of the economics and reputational risk is starting to seem to add up, what do you think is happening with bad shoes?

Ben Kornell  26:51  
Well, first, I should caveat and say, it's really hard to build an edtech company, period. And I think any, any reasonable person would say, what buys us the founder, what he has built, what his team has built, is a marvel, and is incredible. I think what we're seeing, though, are some real warning signs that the Titanic is about to hit an iceberg. And I don't know if this is a you heard it here first. But whenever you see that, the CEOs mantra was, India is going to, like grow. And we're going to take over the world with a strong base, to I'm letting go of all my duties and focusing on entering the US market. That is a really, really concerning pivot from a co founder, and a couple of things that we can learn from it. One is, in developing markets, the purchasing power of consumers is still really small compared to the purchasing power in Europe in the US. And so while the like law of large numbers can really make India awesome, it certainly made China an amazing market, it could make Brazil or Nigeria incredible markets to grow your users. At the end of the day, if your average customer value is $100 per year, that is really hard to make a billion or multibillion dollar business. And you know, as I crunched some of the numbers, in the articles, by juice has 6 million users and a 22 billion valuation. And if you let's say, took a very liberal view of 22 billion, that's usually like a multiple of revenue. So let's take a 10x multiple of revenue. So what that would mean is that basically, that's 2.2 billion in revenue for 6 million users, or $366 per user per year. So you know, being really blunt here with a bunch of their acquisitions, let's just say of that 366 200 of it is coming from by Jews. So you're getting $200 per family per household per year, that is just really hard to service in a way that you can continue your rapid growth. And in the US, you can find monthly tutoring for 200 a month. And so I think it just goes to show that and our podcasts We love talking about markets outside the US we feel like a tech is a little too US centric. But this is a great reminder of the incredible buying power in US and Europe, and the challenge of building and tech empires elsewhere. Furthermore, I would say the kind of failures of these acquisitions, or mixed results of these acquisitions is also common. theme that we see not just in tech, but everywhere, like half of all m&a fails. And so if you're a roll up company that's experiencing rapid rapid growth in a market that, you know, user customer value is low, it creates real risk. And so, you know, I would be really, really nervous if I were, you know, tiger, global, general Atlantic, or any of the other, you know, general investors in this in this cap. Now, if I'm an ed tech investor in it, I'm pulling out all the stops to try to help buy juice gain traction in the US, my family, we use Osmo, it's like a hands on Play app that you have for your iPad or tablet, it's great. It's also priced at, like $150 a set. So you can see, they're trying to find ways into premium in the market. But I've heard that, you know, their marketing spend, you know, they're essentially burning money on Osmo. So they're gonna have to find a way to kind of write that ship in the coming months. And, you know, again, with humility, the experiences that Vijay is is having is, in part because of their success, like, they can't make $100 million business, and have that translate to dramatically changing the trajectory of their company, because 100 million now doesn't move the needle for them, because they've been so successful. So it's just like, really important moment to watch. And if they end up going for Chegg, or to you, it's going to turn out, I believe that that's going to be a bet the company moment for them, because they're going to take on a billion in debt, they're going to take on a really big business that is also those two businesses are not that I know of, like generating a ton of cash flow. And so you know, the future for buy juice is going to be written here. And if they fail, and they have to break up the company or sell it off for parts, or, you know, go public with a 10 times smaller valuation, which still would be 2 billion, by the way, everyone in edtech, should be aware that they will be like decade long ramifications of something like that, because General investors will point to it as like a story that we should all be aware of. So interesting times, and thanks for bringing this topic up. Alex, I feel like my juice has been an important one for our show.

Alexander Sarlin  32:30  
Yeah. And you know, we'll have to keep an eye on it and see where it goes. Because you know, it's going it's having this pendulum swing. I mean, just a couple of weeks ago, we were talking, as you said, Ben, about by Jews potentially acquiring to you and check on this enormous high. And it's only now they're starting, they're starting to be sort of some blood in the water there. I

Ben Kornell  32:49  
mean, you know, White had $220 million loss last year and lost about 20% of its workforce, you know, these acquisitions, including Osmo, you know, we just haven't seen them pay off. Well, the moment that really raised the question was like, when the founder of IGN himself raised 400 million of the 800 million last round. And the question at that time, I think that was February was, wow, this guy is so bold, he's just doubling down on his business, or is there not enough investor conviction out there to find that extra 400 million? And who knows, we may be finding our answer, we may not the story that's going on behind the scenes is yet to be written. Anyways, that will transition us to our closing where we round up, you know, headline number five is always our funding and m&a outs, you want to take funding, and I'll take m&a.

Alexander Sarlin  33:45  
Sure, so a couple of interesting funding rounds this week, company called skill point with an E. Skill. E point is a three sided marketplace that's about solving, you know, workforce shortage problems. They had a $2.25 million round led by Presidio group in the US, I believe, right. So that's interesting that we talked about the sort of job, the job shortage and how people are really trying to find high demand skills to fill the shortage that sort of implicit in the college debate and we're seeing you know, a relatively small round but for a series B, but company continued to grow especially in trade jobs like construction, healthcare, it energy and manufacturing. We saw learn fully this week raise $2 million. Learn fully is a platform that connects neurodivergent students with the appropriate instructors to create personalized learning plans. So that is, I think, an extension of a trend we've seen, which I think is really positive, which is companies that are focused directly on neuro divergence as a population and it's more more power to them. That's exciting to see. We also saw a safe school, raise $2 million That's a platform to help schools reduce bullying and cyber bullying. So both safe school and learn fully are sort of outside of the they're sort of in between the SEL and regular content play. One interesting thing about safe school is two notable investors contributed to the round. Neeraj zohore, who is the president and CEO of Wix and gal Godot, the Israeli actress who was in Wonder Woman, they are investing. It's an Israeli startup founded by drone Herman in Israel. What did went on in the m&a world this week, Ben.

Ben Kornell  35:36  
Well, our main headline is from XO VO. You may not know so vo but it's a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ. And a year ago, we were following their CEO drama where Andrew Clark who founded ovo 18 years ago, it was originally Bridgepoint Education and they were one of the like, original online universities. So you know, Ashford University, many of our listeners might not have heard of that. Like it could have been as easily the household name that Arizona State University would be or that Western Governors is becoming. And Ashford was kind of a competitor with Apollo group's University of Phoenix. So they went public, I believe in like 2017. And they were trading at you know, $14 a share. Today, they're trading at 80 cents a share. And their precipitous down fall has been largely because of turn on their online universities. They actually sold their Ashford University to University of Arizona Global Campus for $1 in 2020. So you can see that their like kind of flagship business fell down, and now they're selling tutor me, which is actually quite a growing business growing at 30% online tutoring. And they're selling it to go guardian, who's one of our favorite companies, by the way, go Guardian is pretty awesome, who's also publicly traded, and they sold it for 55 million after buying it for only 6.6 million. So a really great return. But you have to wonder why they're selling it if they could keep it and drive growth, you know, given their share price. Some of the other background is when the CEO stepped away, he was given a Separation Agreement of 3.1 million. And so it just makes wonder zavio which still has full stack Academy and waypoint outcomes LLC, what's left there? And why are investors still valuing it at 80 cents. And, you know, the headline news is on the New York Stock Exchange, but there are a bunch of NASDAQ companies that have ad tech adjacent businesses that are in the transaction zone right now. So that's the big one. Any other m&a that you saw this week that you wanted to highlight Alex?

Alexander Sarlin  37:58  
So one of the that just seemed like an interesting headline is that Roblox which is the sort of edgy gaming Juggernaut and it's been very popular around the world is partnering with a medically prescribed video game that's about improving attention. So it's the company called Achille interactive, which is a company that creates games like endeavor RX, so the RX is the prescription piece. So that just caught my eye as an interesting one. I don't actually know if either those are truly education related as much as they're sort of related to children's, you know, behavior and neurology. But I love at least in theory, the idea of a giant gaming company like Roblox starting to think about games that might improve attentional focus, so that definitely caught my eye. Yeah,

Ben Kornell  38:49  
if the doctors are prescribing Roblox, I think it was gonna be a lot easier for my son to go to the doctor. Exactly. Well, thanks so much. That wraps up our episode this week. We don't have a guest this week, we would still love in the comment section for you to add your educators for the educator Hall of Fame. We'll be doing some segments on that this summer. It's been dubbed the tech winter. It's still pretty warm outside for us here. We hope it's sunny days for you literally and metaphorically. Thank you everyone for listening to the weekend. Ed Tech will talk to you next week because if it happens in ed tech, you'll hear about it here.

Alexander Sarlin  39:27  
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