So yeah, I'm pleased to be hosting this meeting with Coursera's CFO, Ken Hahn. Coursera is a leader in online education, serving individuals, businesses, and working with universities to help them offer online degrees. It's a very global company, spanning most of the globe, and is increasingly moving towards more recurring revenue. Next quarter expected to be the company's first break-even quarter on adjusted EBITDA on the way to profits next year. So Ken, why don't you give us an introduction on yourself, and also a quick overview of the company, fill in the gaps on the vision, where you think the company's going, and, yeah, we'll go from there. Great. Sure. So I'm Ken Hahn, Coursera's CFO. I've been with the company about three and a half years. We took it public, when I was there less than a year, so March, we actually closed in April of 2021, which was a very nice market, as you might remember. It feels like a long time ago. And, what we do, what Coursera does, relative size for the year, midpoint of our guidance is $630 million top line. We are going to be EBITDA. I'm not updating guidance, this is reiterating just- Mm-hmm ... what we said last at our last earnings call. This quarter, we're going to be EBITDA breakeven, which is a big deal. That's what I said next, I meant. Exactly. The next quarter. The next one to be reported? Yes, exactly. All right, so we'll, we'll talk about that in February. Mm-hmm. So, which is a good accomplishment. We like that. We can talk a little bit how we manage the company and the bottom line, but telling you about what we do, I think, is a lot more interesting. And so what we do is we take content, we take learning from world-class institutions- Mm-hmm ... both at the university and the corporate side, and we should talk a little bit more about that in the consumer business. And, it's fascinating what we've done with some of these industry partnerships and, and what it means, on top of the economics, just the effect it has is pretty nice. By the way, we're a public benefit corp. We're a B Corp, as most people refer to it, but that- that's the marketing arm. It's a public benefit corp from a corporate governance standpoint. So what we provide the world is actually part of our charter- Mm-hmm ... and part of our governance. It happens to also coincide with building a large company that's profitable so that we maximize the reach, so there's a bit of a virtuous circle, if you will. It doesn't get in the way of shareholder value, or at least we intend for it not to get in the way of shareholder value. But what we do is we take this content and we deliver it through multiple channels, is the way to think about it. Whether that's the consumer channel, which is where we started, or our enterprise channel, which serves corporations across the world, or through our degrees business, which is our largest market, but our smallest segment today. And we can talk a little bit about that. Some of the trends there are- Mm-hmm ... are pretty amazing, but it's the strategy has been evolving. We talk a little bit maybe about where we are versus where we were when we went public. But in a nutshell, that's what Coursera does. We've been growing rapidly since- Mm-hmm ... we went public. I went and reviewed, and this was before your time, when we went public with our analyst models, which you're allowed to share with the analyst before you're public. And, we've hit all our numbers and became profitable quicker than we expected. So- Mm-hmm ... there's been a lot of a lot of water under the bridge between here and there, but it was kinda nice to see. But that's, that's Coursera in a nutshell. Got you. There's lots going on and lots to talk about. Yeah. Maybe let's get into the different segments first. Yeah. You touched on them a little bit, but, you know, start off with the consumer segment. That's the majority of your revenue. That part of the company has shown a lot of resilience lately. Maybe you can touch on why you think that is. Yeah, so consumer has done really well, even since we've been public. I'd say it's surpassed our expectations at that time. And the key is these job-ready industry certifications. And so what these are, it's on a specific topic. One, for instance, is Google Project Management. We have ones by Meta around back-end and front-end engineering and iOS, and then even advertising on the Internet, which Meta knows a thing or two about. And so we work with our industry partners and some of the universities where all of our original content came from. That's evolved over the years. And these are these hands-on courses that don't require any background. There's no prerequisites. You don't have to have a degree, but it trains these entry-level jobs. It trains people to go from nothing to... They're essentially a college-level course for a full quarter semester, multiple months to complete it. But when you're done, you're qualified, you're certified, you know, with the certificate from this company, in this particular realm of expertise, which carries weight with employers. Mm-hmm. And so, we were starting that around the time we went public, and it's worked unbelievably well. The outcomes, we're getting to the point where we can measure outcomes, and the number of people who have experienced career success or new jobs is, you know, is impressive. Mm-hmm. So it's been of great value to consumer, and as a result, it's been of great value to us. We've extended those, and we've worked with some of our universities, some of our degrees partners, to get ACE recommendation for credit. So a lot of these are being put in the schools as well, which is great for the schools because they're talking increasingly about outcomes and about... And just from a student standpoint, of being job-ready and more employment-oriented. So it's worked great for the students. It's been a ton of value. So connecting those two segments, and our segments are all intertwined, and we can talk a little bit more about that. Mm-hmm. But that's one particularly interesting area. So it, it's these entry-level professional certs that have just, you know, helped us exceed, you know, external and internal expectations over the past few years and, and are pretty important source of our offerings across each of our channels. How important is the adding of new certs to your performance in particular? Like, do old certs continue to perform well and grow, or what's kind of the way we should think about that? Yeah, we talked on the last call about hoping to have 50 by the end of this year, 40 and some change at the end of last quarter when we were talking about that. Adding new ones is important because we continue to expand the type of content. Mm-hmm. We also do the same thing geographically. So these are companies that are recognized in their regions as being, you know, they should be good at these certain things. That's why it's an employment indicator. Mm-hmm ... and why it's popular with people. There is lots of opportunity to continue. This will not run out for a long time. Mm. So it's important, you know, for hygiene as much as anything else. It's worked really well. Signing up new ones is relatively... Nothing's easy- Mm ...when you're talking about partnerships, but relatively easy for us because we can point to all these amazing success stories- Yeah ... with millions, millions of consumers educated, doing great things for the brands of those industry partners that do this with us. And again, we're extending that now increasingly towards healthcare. Mm-hmm. We're doing it internationally as well, with international brands, instead of it just being U.S.-based. So from a revenue standpoint, doesn't matter here and now what we sign up every quarter. Are we going to miss in a quarter if we don't sign up enough? No. But it's something that we're working through as a process to continue to add. You know, I've had people ask: Should you go from 50 to 200? Mm. Are you good where you are, should you go from $50-$75 over the next 2 years? The answer is $50-$200, because there's no reason not to do it. Okay. There will be opportunities. If you just think about how you'd map that out, that is the direction. I'm making up numbers, but- Sure. Maybe CFO shouldn't do that, but you tell me. Maybe not make up numbers, but, you know- Okay ... it's okay to imagine a little bit, just as long as you're clear on what you're doing. Discuss strategically what we're doing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. You got it. So you did have a big change in that segment, at the beginning of this year with how you work with your biggest partner. Yeah. This practice, some of your costs were recognized on the balance sheet, but also had some one-time costs. So maybe you can confirm for people, once again, those are one-time costs that go away at the end of this year. Yep. But then also talk about, you know, why the change, what benefits you're seeing from it. And if you want to say who it is, feel free. If not, that's fine. Yeah. I think most people can find who our largest industry partner is. I, Okay ... for the sake of the relationship, I won't say anything, but they're pretty happy to talk about it, too. Mm-hmm. So anyway, a large, very large internet company, you might know, is our largest industry partner that I might have mentioned before in passing, because they have some of our most important programs. They're a really important partner, and what they do through their programs is educating a lot of people and creating a lot of good. We have evolved that relationship mutually over time. It's interesting, part of it being, I wouldn't call it a victim, because I like where we've ended up with it, frankly, but an evolution. And when you have something of size like that, a partner of size, and you have changes in terms, it affects an organization. So, you know, it was, it was a big deal. Mm-hmm. We talked about it in our MD&A- Yeah ...with our 10-Q that we filed, so it's important. And on the front end, was something we took deadly seriously because it affects where the numbers are. But what had happened with that business, the way most of our business works, is there's a rev share. On the consumer side, it's generally 50/50. That originated way back when with our university partners and continues to this day, with virtually 99% now of our revenue, 99-98%, goes through these standard contract terms- Mm ... which is roughly 50%. It's a 50% revenue split. And when we started with our largest industry partner, with them, they didn't want any money because it was really about them doing this and creating job opportunities for people. That's what was important for them. It was part of the government affairs efforts. Mm ... amongst a couple of other things. That's where it reported in the organization. And over time, as it became bigger, they were supporting all the costs. They had large budgets. We didn't have large budgets. They were very demanding, and they didn't want to make cost an issue. But at the point where we really started accelerating and get a lot of volume, appropriately, they came back and, you know, said, "We're spending all this money to support it, and you get all the revenue. Strikes us as that's not particularly fair." So we agreed with them to do a share where we supported the programs. They still didn't want revenue because the revenue didn't matter to them. Where we supported through costs and the lower part of the P&L, below the gross margin line, instead of being a cost of sale, instead of it being a direct revenue share, around marketing- Mm-hmm ... around engineering. Actually, in almost every organization, they, this was a pretty high volume thing, so they wanted to support it across the different parts of the org. So that's what we did on roughly the same industry terms, just in a different part of the P&L. This is why we're talking about it in the 10-Q, as you look at MD&A. And so what we did in this last year, as you know, I think a lot of the tech companies have been under pressure and are reevaluating relationships and how it works and squeezing things so they can focus their resources on where they get the greatest growth, which is what everybody should do for their companies. We had the discussion about maybe rev share works out… for us. Mm-hmm. Believe it or not, 'cause you're talking about, you know, your gross margin, which I'm particularly sensitive to, as people think about leverage. Yeah. And we were very open throughout, as we always are on our calls, discussing that relationship and that it looked different than the others, and here's the effect on the P&L. So the good news, when we did that, it wasn't as traumatic when we brought down the gross margins. The better news is it served us really well from a partner standpoint, from an operations standpoint, because now this company, which most people argue is the best company in the world at figuring out how consumers go through workflows and experiences and remain engaged or aren't engaged, are now in the business with us of generating revenue and have internal targets on that revenue, which are big targets, of course, 'cause it's a big company, which has helped drive us and teach us and make us better. Mm. in serving our consumer and continuing these relationships and keeping people engaged as they finish these learnings, which further their job prospects and their careers and drive revenue for us and bring good to the world. So, so it has all worked out really well. You know, there was a lot of stress around the holidays for a couple of years for those involved in it. But yet, it's an important thing to understand when you, where you look at the P&L. And the good news is, as we get into 2024, we won't have to talk about it anymore- Mm. Sure. Mm. Sure. 'Cause we'll have lapped it on a year-over-year basis. But actually, a fairly important thing to understand about the company, I think, teases out some of, you know, some of these important industry relationships and what they mean to us. Right. You expect the basis of learnings you've had from that relationship change to kind of filter up to the rest of the segment over time, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. They've, they have taught us things and, and as I tortured myself because I was pretty heavily involved in the negotiation, in the back of my head, because I had a pretty thorough internet consumer background, was, "This will be good for us, actually, in, in a number of ways. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's already proving to be so. Got it. And then, let's talk the enterprise segment, the second biggest segment, I believe, about, what, 30% of revenue, right? Yes. Yep. Yeah. Roughly. So last quarter, I think you said something like, "We're awaiting more clarity on corporate learning budgets." When do you think you might have that clarity? And then kind of what are the prospects for budget flush in 4Q? Kind of what's in your guidance? Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So, the enterprise business, we actually have three different verticals within the enterprise segment. And it's Coursera for Business, which is the way most people think about the space, which is primarily selling to L&D leaders, learning development leaders, sometimes directly to the operating teams, essentially as an enterprise sale. So it looks like the model is a SaaS model- Mm. - enterprise software model, where you have a go-to-market effort with reps who are out in the field, direct selling, six-figure deals, sometimes seven figures, especially in the government side, seven-figure deals selling direct. So that's what that business is. It's been flat. In the other two segments, so that part of the business has been flattish. We haven't spent lots of time discussing it. Makes up a bit more than half of that segment. Mm-hmm. The other two verticals, Coursera for Gov-Government, Coursera for Campus, which roughly equally split the difference, are growing pretty well, actually. Mm. We've been really happy. What those are is the government vertical is really just a industry sector split like you do in SaaS. Frequently, a lot of people have government RFP's because it's specialized procurement and all that. Mm. We compete very well there because it's about brand- Mm. which we have the best branded content in the industry because of the way our content engine works, and there's other in the space who have good content engines, but they're just different, so it just looks a little different. But we do particularly well because people care about the brands, and the job-ready aspects reference the whole previous conversation around what we've done with our industry partners. And so we're a very nice fit for Coursera for Government. That grows pretty well. And Coursera for Campus is something we've evolved over the last couple of years, kind of a new thing since we went public, and ties in well with our university segment, with our degree segment. What that is, is us selling to the schools themselves, and we used to describe this going back, let's say, a year, where it's not insignificant, it's $ millions a quarter, but we're still figuring out product market fit, which most people don't talk about their businesses like that, 'cause that means it might go to zero, 'cause we're just experimenting right now, which is what we were doing. Again, we're pretty open about these things as we develop them. We've figured out pretty good product market fit in one instance that we think is sizable, which is selling to the universities on a per student, selling to students for credit. Mm-hmm. So what that is, and a lot of these, and we're getting ACE accreditation, as I mentioned before, in the background around these programs. It's the schools offering some of this world-class content, a lot of it industry partner, which is job relevant to their students for credit as part of their degree, and it's done particularly well. Again, it's, you know, roughly a quarter, a little bit less than that. It's not a big, big deal, but we're pretty excited about it. It plays in well with our degree strategy, which is our biggest market over time. Mm-hmm. Now, I'm not forgetting the part that's not going as well in the current environment, which is Coursera for Business. Coursera for Business, it's an enterprise sale. It's caught in those budget cycles, and so, you know, like I said, it's been flattish. It's probably a little bit more discretionary than SaaS- Mm. So look to what people are saying in the SaaS space and think about the fact that a lot of times they're deeply embedded. You know, a lot of what's happened as, as corporate budgets have tightened, is a lot of companies have done... What we've done is you have a list of all your SaaS providers, you understand the licenses, you find you've been inefficient, even if you measure it fairly frequently. You've been inefficient 'cause you have multiple licenses from different places, or you, the use case for what the cost is doesn't matter anymore, and you just haven't reviewed it enough. Cut those.... We saved probably 15%-20% in doing that effort ourselves over this past year. I'm sure everybody's doing the same thing. So the problem with corporate learning is it, it doesn't have to happen right now. It's not. Whereas a lot of times, again, you're baked in. So I, I think it's been— others in the space, you know, some have talked about being difficult. Some of them are performing pretty well- Mm-hmm. -which is nice and a good indicator, and I think is good from an opportunity standpoint for us. I don't think we're gonna see any budget flush. I'm not sure anybody should bet on budget flush anywhere in this economy, but hard to say. But from what we're seeing, I don't expect it. To me, the real question is gonna be with people, for those on calendar years, which is the vast majority of companies, as they're setting their budgets for their next years, where do budgets go next year? And so I think that's the big unveil I think people will start to see as we get into-- most people are being cautious about giving guidance for next year. Definitely. That's the thing to look for. Yeah. And that kind of is my next question, which is kind of what are the specifics you see for, for that segment next year? Do you think... What do we need to see to have it reaccelerate, stabilize, continue to slow down? What's kind of the, the thought process there? Even if you're not gonna give us- Yeah. Some numbers. You know, I'll tell you what I know, and I won't pretend to be expert, but I'll tell you from what we see internally, I don't see it changing to the negative. Mm-hmm. It feels like we're stable. It feels like people have an understanding of the world. What, what could go wrong? The world could destabilize further. You know, we've got the election next year, and, and politics aren't awesome. No matter what your beliefs are about it, they're not awesome in, in this country, and that creates some instability with what's going on in the rest of the world, particularly. So that's risk globally for everybody, everywhere. But of course, that's, you know, that's part of the answer, is that is as big as anything- Mm-hmm. as a downside. On the upside, we're actually pretty excited about this, we think AI, from a learning perspective, assuming people can come with the right product- Mm-hmm. and which is what we're trying to do right now, as are others in the space, I can't imagine that's not a very real driver of top line for people in the learning space next year. Okay. That's particularly on the enterprise side. Got it. And then the final segment is degrees. That is your smallest one. Yeah. As you said, though, it is your largest potential market. Yep. It did accelerate this year from last year. But last quarter was a little bit of a hiccup. Mm-hmm. Still better than it had been before, but not as much as I think maybe people were hoping for. Yeah. I guess, what parts of degrees performed to plan? What parts caused kind of the reevaluation of the growth trajectory? And then, I heard at least two university programs delayed out of the three Q. Yeah. When do you expect them to kind of get going? Yeah. What's the prospects for getting to that 25% growth you had been talking about before for next year? Yeah, so- There's a lot of things there. Yes, yes, yes. I'm trying to connect them all. The... So, there's a lot of tactical to the answer, which is the exact right set of questions and what we're tackling now. So there's a strategic context around degrees that we're working on. And again, we've been pretty open about this on our calls and how we think about it. If you look back to that original revenue model that we did for the analysts before we went public again, you're newer to the story- Mm. But not that new, but it was something different. We have exceeded on consumer and not done as well as we'd have liked on both enterprise and degrees. Mm. But degrees in particular has been a little bit frustrating. We needed a strategy change, we realized, as things were evolving there, and I'll tell you, we're feeling pretty good that we have that strategy right, but proving it out, is what we're gonna require before we start talking about it in any kind of bullish fashion. We continue to talk about it, maybe ad nauseam, if anyone wants to vomit about it, because it's our biggest segment and because it changes the world- Potentially. -which is important. Potentially. It's our biggest market opportunity- Yeah. -for sure. And us getting it right, we shall see, to your point, potentially. We're feeling pretty good about where we are, and we can talk a little bit more about strategically what that looks like. But there's the historic business we've had, which makes up almost all the revenue. Mm-hmm. Then what we're doing now strategically, which we have some proof points that are happening now and going live. So tactically, everything that's happening is what you're seeing in the revenue. We had a couple programs delay. It's hard to predict when schools launches. It's the one thing I've learned about this space over time, and it is a little surprising, honestly, even if you think you've seen it all, is universities operate at a on a different clock. Mm-hmm. Something that might be important that you'd ignore in the business world, they don't ignore. Mm. And probably for the good, if you... But they, it's not—it makes it less predictable. So we've had a couple... You know, we announced last quarter, we announced Berkeley— Mm-hmm. which was amazing, but Berkeley, we thought we'd be announcing, you know, a year ago. Sure. And so, as one example, and we've learned just to be patient, but it makes it a little harder to forecast near term. Mm-hmm. And so, again, it's that big on the total revenue, but it's important more how we're developing the ones that are a fit with the newer strategy, which is about degrees that are lower cost, in subject matter that delivers a lot of human capital or increase in human capital, earnings potential, right? More bang for the buck. And so we've worked with a couple of partners, UC Colorado Boulder is one we've talked about- Mm-hmm. And is very public. We're fulfilling those student cohorts right now for the first one. That had pushed back a quarter, by the way. Okay. Back to that previous conversation, and is on track and moving today. But what that's about is they have a data science and a computer science degree, a two-year degree, that for which they charge $15,750. Used to be $23,000-$24,000. Mm-hmm. So much cheaper, where they have admissions that are enabled through open content, so they have those courses. Most of Coursera's content, by the way, we have the same content in consumer and enterprise. It's the exact same content, and you can see almost all of it for free if you go on right now and go look it up. If you want a certificate around it, certainly, if you want a degree, you have to pay, but you can see what it looks like. So their open content, if you take it and get the certificate of completion, which costs, I think, $30, and you pass 2 of those with a B or better, 'cause they're graded, then you're admitted into the program. So it eases admissions. If you think about admissions, the admissions process, you have to take a standardized test, an SAT or a GRE, and you have to fill out an application. You might have to get recommendations. It is daunting for most people to go get a graduate degree, especially because you're probably working and busy and might have a family on top of it. So it's something that, you know, what I just said, I don't know, 5%-10% of people are willing to continue forward and deal with that torture as they figure out what it is. How about instead of an admissions process that's geared, well, firstly, that historically has been geared to reject a lot of people as a sign of quality, but even ignoring that that's changing, is geared to understanding whether someone will succeed. How about you just have the courses of the program and see if people are successful there as an indicator they might succeed in the program? Right. 'Cause you don't want a student who's gonna fail in your school. So anyway, a number of these more forward-looking schools have agreed that's a good idea, are doing that. The next step, which we don't yet have, but we have with a different partner, but hasn't been announced yet, and we're discussing that with CU Boulder right now, is to take some of these industry partners we have and do the same thing with that content, which if you think about it from a top-of-funnel standpoint, is amazing. Yeah. Right? You can do it at real scale, which is how these programs are designed to work. So that is our new, is our strategy around it. I say new, but we've been working at this for about a year with essentially that strategy intact. Mm-hmm. Executing it takes a long time. We're about to see the results of some of the first of those. It takes a while for revenue to show, nothing's gonna change. So we're caught, to now circle back on your specific question, which I think I just covered, both the tactical, what's happening now with revenue as we end Q4, as we're going to look a little bit into the beginning of the new year, versus where we're going with the vertical, which is why I continue to talk about it ad nauseam- Mm-hmm. Because it is very important for our success, and so we haven't shied away from it when it's been painful. It's something that's really difficult. I think strategically, we've sorted it, and hopefully it works because it'll make a big difference, you know, from, you know, from the standpoint of future revenue growth. Yeah ... 5 and 10 years down the line, and really changing the way higher education works for a lot of people across the globe. And that's just the U.S., what we're talking about. There are other efforts in India, which is fascinating- Mm. -from a market standpoint. But that's... I wouldn't say degrees in a nutshell, but degrees in a balloon? I don't know. Something like that. You tell me. me. Help me. I'm the CFO. I think, too, this approach should bring more people into the ecosystem, but doesn't have the big bang revenue impact of a full enrollment on day one, where someone's paying you. That's right. It takes longer to build. It will take longer to build. It's a lower price point by definition, as we just discussed. But at the end of the day, we think there's enormous volume here, and especially when a lot of the higher education institutions are struggling financially. Mm. That's become something that's more obvious. I think it's in the press. Yeah. At least once a week, you'll see something. And this is something that helps change the way it's delivered- Mm-hmm If you think about it, in a fashion that I think will work a lot better for some of these schools over time. Got it. That's, you know, that's what we're working on. Yeah. It doesn't require that many because it's at scale to make it work. Mm-hmm. So I have a couple more questions, but I do want to open up for, for anybody- Yeah From the audience to ask anything, if you have. Uh- Yeah. Two things on my mind. One is the Demographic Cliff. Is that a concern going forward in the educational part of your business? Yeah, the Demographic Cliff that is coming our way in the United States, is that a concern, is the question, just for anybody listening. It will definitely affect higher education, is the answer. I don't think it will affect, it has a marginal because there's less volume coming through, so not that it doesn't have any effect. But that's not what we're doing. To some degree, this addresses some of the problems it will create, and I think capture more of that audience, more of those potential students than you would do otherwise. I think the schools, and there's a lot of data out there, it's already affected the industry. If you look at community colleges and their enrollments, it's been brutal, including, you know, all the way up to the best institutions. So it certainly had some effect on the margin. As it relates to us, you have to believe what we're doing, that it matters about the ability to deliver cost-effectively certificates, if you want, diplomas, that make people more valuable than what they've spent on it, which has been the fundamental problem, right? That's the bigger problem we're facing, because a lot of those degrees just don't, they don't pay for themselves, and they're very expensive, and we could talk about all the whys. The biggest one is you can finance it with subsidized debt or guaranteed debt, that if someone were doing it by the government, of course, that if someone were doing it from a private - it doesn't make sense, right? That's why it's not done by private industry. So, you know, it's interesting as, to loop back to that, this UC Boulder degree, there's no financial aid for that. It has to pay for itself. So, and I think that will probably become pretty common for the other ones we put on our platform, if we achieve. And, you know, not every potential partner, in fact, the vast majority, won't start interacting on that front because, you know, they want to keep their prices where they are, but it, you know, that's part of the problem. That's part of what isn't going to work, and beyond the, like, the really elite institutions, which I personally suspect will be able to charge what they want for a long time to come, and probably forever, just because it's a totally different experience, and so you get different things out of it than just, you know, skill sets. You know, I think beyond the truly elite universities, I think most are gonna have to come to terms with that reality, that what they deliver isn't worth it. So, it's... I think it'll be an interesting change. All right. I think we're out of time. I wanted to go into margins and the balance sheet capital allocation, but I think, I think we got to wrap things up here. So Ken, definitely appreciate your time. Yeah, great. It's been great.