Paul is under a lot of stress right now. Chip drove this company into the ground. Paul's a finance guy and his goal is to make this thing profitable at a minimum. It's possible (slim chance) 2U will eventually become a profitable, independent company. The most likely way forward is to cut our labor costs to the bone, focus on software, and try to sell this thing to another publicly traded company or (most likely option) sell it to private equity so they can liquidate the company.
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Paul was CFO for 4 years before this happened. The layoffs' causes were within his mandate and scope. If he saw issues and couldn't convince the executive team, he failed at his job. If he didn't see it and never brought it up, he failed at his job.
When a company craters, the CEO is fired first and almost always replaced by the CFO to inspire at least a little continuity among the investor class. That lasts until they decide it doesn't any longer.
Not sure we can blame current leadership as much as Chip. It’s bad right now, but I seriously doubt the new folks want it to collapse totally on their watch,
You can check Andrew's LinkedIn for that. It seems he graduated high school in 2006, started at 2U as a VP in 2008, and finished his bachelor's in sociology in 2010. So he was a VP before he had a college degree and he's never worked anywhere else in 15yrs. Making 450k now while stock is at .81
Has Andrew even worked anywhere else besides 2U? Chip may be gone but his club is still in charge.
I cannot stress enough this last post. When I joined I was shocked at the number of inexperienced people with high-level titles. You are under 30 and you’re a VP (not at a startup where titles are whatever)? Are you kidding me? Classic case of a loyalty driven leadership team (Chip especially), and a recipe for disaster.
In regards to the leaders—none of those leaders are new. They all have been here aside from Aaron. And Aaron they’re tasking with being over alt cred AND product. Sounds realistic. All that happened were roles were shifted. Harsha hadn’t been doing anything in quite some time so his step back for anyone in that org was not a surprise. There are also the same SVPs and VPs. You can also look at so many “home grown” leaders. Leaders at 2U who wouldn’t be in their role anywhere else but because they started at 2U they have made it to a level that frankly they don’t deserve. The depth of leadership is very shallow and doesn’t have the ability to turn this thing around.
Yeah I work for them on the boot camp side as a Tutor, LA, and Grader. A lot of friends got laid off and now I'm worried I am too. I see they still have the camps listed on university and edx sites.
New players, perhaps - but it's the same old tired game plan in play! Layoff, layoff, layoff, layoff......
Something else that everyone needs to consider is that the landscape for online education services has changed since COVID. Prior to COVID, 2U and edX were in their own playing field and universities hadn't caught up and quite frankly didn't have the man power or time to switch their offerings to fully online degree programs. Sure, there were certain classes they offered, but not degrees. That's where 2U came in. Once COVID hit though, universities had to scramble to get everything online so they wouldn't drown. Once they figured out how to do things on their own, they realized they didn't need to pay companies like 2U and edX extortionate amounts of money to do something they could do on their own. Things are never going to go back to the way they were. Universities don't need companies like edX and 2U anymore. The writing is on the wall people, it's only a matter of time.
@1dkk+1qCIOoZU oh, oops. Let me clarify.
The executive team isn't the only leadership that matters, despite whah you and them may believe. There's leadership below them that should be accountable to driving actual outcomes. None of those leaders are ever held accountable.
@1tpk+1qCIOoZU - its a completely different leadership group then it was 3 months ago. Chip is gone. Paul is CEO. Matt Norden is CFO. The CRO is gone and Andrew and Aaron have been promoted. So while there have certainly been mistakes made to say that they havent changed leadership when the Board ran Chip out of the place and he's got new people in is inaccurate.
Their leadership strategy is a joke. They let an Andy Morgan who led the overpriced acquisition of edX, take over a massive B2B team with no leadership abilities. He can’t motivate a team and he’s too cowardly to have difficult conversations. The fact that he’s still here along with Andrew Hermalyn (has he ever had another real job?) getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars is the definition of insanity. Why would the fools who got us here be able to get us out? I’m embarrassed to be associated with this sinking ship.
ttq+1qCIOoZU nailed it. Rather then keeping new people who can lead into the future, they defaulted to the same old leadership with no major shakeup.
Insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
This was their moment and they proved insanity.
The clock starting ticking January 10. If things don't get better, 2U will get a letter from NASDAQ about mid-February. In order to be compliant, the company's share price must rise to the $1 minimum for at least 10 consecutive days in the 180-day period.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/delisting-process-nasdaq-2015-11-13
Good luck focusing on software when any legitimate engineering was cut today. It's now being led by the same people who led GetSmarter and spent 2 years building an in house ecommerce solution just to replace it with something else
Finding much value in 2U now is not easy.
HR has been trying to figure out who this leaker is. Be careful SVP.
While I appreciate this opinion/insight it serious lacks accountability of other leaders. There has never been appropriate oversight of anyone’s budget and spend. Post integration there was no integration work creating massive silos. Because of silos and hrs/leaders inability to create a proper org design 2U overhired and is now cutting people to make a desperate attempt to save money by cutting people. The simple fact they now have Aaron and Andrew in to look at spend for business units is a lost cause and probably more likely things will be sold off. Boot camp I’m sure being first. Look at many of the leaders still there. It’s still the old guard. No major shake ups.
I can’t imagine they’ll find someone to take on the debt then the whole thing is done.
For those choosing to stay and try to ride it out best of luck. There still on a hiring freeze and turnover is up so the burnout will continue without care for the people like always.
Thanks for the update. A couple questions:
- how are things looking on refinancing the debt?
- what kind of a share price would Paul be looking to get in a sale?