Re: email was just sent to employees with similar context regarding the stock price as was discussed in earnings call last week. Chip is hiding behind his CFO now?
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Free Paul!
Paul the goat
AGREE about "what is a platform strategy" noo one knowsssss
My best guess is being able to reallocate people to test out things Coursera does on our platform, then just shuffling them along to do a new thing when that inevitably fails
A comedy of short sighted errors
Can someone, anyone, actually explain what platform strategy is? I've never once heard it clearly defined from any of the c-suite and nobody (not Chip, not Harsha, not KURB!!!) has given us any true strategic direction on this. All we've worked on is marketing concepts that go nowhere, recycled content promoting programs people clearly don't want, and tests for the new pricing subscription model to try to compete with coursera. So what exactly is this "platform strategy"??
Can write bs emails when you’re off doing blow off one of your suits of armor’s codpiece and telling everyone every meal’s a feast.
Agreed. It's wildly inappropriate to casually drop two catastrophic wars as part of the “larger macro trends” contributing to (in the grand scheme of things) a very small company’s downfall.
Yes macro-economics played a role in the downward trends. But no, they did not need to directly reference instances of ongoing war- where actual lives are lost- to soften the blow of their own foolish business failures.
Leadership's stance "they just don't understand us" had remained unchanged from $90 to $0.90. Might be time to consider a different answer to the fall in stock price? Employees and shareholders deserve better.
While it's not untrue that the larger economic landscape has an impact on any company's stock price, it is disgusting 2u pulled into this comms "two wars," ... "among other factors"
Rhetorical question...What is it that makes 2U unable to look at the "other factors" within?
“In response, we are taking a hard look at all aspects of this business and are committed to making it profitable and cash flow-positive next year.”
Won’t be good.
It feels like they’re soft launching layoffs.
2U Employees,
I wanted to provide some context regarding the drop in 2U’s stock price last week following our announcement of third quarter earnings, which were below where we hoped we would end up.
As you know, we have been working to rotate our degree programs away from programs that are higher-priced or that otherwise don’t fit within our platform strategy. At the same time, we’re seeing strong demand for our new flex programs, so much so that we plan to launch approximately 80 new degree programs in 2024, most of which will be flex programs. Over time, we expect revenues from these new programs to replace the revenues we are giving up from the programs we are exiting.
In our Alternative Credential segment, while we are seeing strength in our exec ed offerings, over the past two quarters we have seen softness in demand for our coding boot camps that will cause us to fall short of our goal of achieving profitability in this segment in 2023. In response, we are taking a hard look at all aspects of this business and are committed to making it profitable and cash flow-positive next year.
While we believe that portfolio management is in the interests of the company, it introduces some complexity to our financial results in the near term - giving up some near-term revenue and expecting to replace it with revenue from better-positioned new programs over time. Investors don’t like complexity, particularly at a time when the macro environment is already uncertain, with two wars, higher interest rates, and other factors.
We are confident that we are taking the right actions in both our Degree and Alternative Credential segments to position the businesses for long-term growth and profitability. However, the combination of complexity in our Degree segment results and softness in our coding boot camps has resulted in investors feeling that they have less visibility into our results over the next several quarters.
As many of us are 2U shareholders, the recent decline in the stock price hurts. In this environment, the best thing we all can do is focus on the things we can control – delivering high-quality digital education at scale, executing our strategic initiatives and achieving our performance goals. Delivering improving results over the coming quarters is the best path to regaining the confidence of our investors and improving our share price.
Thank you for your hard work and commitment to 2U, and please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.
Can someone post?
What was the email?
*Chip...a Freudian slip perhaps