Does anyone in Boston work for edX anymore? Or did that end with consolidation?
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edX was in financial trouble before Chip bought it. He could have bought it for less than $100M instead of $800M cash.
@1uvm+1r9RWvgV I'm not sure it was so much that 141 Portland wasn't "fancy enough" as much as it was leased and designed for pre pandemic needs. I think the move may have happened even without 2U involvement. Being near the commuter rail stations would also have been good with how many people moved to the suburbs during the pandemic.
As far as I know it was edX people who choose the new office site and were working on the hybrid office design. It looked like it was going to be quite nice and flexible with different work spaces for different needs. I was looking forward to having an office to optionally use when I wanted, but not being forced to go in some number of days just because it was policy.
Boston/Cambridge is all remote. Sad really - when 2U acquired edX, 2U considered edX office in Cambridge not fancy enough. Instead, a new fashionable office in Boston downtown was supposed to be opened and was almost ready, but then 2U changed mind again and closed Boston for good.
Oh, this is insane. Really, what was Chip thinking?
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460807740/202241339349301904/full
Did anyone see this info on edX's losses before the acquisition? What was Chip thinking?
https://www.classcentral.com/report/edx-final-tax-returns/
Don’t know if many people know this, but edx people had generally higher salaries with lower titles (keeping up with the Boston tech job market) compared to 2u people with inflated titles and lower salaries. So, as you might imagine, edx folks were hit hard, often, and early with the layoffs.
@vse+1r9RWvgV the lease on 141 Portland ran out in 2022 I think. They were going to construct a new office in downtown Boston, but then scrapped it and all other offices (excluding HQ and Cape Town) to save on rent when everyone complained about forced RTO. So no trace of edX in the Boston area now except for some remaining engineers who haven't yet been laid off or escaped. It's a shame what Chip did to edX.
AFAIK, the only offices that exist are HQ in Maryland, and in Capetown.
But is there still a headquarters on Portland Street, or is it all remote?
I think there's still a good number of edX people still in the Boston area. A good number of people who were with edX before the acquisition survived the January 2024 layoff, but a good deal of Boston area edX people were laid off in January because as far as we can tell they picked the people with the highest salaries. There's also some who were in the Boston area working for edX before the pandemic.