Reimagining business school through AI with MasterClass CEO David Rogier

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1:56Most of us were taught in school and advised our career to pick an area and focus on it.

2:05That's becoming a flaw for most people, I think, now. If you're a copywriter and in the top 1%, you now use AI, you can write even more world-class lines. But if you're just an okay copywriter, a generalist using chat, GBT, or Claude can do as good of a job as you have. So what we're seeing a little bit is like the barbell effect, where that middle is getting thinner, and you have the extremes of the specialists and the generalists. And so what What we're doing is we think, hey, you've got to learn AI skills. The second thing we said is, how could we teach people to be more of a generalist?

2:50That's David Rogier, co-founder and CEO of Masterclass. For the past decade, his company has offered classes taught by some of the world's greatest experts. We're talking people like Serena Williams and Hans Zimmer. Masterclass's mission is that everyone deserves access to the world's best teachers. David's betting on AI to accelerate that mission further. On this episode, we look at how AI is reshaping education, the AI tools that David uses every day, and how, amid sweeping layoffs, you can future-proof your career. I'm Rana El-Khalyubi, and this is Pioneers of AI, a podcast taking you behind the scenes of the AI revolution.

3:42Hi, David. Welcome to Pioneers of AI. It's so great to have you on the show. Thank you. I'm very excited to be here. So I heard that you just had a baby. Congratulations. Thank you. She's almost one year old and she's amazing. So we are going to talk about learning and education, But I thought I would ask you, what is your biggest learning so far from being a parent? Oh, God. It's only been a year, so I am not an expert at all. Biggest learning so far is just every time she sleeps and wakes up, it's like she got like a software upgrade. Like she won't be able to, you know, I don't know, point before the nap, after the nap.

4:28All she does is point. Okay. That's awesome. So your daughter is a little too young for this, but with my kids, I have them sit once a year and we do goal setting. And part of that, we get very clear on our core values as a family. So one of our core values is lifelong learning, which I believe is a shared core value for you as well. Thousand percent. So tell me more about that. I was raised in part by my grandmother and my grandmother lost everything. in the Second World War. And what she instilled in me was the only thing that somebody can't take from you is your education. I love that. And I think that shaped a lot of my life.

5:12And I would ask questions in school all the time to the point that my school teachers did not like it. I was kicked out of the classroom. I was told to stop. Oh, wow. And I was teased by other kids for it. And I think it's a trait that in education, it isn't rewarded until much later in life. But I actually think it's a key ingredient to being successful in life. I also think it's one of the greatest highs in life. When you learn something that's totally new that changes how you see things, that's like your own software upgrade. Yeah. Yeah, that is true. You're committing to yourself that you're always going to be on this journey of getting software upgrades.

5:59I love that. Yeah, absolutely. So how did this become kind of your story with your grandma and your upbringing? How did that then lead you to starting Masterclass? It's a great question. So after grad school, I went to work for a professor of mine that ran a venture capital firm in the Bay Area. And so I was investing. I don't think I was particularly great at it. And I went to my boss after a while. I was like, hey, thanks so much. I really appreciate it. But I want to go build something. And he goes, what? I said, I don't know. And he writes me a check for half a million dollars and tells me to go think of an idea.

6:35Wow. That is a great professor. I was shocked. I was so shocked. And it was such a generous gesture. And I know this is going to sound weird, but that afterwards became a very tough time in my life. because for the first time in my life, I didn't have any constraints. And I felt immense amount of pressure to do something great. This man had trusted me with a lot of money. And you feel alone and you can't complain about it to anybody because what's the complaint going to be? I have half a million dollars. I can do anything I want. Like you aren't getting any hugs.

7:15And what helped me then was somebody gave me a great constraint. She said, choose something. Even if it fails, you would be proud of it, which really helped. That's a great constraint. Yeah, and I think that you need a constraint to be creative or that it can help spur one. And so I mentioned I was raised by my grandmother, and I remember once, I think it was second grade, I went to her house after school. And she sits me down. I was complaining about all the math homework I had, which obviously I didn't have a lot because I'm second grade, so I'm just being a pain in the butt. And my grandma tells me she has a story she wants to tell me, which also second-grader is like the last thing that you want to hear.

7:53And my grandma tells me that when she was 16, she was living in Poland. Her and her mom went on a family vacation. Dad's going to join, stays home a couple extra days to finish work. While they're on vacation, the Nazis invade, and they take everything and they kill her father. Her and her mom are able to flee through Portugal to Manhattan. in. The only job they're able to get is on a factory floor. They're working side by side. And my grandma decides she wants to become a doctor while working in the factory. Applies every medical school in the state of New York. This is before a computer, right?

8:27So by hand. And she gets a no from every single medical school in the state of New York. Keeps working in the factory. Applies again next year. Every medical school in the state of New York gets a no from every medical school in the state of New York. My grandma then decides she's going to call the deans of admissions and ask, why am I not getting it? I have chutzpah, but not like that much chutzpah. And they all hang up on her except for one who says, I'll be honest with you. You have three strikes against you. You're a woman, you're a foreigner, and you're Jewish. Hangs up the phone. Oh my God.

8:57The fact that that person thought that was okay to say. Then my grandma keeps working in the factory, applies again next year to every single medical school and gets in one and becomes a doctor. And I remember her, I remember just staring at her because this was, you know, I was complaining and all of a sudden I got this intense lesson. And my grandma, that's when she like made it very clear that, hey, David, this is the only thing that someone can't take away from you. And I stopped complaining about my math homework, but I also decided, you know, going back, okay, this is my one chance. I want to try to build something that people can't take from others.

9:28And that's how I realized there's going to be an education. First of all, it's been a decade, right? We just had a decade. Yeah, that's amazing. Congratulations. And I want to say the professor who gave you that first check is happy. Is he happy? I mean, that ended up being financially a very good investment. Okay. Well, a while ago, I wanted to take a class. So I give a lot of keynotes and whatnot. And I really believe that I'm not that funny. And I wanted to really kind of upgrade. I'm sure you are. Upgrade my sense of humor. Okay. So you should, I mean, the Kevin Hart class and the Steve Martin class are great.

10:09I think for the stage. I love Steve Martin. Okay. The Steve Martin one, I think you'll really like. Steve Martin basically says, I'm not funny. I learned to be funny. And Steve Martin's approach to it is very close to what we do in product and tech is he basically tests the jokes out. And it was like, maybe he tests the jokes. And so I think what's so neat about that is like it just shows what the craft is. And then from doing that, you start getting intuition about things. But I think Steve Martin's argument would be anybody can be as funny as him with just practice. Okay, cool. All right. I need to dig in and do this.

10:45All right. So let's talk about how AI is shaping education. And I guess one of the most exciting things about AI is that it does hold this promise of an idea that you have access to your own personalized kind of learning tutor, right? You can ask any LLM of your choice, any question that you're curious about. It's patient. It's there for you all the time. Is there a difference between learning from a chat GPT, you know, versus, say, taking a class with Steve Martin? The answer is not as simple as I would like it to be. The short answer is in a well-trained LLM, you will be able to learn the same amount as taking a class in a classroom, but in two-thirds less time.

11:36However, LLMs out of the box are not designed to teach you well. Say more about that. We ran a test on this. We took a sample of our students and ran three different groups. First group, watch the class. Second group used the study mode on ChatTBT. The third group used basically a combination of those plus a pedagogy design to actually help you learn and to stay engaged. That third group learned the same amount as the first two groups, but in 60 % less time. Interesting. So what's happening? LMs out of the box are not trained in pedagogy and not trained on engagement. And so what the trick we found and how you should teach when you use an LM is you want to upfront, front load it with an architecture that causes you to think that you've learned.

12:37It's not that you've actually learned. It's that you think that you've learned. Doing that upfront makes you more interested to learn. So, for example, Duolingo is great at this. You get points and a scorecard and all these things and these goals you achieve. It's not that you've actually learned that much, but it's that you feel you learned a lot. Can I share about my Duolingo experience? Because I used to study French when I was in high school, and now I'm like, it's time for French again. And so I'm on my 85th day streak on Duolingo. I'm not going to break that streak learning French, right?

13:09So there's something about that where it keeps you coming back. I don't know if my French is any better, to be honest. It's probably not. There's nothing really special about it, except it makes you think that you've learned and it makes you excited to keep learning. That's really important in the beginning of a process when you learn. Then you want to, we call it, you want to like hide the vegetables. You want to then sneak in the pedagogical techniques that cause you to actually learn. And if you do that right, it's both engaging and you learn. It beats an LLM by far. So this is what I mean out of the box.

13:45It doesn't have the effect. But I'm going to tell you about a crazy story. The World Bank ran a study in Nigeria, I believe, with a thousand school kids who were all learning English, so taking their classes. Half the kids just learned in the classroom. The other half used a pedagogically guided version of Chachi UBT. And they did in afternoons a couple times a week. What the World Bank found is 18 hours of interacting with ChatGPT in a pedagogically guided way was the equivalent to a year and a half in the classroom. Wow. And the results held after a year. So for you, when you're learning on Duolingo, if you did it in a pedagogically guided way and ChatGPT, the same amount of thing, you would have learned probably 3x.

14:38I'm not an expert in language learning, but I do wonder what platforms or approaches, especially boosted with AI, will actually help me feel confident speaking a full sentence in French at a party. We're going to take a short break. In a minute, digital twins and why you won't find a video AI clone of Steve Martin on Masterclass yet. Stay with us.

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17:20Okay, so I want to talk about digital twins. So something I've been experimenting personally with is basically creating both kind of a, you know, like a chatbot version of like kind of me, but also a digital, like an actual video version of me, right? And what are you using it for? Are you using it yourself or are you using it for somebody who wants to hire you to speak, but they can't afford you, so they hire that? Yeah, I'm actually experimenting with that. I feel like my digital twin isn't there yet because it doesn't have my, I don't know what I call it, like my spirit, it doesn't have my smile and does have like, it's like kind of, I don't know, like buttoned up Rana, which is not me.

18:00And then the second piece of it is, you know, there's usually a Q &A at the end of these presentations and keynotes, which is actually my favorite part. And I don't trust my digital twin to answer these questions on my behalf. But I'm curious, like it would, from a production standpoint, it would be much more cost-effective for you guys to create, you know, to have Steve Martin create a digital twin of himself in three minutes. and then you use that to create, I don't know, a six-month program or whatever. Have you explored that? What do you think of all of that? We've thought about and explored parts of it.

18:35So we right now in beta allow you to interact with a digital voice twin of approximately three instructors. So one of them is Mark Cuban, so you're able to pitch your ideas to him and he'll talk back and give you notes and things like that. That we found is pretty magical. and when he comes on like the phone for the first time you get anxious like oh my god i'm talking to mark and like there's something magical about it also we've trained it with his permission on his books and his blog posts and so it's pretty good version of mark the other thing is because if you look at like you know chat gbt is trying to go so broad because we're only talking about entrepreneurship and business you're able to get it to pretty much like stay in the bounds too And you get over the AI part pretty quick.

19:26It's interesting the types of behaviors we have to adjust and change. So I'll give you an example. Engineers are going to hate that I'm sharing this. I was looking at one of the earlier versions, and it was great. And I saw a later version, and there was a longer lag between when you finished talking and Mark started talking. I was like, why is it so slow now? We had to put that lag in. Oh, really? To make it? because people got upset that it was interrupting them. However, on the video side, I haven't found, and I'm just starting to see ones that might be good enough, but I think for us, I can't find the use case that I'm comfortable with because on the voice, you know it's AI and we're very clear about it and it's something you can't do without AI.

20:18But I don't know, on the video, it feels like it ruins some of the authenticity of the person. So for now, we've been staying away from a video version of any of our instructors. Yeah. I mean, I like the kind of masterclass on call, right? Which is that voice part because we had Mark Cuban on the show and he's awesome, right? He's great, but he's not scalable. Exactly. Not everybody's going to get access to Mark Cuban and have a conversation about their idea. And so what this does is I guess it allows potential founders and entrepreneurs to pick his brain. Exactly. And I have a strong point of view on this.

20:56I think a lot of us are having the wrong conversation about AI in our companies and our product offerings. Most of the conversation is what can I replace with AI or how can I improve this? I think about this like as the Martin Scorsese test. So I'll give you this example. I could use AI to make a film, but Martin Scorsese could make a better version of it. And so that's not where I should be spending time with. I should be spending time on what can I build that Martin Scorsese could not do. So for example, instead of making one great film, what Martin Scorsese can't do is 10 ,000 films that are personalized for every person.

21:41So what AI should be doing on the video and the media side is creating 10 ,000 individual shows for everybody. And so the same way in education, instead of just replacing a video version of Mark Cuban, which I could film and be good, what I can't do to your point is I can't get him to coach every one of his students, but I can with AI. Right. My investment thesis in my fund is human-centric AI, which is AI that unlocks human potential and amplifies and augments what we do, not replaces us. Okay, so if I ask you about that? Yeah, ask me about that. We're going to get spicy here. Do you think it doesn't actually replace people?

22:19I think some jobs will go away. But I actually think like for a lot of jobs, it is not just kind of a combination of tasks that AI can replace. Yes, maybe it will replace specific jobs or tasks, but not many because they are more than just, you know, automatable AI tasks. But I also think that AI is going to create just brand new opportunities, brand new jobs that we're still, you know, we're seeing those unfold in the same way that social media just created a whole slew of new opportunities like social media influencers and, you know, social media marketers and whatnot. So I think it's going to be the same with AI.

23:04But what do you think? I hope you're right. Okay. I hope you're right. I was looking into this about the advent of the spreadsheet because the spreadsheet – I mean remember there was a whole industry of people called like clerks that were doing basically what a spreadsheet does. And the spreadsheet comes and it erases that. And all those people lost and had – it has major impacts when you lose it from a displacement like that on your income, even on your health. But then led to the rise of the analyst, and there were tons more analysts. So in the net, it was a net gain. So A, how do you help people that are in the position to lose?

23:40But I think the difference potentially with AI compared to your example of the internet, the PC, the spreadsheet, I think there's two potential risks that make it different. One is the speed of adoption. So one of my fears is does the change happen so fast that we can't catch up and then becomes a much bigger issue? or two, is there something different about AI that's replacing thought that causes it to not behave the same way? But I do think there will be a lot of people that are going to lose. Yeah, I do believe there is going to be a big transition of what jobs look like. I mean, even my 22-year-old daughter, right?

24:21Like I can already see that these entry-level positions, they're just changing. They look very different. Yeah. And I agree with you that we're not ready as a society. Like the technology is moving way, way, way faster than we are ready as organizations or society to kind of absorb it. Yeah. And we are seeing this, I mean, masterclass internally. We're also seeing it like externally. Some large employers came to us and said, hey, we're noticing some gigantic shifts in that people don't have the skills that they need and want. The types of people we need are totally different. Yeah. What have you been doing to reskill people or, yeah.

24:59Yeah, if most of us were taught in school and advised to our career to pick an area and focus on it, that's becoming a flaw for most people I think now in a trap. If you're in the top 1 % of that skill set and you use AI, the AI is making you thrive. If you're a copywriter and in the top 1 % and you now use AI, you can write even more world-class lines. But if you're just an okay copywriter, a generalist using chat, GBT, or Claude can do as good of a job as you have. So what we're seeing a little bit is like the barbell effect where that middle is getting thinner, and you have the extremes of the specialists and the generalists.

25:49And the middle is getting thinned out. And so what we're doing is we think, hey, you've got to learn AI skills. So we're doing lots of classes in collaboration with NVIDIA and Microsoft and OpenAI to teach people the core skills they need. And those have been doing fantastic. The second thing we said is how could we teach people to be more of a generalist? So we actually launched a reimagined business school-like experience with the University of Chicago booth and OpenAI. It's a 12-week program. And it teaches you not only a broader set of business skills, but AI in those broader set of business skills.

26:35And so I think the business rules are being rewritten and we are trying to provide something not just for our employees, but also for everybody in the world. After a break, David shares more about this new reimagined business school. Plus, more on why we will still need management skills, even when AI enters the org chart.