Udemy co-founder Gagan Biyani has publicly criticised the company’s acquisition by Coursera, describing the deal as the consequence of years of weak product innovation, poor leadership decisions, and a board culture that systematically ignored its founders.
In a lengthy post on X, Biyani expressed annoyance about the sale, despite acknowledging that the platform had changed his life.
“There’s another side to Udemy,” he wrote. “A story of what could have been.”
Biyani revealed that after Udemy’s Series B funding, the founders owned less than 30% of the company, leading investors to appoint outside CEOs to manage the business. Throughout its history, the company has gone through seven CEOs. Biyani argues that the board’s preference for selecting a “buttoned-up suit” over a more dynamic founder/CEO came at a high cost.
He and co-founder Oktay Caglar were so sidelined that they were not even invited to the company’s IPO.
“Nobody thought: ‘Oh maybe we should invite the people who …… invented the thing we’re all celebrating,'” he wrote.
Biyani argues that Udemy became stagnant. For 15 years, it did not introduce any major innovations to its product. Instead, it expanded its original video-course model into every available market. This approach created a business that generated up to $800 million in revenue and a $500 million B2B unit, but it was still not enough.
Coursera pulls ahead as Udemy falls behind
Meanwhile, Coursera pushed forward. It added corporate courses, built fully online degree programmes, and developed enterprise tools that won investor confidence and higher market multiples.
Biyani claimed Coursera “was a far worse product” originally, but admitted it innovated heavily while Udemy stood still. Despite Udemy generating more revenue, Coursera won what Biyani called “the court of investor opinion.”
Coursera and Udemy announced a merger in December 2025, valued at approximately $2.5 billion in an all-stock transaction, pending regulatory review and shareholder approval.
Biyani said the merger was “critical for both companies’ survival” but questioned why the combined entity is valued at under $3 billion.
Similar read: Nigerian edtech platform aptLearn shuts down after 4 years, to focus on strategic reset and AI pivot
He pointed to three factors: edtech’s failure to meet its growth promise, both companies selling products their customers do not love, and the long-term cost of sidelining founders.
“By ignoring the founders, Udemy failed to innovate, which led to slowing growth, which led to mediocre public market results,” he wrote.
He closed with a challenge for the merged company: to help enterprise L&D teams become “heroes of the AI era” and build the most educational AI product for consumers.“The current education system sucks,” Biyani wrote,” and the world deserves something better.“
Technext Newsletter
Get the best of Africa’s daily tech to your inbox – first thing every morning.
Join the community now!
