Interview with Zach Sims, co-founder & CEO of Codecademy

Zach Sims is the co-founder and CEO of Codecademy, the leading online learning platform for technical skills. Since its founding in 2011, Codecademy has helped over 50 million people from 190+ countries learn how to code. The company has raised over $82M from investors like Union Square Ventures, Naspers, Owl Ventures, Y Combinator, and Kleiner Perkins, supporting its vision to close the technical skills gap and transform people’s lives through engaging, flexible, and accessible online education. Zach and Codecademy have been recognized by reputable thought leaders as technology pioneers, appeared on numerous 30 under 30 lists, and won many awards. Yet, behind all the hype, things were not always smooth sailing. In this episode, we talk about the story of Codecademy with Zach and dive into some of his key learnings throughout the journey: the difference between building a movement vs. building a business, the industry's attitude towards VC fundraising, the future of education, and more.Topics00:22 — Introduction with Roxanne Varza 01:05 — The background and growth stories of Codecademy 05:08 — Key learnings around VC funding from the early days of Codecademy 06:50 — Codecademy in a few numbers 08:06 — The type of people that Codecademy addresses 08:51 — How Zach learned to code 09:46 — The evolution of coding since 2011 11:00 — The importance of coding education and no-code 12:08 — How Codecademy keeps up with the no-code trend 13:14 — Life-changing stories from Codecademy learners 15:16 — Code education for kids 16:11 — Countries that are leading the way in code education 17:17 — The future of education 19:18 — The user experience on Codecademy 21:00 — The importance of community on Codecademy 22:20 — Zach on what he finds exciting in the education space 24:46 — What to expect from Codecademy in the coming months: international markets and Codecademy for Business  This episode is hosted by Roxanne Varza and produced by Cindy Yang. Art is by Gaëtan Lefebvre. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.