Graduating with a Degree in Human Skills.

In conversation with Amit Patel and Ian Chiu of Owl Ventures

Is there finally a tailor-made option for employees to learn the skills they need to succeed in the job market? Is the future of education simply about fulfilling niches?  Do niche solutions exist simply because the delivery systems of the status quo are fundamentally broken? Through my research into the usefulness of upskilling in confronting the ever-changing needs of the modern workforce, I’ve remained focused on exploring as many approaches as possible that reckon with this enormous problem. 

Enter stage right: Amit Patel and Ian Chiu of Owl Ventures. Owl is the largest venture capital firm in the world focused on the education technology (EdTech) market. Like many in EdTech, Owl Ventures saw interest in their work skyrocket with the onset of COVID. As such, I wasn’t surprised to hear about their creation of a pair of new investment vehicles totaling $585 million. Once I heard about the funding announcement, I couldn’t wait to connect with Amit and Ian, two of the company’s Managing Directors, to learn more about their thoughts on the future of this space. Our conversation covered a variety of topics including: 

• The nascency of EdTech;

• Valuing people over content; and

• The multiple paths to expertise. 

In the end, what I was able to take away from our conversation was less about something either of them said directly but instead how their answers indirectly confirmed something I had already been thinking and feeling. This understanding became the highlight of this week’s newsletter.

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Online courses that range from teaching career-based skills to assisting with job placement. Bootcamps with innovative payment options. Adaptive education methodologies for different students and learning environments. Professional development opportunities to ensure employees maintain their relevant skills and employability. These are just a few of the kinds of ventures backed by Ian Chiu and Amit Patel, and the rest of the team at Owl Ventures. 

I went into our conversation wanting to know more about the companies they back and how they’ve adapted to a post-pandemic world. I wanted insight into the rationale as to why another fund now. And I wanted to learn about the major trends they are seeing across the EdTech space. Our conversation did shed a light on these questions and the relevance of their work in the complicated upskilling landscape overall, but what I walked away with was the growing belief that the way we win at the future of work is not simply about upskilling adults through these new means and mediums but having traditional schools focus exclusively on the mastery of human skills.

Hypothesis: focusing early life education on the teaching and development of human skills like leadership, social influence, and emotional intelligence, will best prepare the next generation for the demands of the future of work. 

Let me tell you how my conversation with Amit and Ian got me there.  

There Are More Ways to Learn than Ever Before.

For every problem I presented, Ian and Amit had an answer. 

Throughout our conversation, I was surprised by just how often either Amit or Ian was able to reference a company in the Owl portfolio addressing one of the many education gaps I highlighted. I recognize their responsibility to promote their portfolio companies, but I used this as an indicator that some of the most brilliant minds in the world are already trying to solve the existing education and training problems. 

• Degreed is enabling businesses and their people to continuously track and develop the skills they need for the future.

• Noodle Partners is helping traditional universities move online through online and hybrid programs.

• Quizlet is building tools that will help students study more effectively and learn new material in a remote centric world. 

• And Masterclass, well you know what they do! 

It made me wonder: Have we finally gotten to the place where we can customize the curriculum to a student’s ability, and run it at a pace the student can handle? This is what some may say is the Holy Grail of education. The signs point to yes, though I’m not naive enough to think there’s no work left in this quest. I do know one thing to be true after my conversation with Amit and Ian: there are more ways to learn hard skills than ever before. 

Human Skills then Hard Skills.  

Our current education system over-prioritizes grades and test scores. The human skills of communication, persuasion, and emotional intelligence (to name a few), which can be developed early in life are what Amit and Ian highlight as vital skills in the future of work. Whether through negotiation, collaboration, or soft leadership opportunities like being the captain of the kickball team at recess, human skills are an invaluable foundation of success. These kinds of skills remain constant throughout an employee’s life and need little specialized training in the workforce. With the pandemic highlighting the widening skills gap, and the expectation that the demand for skills will change every few years, it’s going to be harder than ever to dictate what hard skills one should be learning now when they may only be able to put them into practice in 2, 5, 10 years… 

By 2022 the skills required to perform most jobs will have shifted significantly. Global average “skills stability”— the proportion of core skills required to perform a job that will remain the same — is expected to be about 58%. That means workers will see an average shift of 42% in required workplace skills in the period leading up to 2022. - World Economic Forum

Meanwhile, human skills grow in importance as we simultaneously grow our dependency on technology to perform more and complex daily tasks. 

Human skills such as creativity, originality, and initiative, critical thinking, persuasion, and negotiation will likewise retain or increase their value, as will attention to detail, resilience, flexibility, and complex problem-solving. Emotional intelligence, leadership, and social influence as well as service orientation are also set to see a particular increase in demand relative to their current prominence today. - World Economic Forum

What if we were to focus K-12 education and Higher education on the development and mastery of human skills? What if we only placed extreme value on learning hard skills once we entered the working world? Part of what is leading me to ask these questions comes from a point in the conversation when I asked Amit whether he believed that a digital product would ever be able to actually replicate the on-campus/in-person experience.

Amit: My experience attending school was as much about what you learned in the classroom as about the relationships that you made outside of them (Amit holds an undergraduate degree from Rice University and a double Masters from Stanford). I continue to learn by reaching out to my former classmates and peers who are in similar types of positions or dealing with similar types of challenges and strategic decisions. Of course, there were frameworks, knowledge, and skills that we learned in the classroom. But I’ve also derived significant amounts of value by having those relationships that you can carry on for a lifetime. And so, whatever shape the future of education takes, I think it's not just about putting content in front of the learner, it's about helping them create those relationships.

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His sentiment reminds me of my own time in school. I often say about both my undergraduate and graduate experience that I learned far more outside of the classroom than I learned inside of it. The lessons in the cafeteria, surrounded by my classmates, were far more valuable to me than my Accounting or Strategy classes. Both in terms of helping me land, and ultimately be successful, at the jobs I would eventually hold. 

Being Ready for Change. 

We know that growth in educational and vocational programs (see:SanJieKe), delivery methods (see:Labster), and payment options (see:SV Academy) (all Owl portfolio companies) have meant the democratization of education. It has also enabled every student's journey to be unique. With greater access to programs that teach a wide variety of hard skills that are known to be in demand right now, I ask myself: why are we trying to teach skills to students they may never need? I ask Ian whether we are better off focusing on helping people learn how to learn, or on teaching a specific skill. Which has more value?

Ian: Gone are the days where you can just have one static skill that’s going to carry you for thirty years. I think that's just the new reality. And so, it's a bit of a false choice in the sense that you really do need both. It's the world that we live in now. All of our companies, at some level, prepare folks for not only the ability to learn but also on specific skill sets as well that are relevant for their industry. 

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It is clear that both employees and employers won’t have a choice but to constantly learn new skills throughout the lifetime of their careers. With more learning options available to the workforce than ever before, I am encouraged about our ability to support a citizenry of lifelong learners. Let’s let students focus on those human skills that will become more relevant to the inevitable changes ahead. Let's think about what a degree in collaboration, leadership, negotiation, would look like alongside one in economics. Let's focus on teaching human skills so that in a world where change is guaranteed, we can best prepare for a future we can’t predict.