[sidcool]

All the EdTech companies (e.g. India's Byju, once valued at $22 billion, bankrupt now, LambdaSchool, AlgoExpert etc.) start with lofty and noble goals, but reduce themselves to profit greedy companies. Don't get me wrong, nothing against profit seeking, but profit greed at any cost makes them indulge in dark patterns and even illegal strategies.

[Benjamin_Dobell]

By no means condoning this behavior, just wanted to comment that you're largely correct in that EdTech companies tend to start out with altruistic intentions and and shift away from that over time. However, I wouldn't say that it's always greed — I'm sure it is in some cases! However, in general it's a really tough industry to even break even in. If you don't generate income, you're shutting down, in which case you ain't helping anyone any more. EdTech companies tend to start out with an unsustainable premise. Honestly, it's not too dissimilar to the typical start up playbook whereby you want to build a brand and attain a certain level of market penetration before focusing too heavily on revenue. The issue is it's not necessarily a high retention industry, so when it comes time to generate revenue there tends to be drastic changes to the core offering and the company's mission is diluted :(

I say this as a 2x Head of Engineering in this industry who would very much like to work in this space again.