[walterbell]

This expertise may also be found in technical marketing or developer relations teams.

It's worth exploring the business models which justify the creation of "learning" content, e.g. why does YC fund HN? DigitalOcean created devops/admin tutorials to increase demand for low-cost VPS at shared-hosting price points.

Do Minecraft, makeup & other How-To videos (advertising biz model) on YouTube count? If companies could earn YouTube revenue for high-quality training videos (general principles + product specifics), would this increase overall supply of quality self-learning material?

[scottdgibson]

I think I am more interested in the 'internal' customer. While the training you mention would certainly benefit internal and external, internal customers have a wider set of needs to sell and more importantly, support the products and services. Also, think about the broad technology knowledge need to build and support the actual products, etc.

How do they help people grow in their roles? Transition to new roles that they aren't currently skilled to perform?

[walterbell]

Here's a VC post about forward-looking companies, note that these are usually large and deep pocketed enough to invest in internal development. Less well-off companies sometimes resort to hiring new people.

http://www.tomtunguz.com/continuing-education-picasso/