Both Coursera and Udemy started 2025 with new CEOs. Greg Hart took over at Coursera in February. Hugo Sarrazin started at Udemy in March. Less than a month into the job, both CEOs were in conversations to sell their companies. On April 8, Hart and Sarrazin met for the first time at ASU+GSV. The rest, as they say, is history. In my 5,000-word analysis of Coursera’s acquisition of Udemy, I called the deal rushed. Two new CEOs, both less than a year into the job, merging two public companies. I w

Is PHP dead? Absolutely not. Laravel (83K+ stars) is the undisputed industry leader. Its $57M Series A raise in 2024 proved it’s here to stay, cementing its status for one simple reason: Speed. It lets you ship complex apps faster and happier. The market agrees. Senior salaries are hitting $120K+, and giants like Pfizer and the BBC rely on it. But between serverless deployment (Vapor), real-time broadcasting (Reverb), and high-performance concurrency (Octane), the ecosystem is huge. Where to s

Although I spend a lot of time at the computer and have taken more than 200 online courses since 2012, I’m still learning how to make the most of generative AI tools. I’m not a complete beginner in the world of AI, but definitely need to become more fluent in its use. In this respect, I found Google Prompting Essentials, created by Google Career Certificates, very helpful. This course, released in October 2024, provided plenty of ideas for creating and refining prompts in a variety of situatio