Reed Hastings

speaker

125 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 20 Jul

Reed Hastings’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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TED Talks Daily · Why AI is an even bigger deal than you think | Reed Hastings · 20 Jul 2026 podcast

I've been working for the last 25 years to try to find ways to make schools work better and have better outcomes for kids.

And I would say after a billion dollars in 25 years, we're down below where I started.

So it's a hard problem.

I would say the biggest uncertainty for everybody is how fast is the AI getting better and how fast will it be getting better going forward?

And then that changes your views and assumptions.

I'm on board Khan Academy.

And generally, I've been working for the last 25 years to try to find ways to make, in particular, U.S.

schools, but some international, work better.

and have better outcomes for kids.

And I would say after a billion dollars in 25 years, we're down below where I started.

So it's a hard problem.

You know, in the 18th century, most factories were steam engine driven, so you have a big steam engine rotating rods and pulleys and belts and drove the factory, very efficient.

And then electricity came in, and they replaced the steam engine with an electric engine, thinking that it was going to help a lot, and productivity didn't increase at all, and they were puzzled.

And then they realized the limiting factor is the power distribution system, all these spinning rods and mechanical power.

and they ripped that out and just put in small electric motors for each device, then they could move things around, fit them in better because it wasn't aligned to the spinning.

They could have variable speed, turn different motors on and off, and then productivity increased dramatically.

So that's a classic kind of economic surprise lesson.

And it's always stuck with me because I think that's what we're seeing, which is we keep doing things to improve classroom education, but the fundamental power distribution is 25 kids stuck at the same level.

and that the friction that that creates, which is roughly a third of the kids are behind, a third of the kids are bored and above, and a third you're teaching to, is the fundamental friction in our mass education system.

And the theory is, if each of us had an individual human tutor,

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