YouTube: The Learning Machine

I think the value of education, obviously, is immensely important. But there are many ways to educate yourself, as you rightly pointed out, and I do think education needs a fundamental reform in order to keep up with where the world's going, both the wealth of knowledge that's now available online and the ability for us to realize that as individua... See more

In traditional learning methods, some kids struggle to make the connection between what they learn and real-world problems

Massively available video recordings of practitioners in action change this entirely. Through these videos, learners can now partially replicate the master-apprentice relationship, opening up skill domains and economic niches that were previously cordoned off by personal access. These new points of access range from the specialized trades, where el... See more

Another insight is that making things easier has nonlinear effects. Making something 10x easier can cause 1000x more of that thing to happen. Hence the explosion of online creativity you see on YouTube, with chess, Minecraft, math videos, Khan Academy, Twitchstreams, Soundcloud, etc; you remove a small bit of friction and get a large result.