Coursera announced job cuts on July 6, eight weeks after its merger with Udemy closed. The company didn’t say how many people were affected. The only number it gave was a cost, $8 million to $11 million. After digging around California’s website, I found that 59 people were laid off: 31 from Coursera’s Mountain View headquarters, and 28 from Udemy’s office in San Francisco. California only requires these notices for jobs in the state, so that isn’t the whole number. Based on what the two compa

In 2027, Duolingo is shutting down Duolingo for Schools, its free classroom tool that helped teachers track student progress and assign lessons. Coursera did the same thing last year, ending free course audits. It seemed sudden, but the signs were there. Class Central tracked the Duolingo for Schools shutdown too. And this time, the signs were all across social media platforms. Why the Shutdown? Duolingo for Schools was launched in 2015. Within a week, more than 10,000 teachers and 25,000 stud

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

Update (April 2026): On April 9, shareholders of both companies voted overwhelmingly to approve the merger — 99.4%% at Coursera, 99.9%% at Udemy. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026. I also dug into the 300-page merger prospectus and found that Coursera approached Udemy three times over two years before getting a yes, and that Pluralsight’s owner made a competing cash offer. Read the full merger history. TL;DR Coursera is acquiring Udemy in an all-stock deal worth ~$1.8 b