John Katzman

After graduation, I took a job with Manufacturers Hanover Trust in software development. I don't think I was there more than a month.

Exciting discoveries in neuroscience are allowing us to fit educational methods to new understandings of how the brain develops.

I studied to be an architect. And I find tremendous similarities between building a company and the design process. Businesses have to do their planning on the fly in a fashion similar to an architect sketching.

I think a good entrepreneur has a very clear grasp of what the goal is, an unwavering sense of the goal, an utterly agile approach of getting there.

I played street hockey in Riverside Park when I was a kid. I played goalie. I didn't make the hockey team in college, so I played lacrosse instead. I didn't play hockey again for 20 to 25 years, and then my son became interested in the game. I decided to pick it up again. A friend let me play backup on his team.

Almost everyone who has claimed to know what kids need to learn or how they learn has turned out to be wrong.

I hated being a public company CEO.

I am always making sketches of how information should look or mapping out a marketing campaign. When I present my notes, people start responding to them. Desktop publishing makes everything look slick. When you present sketches, it helps start the dialogue and collaboration.

The thing about startups is you can make it, and if it's wrong you can remake it, and you can build a team that you want to have, a product that you want to have. You're utterly focused on your users or your customers and their needs, and trying to figure out how to meet those needs.

I think 2tor has a chance of remaking higher ed in a really great way. If we do that, those investors will do well.

Americans have learned to trust free markets. Republican or Democrat, we believe the unimpeded exchange of goods and services will yield better solutions than five-year plans set by even the most well-meaning public servants.

No two children learn in the same way. While we might agree that every American eight-year-old should be able to read and multiply, beyond those basics, there are few reasons to make every student follow the same path.