Just three months after appointing a McKinsey veteran as CEO, Udemy has replaced its co-founder CTO with an outsider. Eren Bali, who helped create Udemy in 2010, lasted less than a year in the CTO role before being moved to a part-time position.
According to SEC filings released yesterday, Bali will transition to “Head of Innovation” – a role that pays $120,000 annually and requires fewer than 30 hours per week starting August 16. He also loses his annual bonus eligibility and severance protections.
The timing is especially jarring. Just four months ago, during Udemy’s Q4 2024 earnings call, Bali enthusiastically presented what he called “the most ambitious product roadmap” in the company’s history. He spoke about solving education’s “2 sigma problem” – making one-on-one personalized learning available to everyone through AI.
“I couldn’t be more excited to be back at Udemy to lead the next phase of industry’s transformation,” Bali told investors in February. He had rejoined Udemy in an operating role after serving on the board, streamlining all product development under his leadership.
His plans included AI-powered role-playing simulations, immersive gaming experiences for business education, and leveraging Udemy’s 80,000 instructors to create assessments. He noted that instructors had created 8 million assessment questions and 15,000 coding exercises – far outpacing what Udemy could build internally.
Four months later, he’s out.
His replacement, Ozzie Goldschmied, comes from the enterprise software world. He spent nearly nine years at Dayforce (formerly Ceridian), including six years as CTO.
This hire makes sense given Udemy’s pivot toward business customers – enterprise revenue now accounts for 65% of the company’s total revenue, up from just 24% in 2020. The third quarter of 2022 marked a significant milestone when Udemy Business revenue first exceeded Udemy Consumer revenue.
This is new CEO Hugo Sarrazin’s first major move since taking over in March. Sarrazin, who spent 27 years at McKinsey, replaced Greg Brown, who himself had only served two years.
The changes come as Udemy hits a wall. Yes, they crossed $200 million in quarterly revenue for the first time. But here’s the real story: their B2B revenue just dropped for the first time ever. That’s huge – enterprise sales were the only thing growing at Udemy.
The company projects just 1% growth for 2025. Its stock has fallen 70% since going public in 2021. Consumer revenue has declined from $326 million in 2020 to $292 million in 2024.
I’ve covered Udemy’s attempts to boost its stock price over the past year: 20% staff layoffs, moving jobs overseas, and cutting instructor revenue share from 25% to 15% (Class Central analysis shows these cost instructors $30 million in 2024 alone).
None of these moves have worked.
The CTO change is clearly part of Sarrazin’s plan. During the Q1 2025 earnings call, he admitted Udemy hasn’t moved fast enough. He said they need to “accelerate innovation, particularly in AI” and “tighten our execution.”
But Sarrazin’s priorities are nothing like what Bali outlined months earlier. Bali wanted to use Udemy’s instructor network to create immersive learning experiences. Sarrazin? He’s pushing subscriptions – consumer subscription revenue jumped 40% year-over-year in Q1.
He also called Udemy a “two-sided AI platform,” focusing on how AI can help instructors repurpose content rather than Bali’s vision of game-like learning experiences.
The new CEO is also looking beyond organic growth. He talked about pursuing “strategic growth opportunities” and “broader strategic initiatives” – the kind of language that often signals potential acquisitions. He wants more partnerships, global expansion, and to position Udemy as the go-to place for enterprise AI training.
Goldschmied fits this vision perfectly. On LinkedIn, he talked about “building and scaling enterprise platforms” and “strengthening the foundations.” That’s corporate speak for making things run efficiently, not creating revolutionary products.
Udemy is trying to spin this nicely. Goldschmied said he’ll work “with” Bali, and they created a whole innovation page featuring Bali’s new role.
But we all know what’s happening here.
The post Four Months After Unveiling Ambitious AI Roadmap, Udemy’s Co-founder CTO is Out appeared first on The Report by Class Central.
