James Rhyu, CEO of Stride Inc., joined me for a thought-provoking conversation in their 25th-year of operations. Rhyu shared his journey from accountant to CEO of Stride, Inc. He emphasized the importance of viewing students as customers. We then delved into the potential of online learning to overcome stigmas and serve diverse student needs, including safety and flexibility for those struggling with their mental health. We also explored Stride's investments in technology and career skills, as well as personalization. Michael Horn Welcome to the Future of Education. I'm Michael Horn. And you're joining the show where we are dedicated to creating a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live lives of purpose. And to help us think through how we get there, I'm really delighted that we have James Rhyu, the CEO of Stride Inc. For those of you that don't know, you may remember Stride's former name, K12 Inc. Back in the day, when I got in this world and co-authored Disrupting Class, K12 was the big player on the block, if you will, helping to think about how digital learning could really open up opportunities for individuals that had not had it in the conventional school system. The company's continued to evolve quite a bit, rebranded as Stride, has a number of offerings. We're going to get into all of that and more because this is Stride's 25th birthday, if you will. 25th anniversary. So, James, thanks so much for joining me and having this conversation. James Rhyu Thanks for having me, Michael. Appreciate it. Michael Horn Yeah, you bet. So let's just start high level because I suspect people tuning in will know some of the history, but maybe not your history. And so tell us about your own path into becoming the CEO of Stride. James Rhyu Yeah, sure. At first, I would say this is the first time I've ever been CEO of a company. So I'm still sort of a rookie at the job, you know, learning as I go. You know, I mean, I started as an accountant, you know, tell people the only real profession I guess I'm really qualified for is accounting. I was, and I was probably average at best at that maybe. But, you know, so I sort of obviously said, then I came up through the finance, you know, end of the company. And I always like to tell people I was not a very good student. I was sort of a C student and, you know, so running an education company, I don't even know if it's a bad thing, but I take us maybe a slightly different lens to running the company. Having been sort of not such a great student, I've never been an educator, which again, I don't say necessarily think is a bad thing, but it certainly puts a different lens on how to run the company. I think, you know, the education system in this country hasn't produced, I think, the outcomes societally that we want, probably. And so I think coming from a different angle or a different perspective, you know, has some benefits, I think, you know, so anyway, So I came to the company 13, 14 years ago and I came on the financial side. I was the CFO. I had come from previously that to that I was with a company called match.com. I think a lot of people have heard of Match and I was very fortunate to be there when we started this little app called Tinder and sort of helped sort of explode online dating. And I always say that it's somewhat relevant that experience because people maybe of my generation remember, but a lot of people don't remember it, online dating used to have a huge stigma to it. Like it's now very commonplace and you know, you don't really have a lot of stigma associated with anymore, but it used to have a lot of stigma associated with it. And I think online learning or different modalities of learning, certainly different angles to take at education, they have some stigma associated with it. And I think the ability to overcome that stigma is one of the things that I think is important for Stride, certainly, in K12. And I think that you know, just like in online dating, it can produce amazing results for people if we can overcome some of that stigma. And so I was a CFO here for a number of years and there was some CEO transition. And you know, most, most companies go through like sort of succession planning. And about a year before, more than a year, almost, probably almost two years before I became CEO, the then CEO at the time, who's a mentor of mine, Nate, continues to be a mentor and friend of mine, he approached me on behalf of the board and said, would you consider being the CEO? And I actually said no for a fairly long time. You know, like I said, I was an accountant. I was very grateful to have been the CFO. You know, a lot of accountants don't even get to reach that professional summit, I guess, and, and I just never thought of myself as a CEO. I really thought of myself as a finance professional. And it took some number of months before I sort of convinced myself to throw my hat in the ring for the job. And obviously I ended up getting the job. I think what the board saw at least, and you know, I'm now four years into the job, hopefully they continue to see is one is I have a real passion for the job. Meaning, you know, and I really consider this job a job where irrespective of the company, we have a set of current and potential future customers. And our job, my job is to try to meet the needs of those current and future customers. And I think that will in enure great benefit for our shareholders and stakeholders. And so really that's sort of how I view my lens to the job is really sort of a customer focus. And I say that very specifically. And in this company, when I became CEO, I really, I'll say it sounds weird, but I introduced really the word, the term customer into this company. And I think, I think largely it should be introduced into the education vernacular more broadly because, and specifically In K through 12 education, you know, we think of them as students. That's fine. And by the way, you know, they are students, but they're also customers. Rethinking Education as Customer Service James Rhyu And I think if we thought of them in that way, you know, the establishment of K through education has long thought, I think of their customers largely as an entitlement. And structurally there's a reason for that because you've got one school in a geographic area and that school really has dominion over the students in that area. And so you didn't really have to work for your customers in a way, right? They were an entitlement to you because you live in that area and historically you live in that area, you go to that school and that's still sort of pervades today for 90 plus percent of the population in the country. And so you can see why that framework established this entitlement sensibility, if you will. But in most other aspects of our lives, we want to be treated as customers. And the reason we want to be treated as customers is because when you're treated as a customer, there's this, there's a sort of two way dialogue, if you will, it's not always explicit, but you know, there's this push-pull of what's best for the customer. What does the customer want? What does the customer need? What outcomes does the customer want? Right. Like if you're running a restaurant and you're a dietitian running a restaurant, you may be like, okay, well I know what's best for the customer. You know, low calorie, high protein, you know, low fat, right. Michael Horn We're cutting out those sugars, we're going to get the right oils, et cetera, et cetera. James Rhyu Yeah, but if you listen to your customers, your customers might say, you know, actually the reason I eat out is because on a special occasion or whatever, I want to indulge maybe a little bit, or I want to try something that I can't make at home or that's different for me or whatever. And maybe health isn't the most important thing in that circumstance. And as the customer, you know, restaurants listen to that and obviously you have this wide variety of offerings and choice that enables what customers want and the outcomes that are important to them. And I think that's really important. If, you know, if you sort of put that lens on, on education, then you have some different perspectives, I think maybe than historically we've had. And even when you think about, you know, and I know you're probably going to maybe get into this further along, but you know, if you think about the outcomes that people want and you think about my restaurant example, I don't know, like a lot of the educators and people are going to say, oh, you know, but you know, eating is different than education. Of course it is. They're all different. Every customer experience is different. But I would argue health is pretty important and education is pretty important. So, you know, we're talking about, I think, comparable outcomes, you know, healthy people and educated people, you know, and I think that if you think about that sort of analogy, sometimes what the customer wants isn't actually a healthy diet. And in our country, if we listen to our customers, unfortunately a lot of families aren't in the position where the most important thing to them is getting an A and going to Harvard. Sometimes the more important thing to them is survival, is actually the high school diploma which allows them entree into a job or a field that requires a high school diploma that helps them put food on the table for their family. So the outcome often that we think about is, oh, well, you know, you have to get good grades maybe. And of course that's important. And of course learning is important. I say more importantly, learning is important and learning skills is important. And hopefully real world skills that you can apply later in life are important. But in some families' cases, I think we have to remember that the grade, and particularly high achieving grades, A's are not always the most important. And I think a
