By Brian Sweeting
May 05, 2014

Matt Greenfield is the perfect example of Why Every Tech Company Needs an English Major. Holding a PhD in English from Yale might not seem like the typical background for a venture capitalist, but Matt Greenfield has an impressive record for successfully investing in and founding companies that foster openness in educational institutions. After launching ventures like ReThink Autism, a company that provides solutions for children with autism spectrum disorders, Matt is now a board chair at Engrade, a system of learning tools that connects educators and students to the best resources, and is an advisor to University Ventures, the NewSchools Venture Fund, and the College Board. Given his appreciation for the English language, it is significant that Matt chooses to use evolve over disrupt to describe his philosophy for improving learning through these institutions.

EXCLUSIVE NEW LEARNING TIMES INTERVIEW

Question: How did your educational trajectory (background) affect your current work? Answer: Most people assume that a doctorate in literature has little to do with venture capital. But the most important thing I learned as a literary critic was venture capitalists are just as likely as English professors to hold stubbornly to their errors. For example, many venture capitalists remain convinced that K12 school districts are terrible customers. So far, thinking independently on that topic, on a case by case basis, has been rewarding.

Question: What professional experiences have been most formative to your current work?
Answer: I have helped start several companies, including one in communica- tions equipment and one that developed database design tools as well as an ed- ucation business. I will never forget what it feels like to have a hundred urgent tasks competing for one's attention even as one also tries to refine one's long-term strategy. Early in my career, when I was an associate at ABS Ventures, I helped out at two troubled portfolio companies and I have also never forgotten the denial, despair, and fuzzy thinking I found at those companies. I was sent in to one company to help develop their new VAR (value added reseller) strategy, and they handed me a directory of VARs and told me to start dialing. They had sold the new strategy to the board, but they had not yet started talking to actual VARs. I will also never forget the incredible energy and excitement and continual winning at Wellfleet Communications, which merged with Synoptics to form Bay Networks and was for many years Cisco's main competitor. If you understand your users in a deep way and get the product/market fit right, you can make a lot of mistakes and still have a very happy experience.

Question: How do you hope your work will change the learning landscape?
Answer: Many venture capitalists love the word "disrupt," and they are perhaps excessively confident that they are on the right side of history. I prefer the word "evolve." We have to help existing institutions like schools and colleges and corporations move toward learning models that are more open, more collaborative, and more connected to meaningful results in actual communities. I want to help direct more funding and grants toward businesses with sound pedagogy and world-class technology. This will require a lot of coaching of venture capitalists who do not specialize in education. And we need to attract much more capital into the venture funds that do focus on education.

Question: What broad trends do you think will have the most impact on learning in the years ahead?
Answer: Within the education sector, the largest amount of venture funding has gone to textbook businesses, including four textbook rental companies and innumerable digital textbook platforms. Neither my fund nor any of the other education-focused funds has invested a nickel in the textbook space. We need new interactive, personalized forms of courseware that foster collaboration. We need tools that offer continual intelligent curation, assessment that is organically integrated into the learning process, and rigorous evaluation of the efficacy of different learning objects. We need administrative tools that are better integrated with each other and easier to use. We need to understand exactly what each student knows, so that we stop trying to teach algebra to someone who is still shaky on fractions.

Question: What are you currently working on & what is your next big project?
Answer: As a venture capitalist, I have a lot of different projects at any moment. My biggest focus is the companies already in our portfolio, which I help leges, and corporations. With the time that is left over, I help non-profits, meet with thought leaders of many different kinds, and try to learn and generate new ideas. I have an idea for a curation-related startup but have not yet found the right CEO for it. And I want to find or create companies that can replace all of those horrific ancient student information systems and enterprise resource planning systems in higher education. At some point late this year, I may have to start raising money for my next fund.

View on newlearningtimes.com.

View Matt Greenfield's bio on mouse.org