Joel Klein, Sebastian Thrun, and Salman Khan at TechCrunch Disrupt

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Joel Klein, Sebastian Thrun, and Salman Khan at TechCrunch Disrupt

Sep 11, 2012

DISRUPTED AND DISMAYED: While we were hanging out with the feds (from the Department of Education, that is), Sal Khan, Joel Klein, and Sebastian Thrun took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF to offer their two (times three) cents on the main question from moderator Gregory Ferenstein: "Why isn't education sector being disrupted by technology as fast as all the other sectors?" Klein cuts to the chase by stating that education is still a "state and government-run monopoly which in essence doesn't align incentives with outcomes." You can check out the full video of the panelists' responses here.

Having edupreneurs take the main stage with the likes of Ben Horowitz, Jack Dorsey, and Reid Hoffman reflects a rising edtech profile. Yet some of our neighbors in the blogosphere didn't seem too impressed. One gal from Top Hat Monocle was "just sad" after the panel. Audrey Watters called the conference both "the worst one " and "the most fun to live-tweet" in her Storified recap and left early to grab a beer. We'll reserve judgment since we weren't there. But we imagine that the overall "disrupt" theme is deliberately meant to rub some folks the wrong way--and not only those in the education space.

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