Dearly beloved,
we are gathered here today, in the shadow of the valley of death, to bid farewell to a fallen comrade in the march of technological progress – our friend Chegg.
He once was a shining beacon of hope for overworked students and frantic parents, but Chegg now lies lifeless at the bottom of the AI-infested waters.
This my friends, is a cautionary tale for all who dare to ignore the future.
But let us rejoice first, and remember the glory days, back when Chegg was riding high on the COVID era’s desperate, screen-glued masses. He was a $12 billion unicorn, and he was galloping through the fields of EdTech. And he promised us all that he would revolutionize education.
But alas, those days are gone.
Chegg is snuffed out.
Replaced by the cold, unblinking eye of Satan’s child – ChatGPT.
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His fall is a lesson in hubris
Chegg, oh sweet Chegg, how did it come to this?
You stood tall, you were confident in your little niche of tutoring, homework help, and polishing young peeps’ essays. But you thought the world would always need you. And now here we stand, staring at your $180 million tombstone. And that is a far cry from your glory days. We all felt the 99% stock drop.
It wasn’t so much a fall as it was a swan dive off a skyscraper.
Your leadership of course pointed their little greedy corporate fingers at ChatGPT. They were claiming that the chatbot lured your customers away with its siren song of free, and patient, and eerily accurate answers (ah – the irony). But the truth is that you walked straight into the abyss. You ignored the warning signs, the shifting tides. You clung to the old ways while the world sprinted into the arms of AI.
Oh Chegg – how we miss you…
Your fatal flaw
Let us reflect on Chegg’s offerings, dear departed.
Tutoring, essay help, and generating examples. That’s what your life was all about.
Yet they were all tasks that ChatGPT could also performs with the grace of a small and athletic ballerina and the speed of a cheetah on cocaine. Meanwhile, you – poor Chegg – you kept charging students $20 a month to do what ChatGPT does for free.
Oh, dear friends, isn’t it almost poetic?
It could as well have been a tale out of a book from Lord Byron, dripping with melodrama, and a tad of tragic irony.
Because the very things that defined you became your downfall.
And no, though it is the direct decendant of Satan, ChatGPT never demanded payment or complained about the number of examples it had to provide. It never ran out of patience or faltered in the middle of a late-night essay crisis. It turned out to be the perfect tutor, tireless and infinitely scalable.
And you, dear and beloved Chegg, you simply couldn’t compete.
A tale of two companies
And let us not forget the shining example of Khan Academy, who turned out to be your foil in this tragedy. While you, Chegg, recoiled from the encroaching AI wave, Khan Academy embraced it. They partnered with OpenAI, and integrated GPT-4 into their platform, riding the crest of innovation. They saw the future as it was, and ran toward it, arms wide open.
Oh, Chegg, if only you had joined them.
But no, you chose to stand in the middle of the AI highway, and you were clutching your business model like you were holding a security blanket. But it could not shield you from the onslaught of the AI tsunami.
And when the headlights came barreling toward you,…… you froze. Like a deer, staring in the headlights of a truck.
Chegg, it was not AI’s fault, but yours
Chegg, I hope you can hear as in the afterworld, and maybe the living take note as well. Because let us be clear: it wasn’t ChatGPT that killed you. No, the assassin was your own stubborn refusal to evolve. You saw the tide rising and decided to build a sandcastle instead of a seawall. In this AI-driven world, the enemy is not the technology. No. It is the humans and the companies that wielding it better, and cheaper than you ever could.
And let us not forget the eternal truth..
“AI doesn’t destroy companies, but companies destroy themselves by failing to adapt”.
While you were busy lamenting your fate, your competitors were dropping costs and increasing efficiency with AI. And so, dear Chegg, the competition was burying you without so much as a eulogy.
Until now.
A final warning
As we lay Chegg to rest, let its story serve as a warning to y’all who cling to the outdated ways.
AI is not the grim reaper.
Repeat after me.
Though they are not the reaper they sure as hell lie as one.
AI is the fertilizer for new growth.
Ignore it, and you will find yourself in the same shallow grave, sharing Chegg’s fate.
And for those of you who remain, remember…
You won’t be competing with AI.
You will be competing with humans wielding AI like a flaming sword before the Garden of Eden.
So dear congregation….
Adapt.
Innovate.
Or end up like Chegg.
Gone, buried, and only remembered when students need a punchline.
Farewell, Chegg
And so we say goodbye to Chegg.
May its failure echo through the halls of business schools as a lesson in hubris, complacency, and denial.
Rest in peace, dear Chegg, in the great recycling bin of obsolete companies.
Ashes to ashes, stock price to zero.
Amen.
Signing off from the corporate graveyard,
Marco
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