Business/Pleasure

In an earlier discussion posts I responded to another classmates explanation of a website called Khans Academy and how it is an online learning site with benefactors such as Google and Microsoft. I talked about how major corporations such as Microsoft and Google decide what to invest in. As I mentioned earlier these corporations are known for being generous with their money and are often more than willing to invest in projects that support education. But, this is still America and while being a nice guy and investng in children and education is a positive thing, for a corporation focussed on the bottom line, what is their end. It is all about the almightly dollar so much question becomes what exactly are google and microsoft getting out of their investment in Khans Academy. One could say that the more educated one is the more likely they are to search something on the internet, start their own business, or even keep up with technology (in theory). But, that seems too much of a long tail approach for a company. Especially when you factor in that these are online business and the shelf life of a website (not named google or facebook) is relatively short. The more I think about Khans Academy and their investors the more I realize that the CEO's of Google and Microsoft are vastly smarter than me and perhaps as much as I do know about the internet and business I am missing one major revalation about their investment that would help it all make sense for me.