Sal Khan

“You only have so much time in the day, and you only have so many working years. Where do you want to invest that life?”

“My parents separated when I was two, and then my father passed away, so I never really knew that side of the family.”

“We want to make access to a world-class education like clean drinking water or electricity.”

“I've learned that certain things are much harder than when you write about them in a book.”

“Later in life, when my kids struggle to understand a tricky concept or master a new skill, I want them to have the strength and experience to tell themselves, 'I don't know how to do this... yet!' I want them to be confident that, even if something seems challenging today, they have what it takes to figure it out.”

“Formal education must change. It needs to be brought into closer alignment with the world as it actually is, into closer harmony with the way human beings actually learn and thrive.”

“I've already got a beautiful wife, a great son, and a house. What else do you need?”

“Our goal with Khan Academy Kids is to inspire a life-long love of learning.”

“I'd like to see a reality where, if someone wants to work when they turn 18 to help support their family, and they learn at their own pace on something like the Khan Academy or other things, that they can just, on their own, get a bunch of the credits they need just by testing out of things.”

“I'm not the kind to hang out on Facebook or Twitter or even talk on the cellphone, really.”

“Far too many bright, motivated kids are being badly served by their educational experiences - ones at elite, wealthy schools as well as underfunded ones.”

“In Idaho, we hope to see educators using Khan Academy to individualize their instruction. Instead of a one-size-fits-all lesson, teachers will be able to focus their attention on specific students who are struggling while the rest of the class engages with material appropriate for them.”

“To be clear, people are the most important part of any classroom. If given the choice between a great teacher and the world's most advanced education technology, I'd pick the teacher any day for my own children.”

“Kids and adults alike are having their curiosity drained away by boredom in class or the workplace, and by the unremitting background noise of a dumbed-down pop culture.”

“I'm starting a virtual school for the world, teaching things the way I wanted to be taught.”

“As technology plays a major role inside and outside the classroom, we want to make sure education innovation is accessible.”

“The math you need for most of finance is ninth-grade algebra, and most people feel reasonably comfortable with that. But I think the financial world there has been - I don't know if it's by design, or this is how it's evolved - there are bad actors who have wanted to obfuscate because you can benefit from the lack of transparency.”

“Every school is different and serves different populations.”

“I see no reason why there still are large lectures in universities throughout the world. When people gather, they should be interactive, problem-solving, and experimenting; not passively listening.”

“You have all this education theory, and people try to make larger statements than maybe what their data would back up, because they've done these small experiments that are tied to a very particular case with a very particular implementation... theory definitely matters, but I think dogma matters less.”