Vista Equity Writes Off IT Education Platform PluralSight Value, After $3.5 Billion Buyout

Vista Equity Partners has written off the entire equity value of its investment in tech learning platform Pluralsight, three years after taking it private for $3.5 billion, Axios reported Friday. From the report: One source says that the Utah-based company's financials have improved, with around 26% EBITDA growth in 2023, but not enough to service nearly $1.3 billion of debt that was issued when interest rates were lower. It's also a company whose future could be dimmed by advances in artificial intelligence, since some of the developer skills it teaches are becoming automated. Vista agreed to buy the company in late 2020 for $20.26 per share, representing a 25% premium to its 30-day trading average, despite a lack of profits.

lots to unpack in that 1 pragraph

[sdinfoserv]

if it isn't profitable, don't borrow to buy.
I also have doubts about the current trajectory of "AI" being suitable for education. Considering the garbage it spits out, I'm not seeing that happen.
You till need core competencies. It's like saying, "AI will take over programming, let's stop teaching math so we can save money on math teachers".

Re:

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I also have doubts about the current trajectory of "AI" being suitable for education. Considering the garbage it spits out, I'm not seeing that happen.

Since when does anyone in charge of education cares about the quality of education?

Education will enshittify just like all the other industries who will be blighted by AI.

Re: for salvaging

[spinitch]

these companies have customers and suppliers who depend on them. The equity owners are last in line and impairing their stakes seems appropriate. The debt issuers will need to find a way to get their principal and interest probably by taking a hair cut for something instead of a bankruptcy that destroys the entity when customers and suppliers run away from the risky entanglements. It is a clumsy process but so it goes. If business can generate cash then best to restructure early to avoid insolvency. But bic

people wildly overestimating DNN generators

[Srin Tuar]

> since some of the developer skills it teaches are becoming automated.

This is such an inane joke. There is no AI; these machines are not even close to intelligence. Calling deep neural nets AI is all marketing. A more accurate name would be "spit take generator"

While these generators are nice, and certainly help to fill out a first draft of a document or artwork.. their output will invariably be filled with asylum level discontinuities and fundamental errors - so every last bit of it needs to be thoroughly checked before any of it is trusted beyond the aesthetic level.

Neural nets wont be writing working code or lesson plans on their own, but they might be used to help do those activities.

Pluralsight may well be worthless, but it has nothing to do with deep neural nets.

Re:

[brunes69]

Generative AI is already used to write code en-masse.

I know first hand of new developers who increasingly lack fundamental coding skills, and it simply doesn't matter because their AI is doing most of the heavy lifting for them.

I also know of entire websites that have been generated and are managed end-to-end by GenAI.

If you are not getting read up on this technology ASAP and how to leverage it, you are soon going to find yourself alongside the buggy whip makers.

It is totally irrelevant if GenAI is or is no

Re:

[virtig01]

most americans live in timber framed houses, carry guns because they fear for their lives and/or property, and are worse off than almost every other western nation.... because somebody has to pay for duff speculators throwing money down the drain

Not thrown down the drain.... thrown to the other speculators, the holders of the stock when Pluralsight was a publicly-traded company.

Those left holding the bag are the ones who sold the debt to finance the take-private deal.

Larger case of "certification rot"

[will4]

Computer based technology training is becoming less useful as the mix between google searching and GPT generated code snippits fills in many holes in programming problems.

Certifications rot away into non-existence faster today than years ago. Microsoft and big tech push the treadmill of new technologies -> to put IT money in motion -> to drive sales -> and drive IT Executives career growth leads to a slouch towards a permanently broken IT landscape for most companies.

Certifications are generally l