
MasterClass is seizing its moment - gdubs
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/style/masterclass-secrets.html
======
aksss
MasterClass is using celebrity and production value as an attractant, but
accomplishment in a field does not necessarily equate to expertise and
certainly doesn't imply any significant teaching ability.

MasterClass brings you close to recognized greats, but to an extent your
learning will be more about _them_ and only tangentially about the field of
interest. There are some MasterClass episodes conveying very practical
knowledge - typically the cooking ones - but again I'd call this a different
thing than really learning about cooking (theory, law, etc).

Systemically understanding a field of interest is a different endeavor
requiring more rigor. The Great Courses product is probably the more rigorous
(categorically similar) educational tool in comparison to MasterClass. It has
less production value (though more than sufficient) and the lectures are from
obscure though academically recognized authorities rather than curated
celebrities.

_IF goal is to:_

Really learn a new field or skill during the pandemic = The Great Courses.

Watch autobiopic on recognized authority = MasterClass.

For the record, I have both and am affiliated with neither.

~~~
FireBeyond
One of the biggest things I learned from the Photography with Annie Liebowitz
MasterClass is that Annie very seldomly presses the shutter or even looks
through the viewfinder - she has an assistant that does camera operation,
hooked up to a monitor. Then she has a digital editor that does all the post-
processing and editing.

She'd more accurately be referred to as a creative director. In the class, she
even says, "I don't even know what camera or lenses I use." You don't have to
be a gearhead, and there's very little to photography that should consider the
gear important, but unless exaggerated for effect, this says something.

"Learn photography from someone who couldn't tell you the camera her assistant
operates for her".

~~~
keiferski
There is a lesson there, even if it’s unintentional: successful photographers
don’t obsess over the technical details. Photography is sometimes better
thought of as ‘image-making with a camera’ than ‘pointing a camera and
pressing shoot.’

~~~
deanCommie
Successful photographers attract TALENTED photographers who are willing to
lend their talents and knowledge in the pursuit of the overall artistic
vision.

Ultimately, SOMEONE needs to be around who DOES understand lenses, and post-
processing. You're not going to luck out into a great image just by having a
great eye.

~~~
onion2k
World famous guitarists have guitar tech assistants to tune, fix, and
customise their guitars.

World-class racing drivers don't maintain their own cars.

Michelin star chefs don't do their own veg prep.

Etc.

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ipnon
Chris Voss' negotiation class has easily justified the $100 per year
subscription. Kasparov's chess class is valuable, but it wouldn't be worth it
on its own. Paul Krugman's economics class is interesting but pedantic. It
only serves as a basic introduction, but does so in a field in which the
introduction is barely useful. Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution University
course fills the gap between beginner and intermediate economics for free.

~~~
medell
What does Voss' class have that's not in his book?

~~~
ipnon
Live demonstrations

The book was too abstract for me. Seeing Voss in the act allowed me to imitate
him.

~~~
tianzhi
I'll have to check it out then. I liked the book, but so much of negotiation
is body language and tone.

------
andygcook
I thought this thread on MasterClass's coordinated distribution strategy was
interesting and worth reading:
[https://twitter.com/TheCoolestCool/status/126538262872474009...](https://twitter.com/TheCoolestCool/status/1265382628724740098)

The fact MasterClass ranks first in Google for "what is a shallot?" is pretty
surprising.

~~~
oh_sigh
How many people who don't know what a shallot is are going to drop $80 or
whatever on a Gordon Ramsay masterclass?

~~~
luhn
If you're Googling "what is a shallot," it means you don't know much about
cooking and are trying to learn more. Seems like the perfect target market for
an online cooking class.

~~~
OJFord
I agree with GP though, if you don't know what a shallot is, it's not likely
you have sufficient _interest_ to _pay money_ to learn about cooking.

Obviously it's regional, but from my UK perspective shallots are not exotic.

I'm not aware that they even suffer from multiple names as do
spring/salad/green onions/scallions. Echalions of course, but that's a
subcategory.

If shallots are unfamiliar, again, UK, you've spent little time even in
supermarket vegetable aisles or restaurants and, surely, are therefore
unlikely to actually part with cash a cooking class?

~~~
jkhdigital
Pretty sure this is what search analytics is for... and it’s not about whether
a particular phrase is the best signal, but the _cheapest_ signal.

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surfpel
MasterClass is somewhat paradoxical in my opinion. They’re attempting to reach
a wide audience (people who aren’t technically proficient in the respective
fields of say cooking or music) but they’re framing it as a “masterclass”
which is a class given by a master of a topic to students who are proficient
in their topic. Seems like more entertainment than an actual masterclass which
I would prefer

~~~
crooked-v
> but they’re framing it as a “masterclass” which is a class given by a master
> of a topic to students who are proficient in their topic

But they're not?

They're using the word as a trademark, sure, but the actual service is
obviously intended for people of a variety of skill levels, as thematically
connected by being taught by well-known 'masters' (such as the Penn and Teller
magic lessons).

In other words, when I buy an Apple computer and it doesn't include any apples
in the box, that's not 'paradoxical'.

~~~
mandelbrotwurst
I don't think that's quite the same. Apples are very obviously not computers,
while MasterClass's offering is extremely similar to what a "masterclass" is,
which leads me to read it as meaning "we offer a service that maps to what our
name is".

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fermienrico
Every MasterClass series I’ve watch (I’ve watched about half a dozen), they
seem to be more of an entertainment thing than a professional class. There is
a general lack of rigor and details that just can’t be conveyed in a single
course.

~~~
donretag
I really do not think the Chris Hadfield series on Space Exploration will help
you become an astronaut.

~~~
fermienrico
Yea! I watched it on a plane and thought it was more of Educational
Entertainment than anything else. It had a place but not as a source of
learning.

~~~
danielodievich
SNL take on the MasterClass lampooned it perfectly
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U31rKSYX07E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U31rKSYX07E).

Having said that, I watched a couple of Neil Gaiman's lectures and because I
love Neil's work, I loved what he had to say.

~~~
jessriedel
(That's a great John Mulaney impression.)

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salimmadjd
Masterclass is such a brilliant business model.

They're charging close to the same fees as Netflix, yet their production costs
are very little. They don't need to bet millions on some show or pilot and
become a flop.

They can quickly churn out classes with very limited budget compare to
Netflix's budget and keep their paying customers happy.

~~~
mywittyname
I bet most of their creators sell their services as part of a profit sharing
agreement too. Gordon Ramsey already creates content for YouTube, because he
has to in order to stay relevant. For him, Masterclasses are (probably) just
better paying YouTube videos.

------
oh_sigh
MasterClass in the past has benefited from famous/accomplished people feeling
they want to "give back" to the world some lessons they've learned.

The standard model is something like $100k up front + 30% of sales. If
someone's net worth is in the dozens of millions or more, this really isn't
moving the needle, so the major incentive has to be the altruism.

However, will people continue to choose to be altruistic on this platform,
when it is turning the creators into the ultra wealthy? One might be less
inclined to altruism if you're actually giving a +1 to the world but a +50 to
a random company who hosts a website. Many of the people that have done
Masterclasses could make an arbitrary individual wealthy and famous (e.g.
Spielberg could just say "<random no-name filmmaker> is my protege and all
films I work on will be co-directed by them"). The question is how many people
are going to make that choice for Masterclass when they could just as well
host it on their own website, or put it on their own channel on youtube, etc.

~~~
ybot
I don't actually think the celebrities are contributing purely out of an
altruistic desire to 'give back'. I think that's _great_ marketing by
Masterclass, but the primary thing celebrities get by associating themselves
with Masterclass is helping continue to build their own brand. Masterclass has
positioned its self as "the best in the world teaching their craft", so by
agreeing to be on their platform a celebrity is getting publicity that
reinforces the idea that they're the best in the world at that thing, and that
they're still socially/culturally relevant.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Not purely. But there are 1000 things they could be doing. Taking the time to
create thoughtful instructional videos is hard. I admire them for sharing what
they know.

~~~
aksss
Well, remember it's their agent that's managing the brand. It's not as if the
celebrity is picking it over 1000 other things. Their agent thinks that out of
a 1000 avenues for strengthening the celebrity's brand, Masterclass would hit
the right demographic and get the best return on effort (and it's their job to
make those determinations).

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gdubs
Interesting article worthy of a discussion. But I also have a selfish motive –
I've been really intrigued by some of the teasers and I'm wondering if people
have done any of the courses and have an opinion on whether or not it was
worth the money.

~~~
powersnail
Depends on what you want to get from the class and what that amount of money
means to you.

For example, the violin class by Perlman that I took. Judging by the content
alone, I wouldn't say it's worth $90, since it's not that deep, and a lot of
the information is online for free already.

On the other hand, I can comfortably afford it. I'll happily pay that 90+
bucks just to hear Perlman talk about violin for a few hours, regardless of
the depth.

I'd say the same for the writing courses. Not deep, no special secrets, not
going to make you a master. But if you just want to hear them talk about their
own crafts and processes, it's also a bearable price.

------
sholladay
I took Gordon Ramsay's MasterClass on cooking and it helped me in some small
but surprisingly useful ways. The knife skills part helped me be safer and
faster in the kitchen, for example. It was also a good refresher on certain
ingredients. In some ways, I learned more basic and fewer skills than I
expected, and there was some random stuff in there that you won't really need
unless you plan on opening a restaurant. Yet, at the same time, it was
refreshing to have a high quality, practical course that I could pause,
rewind, and re-watch until I had mastered all of the little details. My
cooking has definitely improved because of it and it was worth the cost.

~~~
dub
For knife skills, I enthusiastically recommend this free online course. It was
recommended to me by a professional chef, and I'd bet most professional chefs
would get something (or many things) out of it:
[https://shop.mybluprint.com/cooking/classes/complete-
knife-s...](https://shop.mybluprint.com/cooking/classes/complete-knife-
skills/35338)

------
Jugurtha
I learned a lot about writing better _software_ and product development from
David Mamet's masterclass on writing _screenplays_.

He has a no-bullshit, get to the point, approach that I liked. He has points
on what should a story accomplish, where the responsibilities of a character
end, and the nature of the job being to entertain, not inform or lecture. It
can directly be transferable to feature creep, single responsibility, etc.

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madballster
Celebrity teaching such as Masterclass reminds me of unsubstantiated self-help
teaching promises. It's all about marketing, about luring customers with
supposedly easy-to-achieve results such as "Rewire your brain in 7 days" or
"Learn how grand master chess players think in 12 easy lessons". Or - God
forbid - "Teach yourself expert Go/Rust/Python/C++ programming in 21 days".

Problem is: It is never easy to achieve a high level, at anything.

And that in turn leads one to Peter Norvig's (posted here many times)
excellent Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years blog post
[https://norvig.com/21-days.html](https://norvig.com/21-days.html)

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HumblyTossed
What I don't understand is just because someone is highly skilled at something
(Ron Howard) doesn't make them as good a teacher of said something. Maybe
Masterclass is helping them put their teaching information together? But they
sell it like they're putting together the best of the best teachers, and I
don't know if that's the case.

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alangibson
Chapo Trap House had an interesting take of MasterClass. In their view it's
basically a way of alleviating imposter syndrome. It's real function is to
give people some sort of credential, and thus permission. Watch a MasterClass
on photography, now you have permission to be a photographer.

------
galkk
I had a chance to watch ~half of Kasparov’s class on Masterclass. For casual
player (1850 lichess in blitz and bullet, 77 percentile), it was close to
useless. Too high level and pretty unstructured.

~~~
seppin
My experience watching carlos santana's class on guitar was similarly
disappointing. He just keeps talking about "finding your sound" then plays a
few notes. Not really helpful.

~~~
ssttoo
Same with Hans Zimmer. Useless.

However Tom Morello’s was cool. Both technical and nerdy as well as
inspirational. And I’m not a big Rage against the machine fan or anything.

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psychometry
The fact that they chose Dan Brown of all people to do a writing workshop does
not inspire confidence.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
Why? He is an extremely successful author (whose success is not due to
gimmicks but literally because of his books being read and loved by millions).

I'd love to learn from him.

~~~
psychometry
Fine, learn how to sell books from him. Just don't learn how to write.

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dehrmann
Not quite the right place for this comment, but it's timely, and I wanted to
share it. Over the long weekend, I started bookmarking and closing my months-
long collection of browser tabs. The number of "to read" and "to watch" links
_vastly_ outnumbered the "to _dos_ " (I don't mean that like it's a chore, but
related to an activity). I accidentally focused too much on learning over
doing.

Don't watch these classes just to watch these classes. Watch them to enrich an
active part of your life.

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code4tee
Will admit to bing one of those that watch some of the adverts to the end.
It’s certainly compelling and engaging filmmaking.

The content is good. Criticisms that the content is often shallow and more
about the person than the topic are fair and valid. Your won’t really learn
much actual skills apart from maybe the cooking ones. It’s interesting and
inspiring content regardless.

You can find comparable stuff on YouTube if you know where to look and are
willing to filter though things (lots of great biographic speeches on there
and such) but I get their biz model and it makes sense. It’s basically super
premium YouTube. They’ve attracted a very diverse and impressive mix of talent
too.

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Optimal_Persona
FWIW, I learned quite a bit from deadmau5' MasterClass, in terms of "general
approach", "inspiration", and "very specific, immediately applicable
techniques that I probably wouldn't find elsewhere". Maybe he's an outlier?

I had been producing music for 12 years when I took the class, and I had 30+
years of musical and recording experience to draw from. Also, I use the same
software (Ableton Live) as deadmau5 did in the tutorial, so most of the
technical elements were immediately usable.

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0898
The Kevin Spacey one is genuinely brilliant. They've taken it down, but older
accounts like mine still have it.

~~~
davidsawyer
What was it about?

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Syzygies
I've nearly subscribed multiple times to MasterClass, then I watch a demo
again.

We all have different needs for affirmation to information. My fear from what
I've seen is that MasterClass is too heavy on affirmation. I already know I
can do it, that's not what I need.

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kevindeasis
I'd like to see how much they're paying the actors and how they make the
courses

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badrabbit
You should be familiar with "survivor bias" before paying for their service.

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Cyclone_
Why on earth does the headline on NYTimes say "only school left" as if there
are no other online schools running.

~~~
superhuzza
>It’s the Year 2120. MasterClass Is the Only School Left.

It's a joke prediction about the year 2120, not 2020.

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seppin
I would have thought that MasterClass would struggle because of the cultural
"anti-expert" zeitgeist we have right now. Glad i'm wrong.

~~~
heisenzombie
What happens when an immovable "anti-expert" zeitgeist meets an unstoppable
"pro-celebrity" culture?

~~~
ternaryoperator
You get the Kardashians

~~~
seppin
That's less of a cross between expert/celebrity and more pure celebrity (pure
in the sense that they are famous because they are famous).

