Episode 198: Building a Business Around How People Learn with Alex Mozes of Gravity Learning
Alex Mozes is the CEO of Gravity Learning, a workforce development company using cognitive science to help managers actually change how they lead. Before Gravity, Alex founded Sheprd.io, a fractional operations consultancy helping companies solve scaling challenges from early‑stage through IPO. Nowadays, he brings that same obsession with real‑world impact to Gravity Learning, building programs HR and L&D leaders can finally measure.
Alex and I talk about his journey from tech to the world of education and his mission to democratize it. We also talk about the importance of interactive learning and issues created by corporate environments.
Topics Discussed:
Why learning should be challenging
AI and its integration into learning
The importance of educators
Resources mentioned:
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Read the transcript for this episode:
Welcome to Educator Forever, where we empower teachers to innovate education. Join us each week to hear stories of teachers expanding their impacts beyond the classroom and explore ways to reimagine teaching and learning.
Alex Mozes is the CEO of Gravity Learning, a workforce development company using cognitive science to help managers actually change how they lead. His team tracks learning transfer for up to six months after every program because for Alex, learning is sacred, and most corporate training fails the people it's meant to serve. With more than 20 years in the learning space, Alex was employee number 15 at Udemy, where he scaled global customer operations from a two-person team to 125 plus employees across four locations, supporting over 100 million learners in 11 languages. Before Gravity, Alex founded Shepherd.io, a fractional operations consultancy helping companies solve scaling challenges, and today he brings that same obsession with real-world impact to gravity learning, building programs HR and L and D leaders can finally measure. Welcome, Alex. So nice to have you here.
Alex Mozes 0:52
Thank you, Lily. Thanks for having me.
Lily Jones 0:54
Well, I always start with the same gigantic question that you can take in whatever direction you'd like, which is to tell us about your professional journey.
Alex Mozes 1:01
Thanks. Yeah, my my professional journey has been two decades in workforce development training. I started in 2005 doing the early days of Microsoft Office training in the Silicon Valley out of San Francisco, teaching Excel and Word and you know Excel to to companies like Google or in San Francisco the the Academy of Sciences had a big program spent several years teaching people how to use the ribbon after menus and toolbars disappeared, and it was sort of the the classic classroom training experience. But I realized after several years that we were at the the sort of precipice of something new and something different. I don't know if folks are familiar with a company called Lynda, which was eventually turned into LinkedIn Learning. But that was sort of an early indicator to me that there was a new direction, and and I just so happened to discover a company called Udemy in its very early days, and was still only about 10 people, and joined Udemy to to help build out their their supply side. It's an online education marketplace, and was was fortunate enough to to spend a decade at at Udemy running customer operations and supply side for for their learning marketplace. After after about 10 years, we went from Series A to IPO. The journey had had a nice a nice circular culmination after a decade, and I ended up starting to look for a new challenge and returning to the that smaller org. So I've most recently joined as CEO of Gravity Learning, where we're really applying everything that I've learned over those two two decades of what actually works and what makes a meaningful difference in in in companies and people's lives to try to deliver a new kind of outcomes oriented training and that's what that's what I focus on today.
Lily Jones 3:14
Fantastic, and so let's go back a little bit to being number 15 at Udemy. Sure, and I would love to hear how that affected how you think about learning.
Alex Mozes 3:24
Yeah, I so Udemy's at the time certainly when I when I joined as Employee 15, we had a vision to democratize education and to solve the challenge of access. Our our founder at the time, Aaron Bali, would often tell a story. He was a a math prodigy in Turkey who had the the drive and interest and capacity to become a leader in in the field, but didn't have access to the teachers or the training material to allow him to fulfill that potential, so at its heart, Udemy's goal was to create the world's largest library of experts and make that content available and accessible to people around the world. And and in in many ways, and I think really we succeeded at that. We vastly reduced the cost of training taught in dozens of different languages across hundreds of 1000s of courses. Basically, if you want to learn anything, you can find it on Udemy. What I also realized through that experience, and this was a conversation that I had with with one of the executives there in the earlier days, and it's held true even today, is organizations like Udemy asynchronous learning is for the motivated. Right? It's really for the the person who hungers and strives to learn every day. They they subscribe to. Masterclass because they want to learn and they don't just want to be entertained. They pick up the X Y Z for Dummies books and read it cover to cover because they consume knowledge and are driven to get better. That is a small fraction of the workforce. Even people that want to learn and want to grow aren't necessarily motivated, self-motivated in that way, and and that's a problem that I don't think Udemy ever solved. And one of the what a big thing that has shaped the direction that I've gone, which is returning to live, interactive, classroom-focused learning where those outcomes are actually achievable because we're able to apply the learning science and learning transfer. One sort of again, sort of you the early days at Udemy helped to foster this position. That there was just a lot of hype, right? We grew to we IPOed. We we we went from a fledging 15-person company to a publicly traded organization, in large part because we promised to make learning easier. But the reality is, we aren't limited by the ease for learning. We're limited by our evolutionary biology, we don't live in the matrix. We can't plug into the back of our brain and learn kung fu. We need to do the hard work of being challenged, of struggling, and that works best with a facilitator that can lead somebody through that experience and and through a small group environment where you can be held accountable by other people, real and interactive, where you can learn in a challenging way, and it just doesn't work from asynchronous learning. And again, that those early day statistics in this space still hold true. I mean, the dirty secret in asynchronous learning is completion rates are abysmal, but so are start rates, right? People people purchase Udemy courses like they bought books. They just put them on a shelf so that they own them, but they don't actually consume them.
Lily Jones 7:09
So, so fascinating and absolutely speaking my language. I think it's so interesting thinking about this idea of learning as like this expert, right? I think it's what often people think. Like, oh, you have expertise, and we're gonna take out our brains and pour information in, right? But what we know is that's not how humans learn. And so I appreciate, you know, your reflections of, yeah, great, it's great information, right? But if people aren't accessing it, or being supported to access it, or being supported to integrate it, or like embody it in their lives, and what good is it? And the limitations of that. And I, you know, started my career as a kindergarten or first grade teacher, and then moved to curriculum development, working with ed tech companies, and now I'm getting my doctorate in learning design, and really just thinking about like all the ways, right? Like I'm sure you are all the ways that learning just could be better, you know. And so I know that starting Gravity Learning and your work there has focused on this more comprehensive approach to learning. Can you talk a little bit about what you offer there?
Alex Mozes 8:13
Yeah, it has focused a lot more on getting to the meaningful outcome, creating the actual behavior change and learning transfer that's necessary to actually change people's lives. That's why I joined Udemy. I wanted to change people's lives. That's why I've been in this space for so long. Is I it it you know I the the experience of seeing somebody learn how to make a pivot table for the first time was a transformational change for me. I saw how their work life experience was vastly better as a result of not just learning something, but learning and being not just like the the analogy that I often use is the difference between buying a golf club and actually swinging the club and learning to hit the golf ball. Right, like there's a difference between knowing something and having that thing be an arrow in your quiver that you're able to use, that you're able to actually apply, and that's really the way that we think about gravity learning. We developed a methodology of teaching that takes advantage of everything that we know about learning science, evolutionary biology, neuro neuroscience and psychology, what works for for achieving those meaningful outcomes, and how do we make the most efficient and effective way to get to that point where somebody has that capability to to to apply what they've learned and develop those materials specifically for the skills that we know are most important in the workforce, mainly around management and leadership. So really, what gravity focuses on are those those hardest to learn interpersonal. Type skills. How do you give effective feedback? How do you tell compelling stories about your data? How do you disagree with with somebody in a compassionate way? How do you talk to your a leader or a manager in a way that you can that communicates competency. All of those kinds of skills are ones that you don't learn by reading, you don't learn by watching, you don't learn by by by being around it. You have to do it, and that's really what we focus on is practice-based, interactive-based learning experiences, and trying to do that is again because we do still care about time and speed. We try to make that as efficient as possible. It's interesting that the you know you talked about your background in in this this ed tech space and and the changes that have gone on, I think Duolingo is a really interesting case study there, where you know language learning has always been this sort of challenging thing, and then Duolingo really took the world by storm by quote unquote gamifying the learning experience. But at the end of the day, you look at their statistics, and it's not actually working. And why is it not actually working? Well, no. For everything they've done, they've missed one of the key things that we know about learning, which is it is a communal activity. It's an interactive thing. You have to do it with another person, and when that's not happening, you're going to have significantly less learning transfer. So that's why we do cohort-based small group learning. So...
Lily Jones 11:46
Absolutely yes. I mean I have been saying the same thing and noticing as I move from teaching little kids to teaching teachers. I used I created like online courses you know decades ago that teachers would go through and sometimes they would do it on their own, and just like you know, you're saying with you to be on much smaller scale. I didn't know, like if they were completing things, I didn't know what they what was happening to them. They often didn't work through it, and as I built in that community piece, like that really is the needle mover. You know, like I can create the best content, but really without the interaction and the co-creating of learning together-it's not as effective. So I appreciate that, and I think often as adults we feel like we just should be able to learn it on our own. You know, we should be able to read this book or watch this video and just integrate it ourselves. And I think just the affirmation that that's not how learning happens for humans is really reassuring.
Alex Mozes 12:40
Yeah, certainly not all learning. I mean, there's some things you can learn from a book. Yeah, you can you can learn facts from a book.
Lily Jones 12:48
Absolutely.
Alex Mozes 12:48
Right, and there are some things that interactive. You know, the Excel classes that I used to teach, I do think, are are are an okay methodology for for a lot of people to learn asynchronously, because it's a tactical technical skill, and it's a and it's a knowledge gap, but it requires practice even even in those cases, and and a lot of the interpersonal skills and you know training train teaching teachers is another great example. Those those kinds kinds of skills of you know how do you guide a young person who's struggling in an effective way? No matter how many videos you watch or books you read, if you don't say, okay, we're gonna do a practice right now. You pretend to be this person, I pretend to be the other person. Let's see how it goes. Apply these tools and then get effective feedback on how you did, and then try it again. And let's go through. I mean, you know, learning science tells us it takes eight to 12 practices of a skill to be able to have that skill become more reasonable. We go through at least three of those practice sessions for every skill that we teach in in gravity, and then follow up to continue that that workflow. It's it's a crucial part of the of of getting to learning transfer and actual outcomes.
Lily Jones 14:11
And I think going back to something you said a little bit ago, with leaning into this idea of challenge, you know, and persevering through challenges, like even if if we are able to glean this great content knowledge, there's many things internally that come up for us as we grapple with hard things, and so I think you know being able to focus on that as grown-ups too of having a growth mindset and leaning into the challenge and not having everything figured out can be really empowering as well.
Alex Mozes 14:40
Yeah, I mean it's interesting. We were just talking earlier about you know we both have have kids in middle school now, and when they get their teachers, one of the things that I want to know is are they strict enough? Are they going to challenge my child enough? Because I I know that learning. Happens on the other side of what you think your capacity is, right? We all know this from from physical personal training, right? You you you grow muscles by by that strain and that and that stress, and that is nearly impossible to do to yourself, right? It's very very difficult to push yourself out of your own comfort zone, and it's much more effective when you have a teacher that says, "I'm going to create a safe environment, and I'm going to challenge you to do something that is uncomfortable, because I know the only way you're going to get better is by the first time you do it, it's really uncomfortable, and then the next time it's a little less and a little less, and now suddenly you've you've gone from what was previously impossible to now being something that's second nature, and that again that that is why this you know a I think a talented teacher and facilitator in a small group setting we know that's the best way to learn and it's just not doesn't happen as often as it should.
Lily Jones 16:02
So then, I know you work with so many organizations. What would you say organizations in general get wrong about supporting people to grow and change?
Alex Mozes 16:13
Sure. I mean, I think you know, there's been a change in in the in this space and it ebbs and flows in terms of how much people invest in learning and I think AI is an interesting sort of new catalyst space here where everyone is seeing hey this is a new capability that we don't inherently have my workforce hasn't come in with this skill, I need to invest in learning and grow learning. So there's this new investment in in that learning. But I think where a lot of companies get it wrong is they think that that's the goal. Is we need to you know we we need to to teach all of our managers how to have better better feedback conversations. So they say, great. We're going to give them training on how to give feedback conversations, but that's not the goal. The goal isn't to give them training. The goal is for them to give better, have better feedback conversations. So so we we sort of stop short. I think oftentimes we're stopping short, and really, what what needs to happen is that follow through. We need to measure the outcomes in a different way. The thing that's most often measured in our industry is did people enjoy the session, right? They they rate they right after the session we get a survey. Everybody says five stars. I had a great time. I was super engaging. Seems really interesting. And then two weeks later, you ask, are they using anything? Or six months later, you talk to their their the individual contributors on their team, and they say I haven't seen the difference. Right. So we need to we need to recognize that this is a process that requires a much higher level of focus on the outcomes rather than just on the input of the training itself.
Lily Jones 18:11
Yeah, so interesting, and yeah, just interesting thinking about when the goals might not be your own, right? Like this happens in schools too, and then organizations also. You might be asked to learn something or do something that you don't have that buy-in for. Do you have any advice about how to get people bought in to learning that they might not be intrinsically motivated for?
Alex Mozes 18:34
Sure. I mean, it is a common. You get people in classrooms all the time. Why am I here? This is stupid, and I think it falls into one of two categories. Either it falls into the I I don't need to be here. I'm already really good at this category, or it falls into this I don't believe that you are actually giving me the right answers. This is a much, you know, this is very common in professional development, where the the the and and one of the things that Gravity does. We work a lot with science organizations, finance organizations, inherently skeptical individuals who who are basically who are you? What are you? Just because you're charismatic and you're telling this to me in a compelling way doesn't mean that you're right or this is the best method. So the approach that gravity really takes is we root all of our content in science and actually cite sources in in our in in our workshops, so that we are overcoming that challenge of skepticism by by recognizing this material is based in science and based. It's not me telling you this. We we have researched and looked for what is the best what is the known approach of. And what are the right approaches to use? And then I think the other piece, you know, we talked about the I don't need this category. I think it's a matter of getting down to the actual tactical, tangible solutions and providing a specific, unique skill. So oftentimes you'll get folks who, you know, again using the feedback as example, give feedback. You know, teach a class that says you just need to be more compassionate. You need to give feedback that includes situational behavior and impact, as an example. But then, if if that's all you get, then you walk away. All right, great. How do I be more compassionate? What does that actually tactically feel like? So what we focus on is can I give you the the most bite-sized version of an specific? Here is a a sentence structure that we're going to practice for how we we can say when you when this happened, this was the result, and here is the impact on the organization. Let's practice this specific structure. And now, no matter what, if you've never used this specific structure before, it's new to you. Even if you think you give great feedback, you're still getting a skill that is a different thing than than what you've done before.
Lily Jones 21:19
Yes, so interesting. And I know you mentioned earlier AI, which has, of course, changed so many things for all of us. And I would love your thoughts on just you know what that means for learning. I know it's a very broad question, but take it in whatever direction you want.
Alex Mozes 21:34
Yeah, I mean it is. It's amazing how transformational it has become in the in society at large, and certainly in learning specifically. I think there's there's a lot of flash that I don't expect to stick around for too long around this idea that AI replaces teachers, right? Or AI somehow, you you know we we we don't need to to worry about learning anymore because because AI is there and I think really there are there's a negative impact that AI can is gonna have and I think the the perfect analogy is Google Maps right I mean my my mom grew up in San Francisco, and you know she's she's coming up on 80 years old, and still can navigate that city with with no map, no, and and you know this is not a grid layout, and she knows the the order of all the streets and the best paths that go everywhere because she had to learn it. Once we got the this new tool that allow that meant we didn't have to know that. Now nobody knows how to get anywhere, right? We just we don't because we don't need to. We've atrophied that part of our brain, and that's certainly a major risk for for AI, that we lean heavily on AI to do any number of skills, and we lose those those skills as a result. On the other side, when when I think about my industry specifically, I think the big place where I see AI making a lot of sense is as a contextual practice model. Again, we talked about the the what we know works, which is not an AI teacher, right? We need somebody that's going to challenge us. We need a small group environment to keep us accountable, right? We need you know we need to be in a space where we're talking in front of other people, so that we are forced to pay a different level of attention than we would otherwise. But AI is incredibly good at saying, for example, I have to give feedback to this person that is often very defensive. Play a defensive person. Here's the things that they are typically working on. I'm going to give you some feedback. Let's practice it. And I'm and you know we are just starting to see AI be able to actually have verbal conversations where I can talk to it and it can talk back to me. And I think it's going to be really helpful to to get that gap from you know, I learn a skill, I practice it a few times. It's going to take me eight to 12 times for me to really make that a real tangible skill. AI might be able to to to fill that gap and give me those opportunities to practice in a really meaningful and contextualized way.
Lily Jones 24:41
And the key there seems to be that active engagement, right? Like being able to grapple with and talk with AI and evaluate their responses rather than just copy and paste, right?
Alex Mozes 24:53
Right, exactly. And it has to be a verbal. I mean, for a lot of the interpersonal stuff, it's got to be able to have that. Meaningful conversation, and it's like I'd say it's 85% there, and given the speed that it's going, we should be there by the end of the year. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised, but but but yeah. So I agree. It's it's not a I'm gonna type what I'm gonna say. Right, that's a different kind of interaction. It's got to be a verbal exchange.
Lily Jones 25:20
Yeah, and it's a difference of like I'm gonna farm out my learning to AI, and I'm going to actually learn more in conversation and analysis with this AI created material.
Alex Mozes 25:32
Yeah, it is scary the amount of I mean it's you know we're just talking that the the chance of kids coming up and not learning to write because they only need to learn to give a prompt, and the outcome being just not quality. Right? You have to have this skill first, I think, to be able to wield AI in such a way that it's actually useful and effective, and not just a crutch that gives a mediocre end result.
Lily Jones 26:01
100% and to understand like what goes into AI and the purpose and intention behind it, you have to have that foundational knowledge. Absolutely.
Alex Mozes 26:09
Yeah. Yeah.
Lily Jones 26:10
So I know that you called learning sacred. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you mean by that?
Alex Mozes 26:15
Yeah. I mean, look, I think it is at the heart of what it means to be a human is to is to learn and to grow. I mean, when I think about as a species, I always imagine the the difference between us and and and animals. That that at the at the end of the day, it is our community and and ability to learn from one another, and and and not just learn from one another, but but pass that learning along. I mean, you and I are sitting here on a talking light box, speaking to each other across distance. That is only possible because of learning, right? Because somebody learned how the what the electron did, which meant we learned how to build transistors, and then somebody learned what that meant for for building communication, and you know the the the the web of millions of people over 10s of 1000s of years learning to get to the point that we're at today, it's why it's it's why civilization exists.
Lily Jones 27:27
Yes, fantastic. Well, Alex, it's been such a pleasure talking with you. Can you tell folks how they can connect with you and learn more about Gravity Learning?
Alex Mozes 27:34
Absolutely, gravitylearning.com. We we host regular free workshops. Head to our site, and you can see in the upper. We actually just launched a brand new website too, so come take a look in our upper right corner. You can join us for for a free showcase where where you can get see how gravity delivers our learning and what we're about.
Lily Jones 27:56
Wonderful! Thanks again, Alex.
Alex Mozes 27:58
Thank you so much, Lily.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai