Reverse-engineering Levain Bakery’s famous cookies (RECIPE)
A couple of years ago, some of my Upper West Side colleagues at Knewton began bringing me cookies from a place called Levain Bakery. They’re very good. I’m an avid baker, so I was pretty curious about them. And I love cookies! So I recently thought I’d try to make some …
There’s a reason it’s called ‘venture’ capital
This post originally appeared on the World Economic Forum blog. I started Knewton to do my bit to fix the world’s education system. Education is among the most important problems we face, because it’s the ultimate “gateway” problem. That is, it drives virtually every global problem that we face as a species. …
Greece's Pieces
Jose Ferreira is the Founder and CEO of Knewton When the EU formed in 1998, I was the crazy guy in the corner of the pub ranting to all my friends that it would one day come a cropper. Since there seems to be little appetite in Europe to fully …
Is there really an NYC start-up boom? And if so, what's causing it?
The San Francisco Bay Area has more VC firms and dollars invested than all East Coast cities combined. But the NY scene has recently been getting uppity. Chris Dixon wrote a story, the NY Times wrote a story, now Silicon Alley Insider. I tweeted that it was all embarrassing provincialism. …
A Short History of the Standardized Test Prep Industry
I’ve been writing more on the Huffington Post recently, and my latest piece is a history of the standardized test prep industry. What started with one man became a massive, international business, and my experience in that business is what motivated me to found Knewton. Here’s the full story: The …
Google's got the goods on China
Starting this week, Jose is a featured blogger on The Huffington Post. Here’s his first piece on the Google-China showdown. – Google is playing hardball. After last week’s ultimatum, the search giant appears to have left itself no way out: either China allows Google to operate uncensored or Google leaves …
The GMAT or the GRE?
Jose Ferreira is the Founder and CEO of Knewton. You may have heard that some business schools* have started accepting GRE scores in place of GMAT scores. And you may be thinking: “Awesome! I hear the GRE is easier. I’m taking that!” After all—there’s no Data Sufficiency on the GRE. …
The GMAT and India
I wanted to take some time to dispel a fascinating—but unhealthy—rumor about the GMAT. This rumor is best summarized by a concerned Knewton student who wrote me the following: I was speaking to someone in India in the test prep industry about the GMAT and that person seemed very confident …
