I have spent the last couple of months trying to understand the totality of what you have built and everything now forming around it. I wanted to get beyond whichever opportunity happened to be in front of us on a walk, a call, or an email — and look at the entire enterprise at once.
Next. Dream School. Future U. State of Higher Education. The salons. Your books. Speaking. Work with presidents and boards. ASU. Campus tours. LinkedIn. The parent audience. The institutional audience. White papers. Webinars. Sponsors. The data you have accumulated. The people who want to work with you. The talent you want to bring into your orbit. Scott. Austin and Devin. WME. U.S. News. The Chronicle. Karin. Chris. The opportunities that arrive because of the position you have earned over more than two decades in the sector.
My conclusion is that you have reached an inflection point. The existing business works. It produces real revenue, strong commercial relationships, repeated sponsor demand, a large audience, an unusually senior community, and a personal brand that now stretches across institutional leadership and the family decision journey. The same success is generating more possibilities than one person can develop.
A book creates a consumer audience. A relationship becomes an advisory engagement. A dinner becomes a salon network. A podcast becomes a campus tour. A research project becomes State of Higher Education. Google comes in as a sponsor and Chris starts imagining an event. Another sponsor wants a white paper and an Office Hour. A president tells you something that triggers a data question. Someone like Karin appears and you can see a new franchise. The business keeps discovering adjacencies because you are moving through the market every day. Almost every path eventually reaches the same scarce resource: you.
Even with the strides you've made — an ops person like Kassi (with some duplication on Margie) and large deals coming in through Chris — you feel very alone. You described having few people with whom you can compare notes, work through strategy, and share the burden of figuring out where all of this goes. I think that feeling helps explain the appeal of Scott, the appeal of Austin and Devin, and the energy you have around building a bench. It also tells me two things: you need a strategic partner, and we need to increase your capacity to do the things that only you can do.
And underneath all of this is something bigger. Increasing your capacity and building a business that extends beyond your own time is good for you strategically and financially. It also creates the opportunity to have a much larger impact. The business of education in America is under enormous strain, across both K-12 and higher education, at exactly the moment when the country's ability to educate, develop and attract talent is becoming more important in the age of AI. Part of the challenge is that these worlds remain remarkably fragmented. K-12 and higher education operate in separate silos. Institutional leaders, families, employers and technology companies often experience the same forces from completely different vantage points. I think you have the credibility and range to become one of the few figures who can connect those worlds. The opportunity is to build a suite of intelligence, media, data, community and decision-support products around a common purpose: helping the people responsible for developing America's talent understand what is changing and make better decisions about what comes next.
I have put together this report to help us both get our arms around the opportunity, understand the assets that already exist, identify the gaps and constraints holding them back, and begin mapping the path from a collection of successful individual ventures into a unified Selingo Inc. It is structured around five questions:
A snapshot of the current Selingo ecosystem — Next, Future U, Dream School, books, speaking, salons, newsletters, and advisory work.
The intelligence, community, and decision-support platform for the people responsible for developing America's talent.
A roadmap for turning existing IP, relationships, data, and audience into scalable products and revenue streams.
The talent, systems, partnerships, and infrastructure that let you focus on the highest-value work.
Focused sprints designed to put points on the board quickly and establish the foundation for a longer-term partnership.
The closest analog I keep coming back to is Bill Simmons and The Ringer. Not because education is sports. Not because the businesses are identical. Because Simmons solved a similar founder challenge. He started with a singular voice and a distinctive worldview. Over time, he built the infrastructure around that voice: additional talent, multiple franchises, podcasts, video, communities, distribution channels, new revenue streams.
The key insight was that the value was not just Bill Simmons. The value was the world he created. The Ringer allowed that world to expand. That is the opportunity I see for Selingo Inc. The goal is not to make you do more. The goal is to create an institution where your expertise and judgment can travel further.
| Bill Simmons / The Ringer | Selingo Inc. |
|---|---|
| Sports and culture worldview | Education and talent worldview |
| Trusted founder voice | Trusted interpreter of change |
| Writers and creators | Experts and education leaders |
| Podcasts and media | Next, Future U, video |
| Community of fans | Community of leaders and families |
| Cultural commentary | Intelligence and decision support |
I have created a deep-dive case study on The Ringer that I think you will find valuable. It led me to this as an organizing question:
The first thing that became clear in looking across everything you have built is that this is not a blank-sheet opportunity. The raw materials of a much larger company already exist.
Over the past decade-plus, you have built something unusual: a trusted personal brand, deep institutional relationships, a growing audience across multiple constituencies, proprietary insights into the future of education, and a body of intellectual property that spans higher education, college admissions, and the future of work. Each individual initiative has a different expression, audience and business model — but they are all powered by the same underlying asset: your ability to understand where education is heading, translate complexity into judgment, and convene the people responsible for navigating that change.
Today, those assets appear in different forms. Next is a newsletter and executive audience platform. State of Higher Education is an annual research franchise. Future U is a media and storytelling platform. The salons are a leadership network. Dream School is a consumer-facing education decision platform. Your books and speaking create authority and reach. Your advisory work monetizes the highest-value relationships. Individually, each one has value. Together, they begin to look like something much larger. The opportunity is to build the connective tissue between them. The challenge is not whether there is value. The challenge is that the value is currently distributed across too many individual activities that depend heavily on you.
| Asset | Audience | Current value | Opportunity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Next newsletter | Higher ed leaders | Trusted intelligence channel | Premium intelligence product |
| Next Office Hours | Presidents / provosts / admins | Recurring engagement | Executive intelligence platform |
| State of Higher Education | Broad industry | Agenda-setting report | Mary Meeker–style franchise |
| Future U | Education innovation audience | Media / community | Leadership platform |
| Dream School | Families / students | Consumer trust | Consumer education ecosystem |
| Books | Broad audience | Authority / IP | Expandable franchises |
| Speaking | Institutions / companies | Relationship engine | Premium gatherings |
| Salons | Elite network | High-value community | Membership network |
As I mapped the many activities already underway, I realized the opportunity is not to organize Selingo Inc. around formats, products or channels.
The deeper question is: what outcomes do all of these activities create? When I look across everything you have built, I see three consistent outcomes in what you do. Create Clarity. Build Community. Enable Choice. These are the promises at the center of Selingo Inc.
The audience is the people making decisions about the future of colleges and universities: presidents, provosts, trustees, senior administrators, policymakers, employers and investors. They are navigating an extraordinary period of uncertainty — demographics, economics, AI, degree value, accelerating leadership transitions. There is no shortage of information. What is missing is trusted interpretation. The opportunity is to build the intelligence layer for higher education leaders from the assets that already exist: Next, State of Higher Education, webinars, sponsored research, data analysis and executive relationships.
What do education leaders need to understand today in order to make better decisions about tomorrow?
The future of education will not be shaped by information alone. It will be shaped by the people responsible for making difficult decisions in an environment of uncertainty. One of the most interesting things about the early salon data is that the value is not simply the content you deliver. The value is the trusted environment where leaders can compare notes, share challenges, and discuss issues they cannot discuss elsewhere. The product is not the dinner. The product is the network. The opportunity is to build that network deliberately — salons, executive cohorts, leadership gatherings and eventually a flagship convening.
How do we create the trusted rooms where the people shaping education come together?
This is where I think we need to be careful with the word "consumer." I understand why people separate B2B and B2C operationally. But strategically, your advantage comes from understanding the entire ecosystem. Students and families are making decisions about schools, pathways, careers and investments. Institutions are making decisions about programs, talent, technology and strategy. The same forces are affecting both sides. The opportunity is not simply admissions advice — it is to become the trusted guide for families making decisions about education and the future of work.
How do we help individuals and families make better decisions about their educational journey?
The reason I believe this framework matters is that these are not separate businesses. They reinforce one another. Clarity creates understanding. Community creates trust. Choice creates action. The intelligence business generates the insights. The community business brings together the people who need those insights. The choice business creates a direct connection with the people making decisions. And each strengthens the others. The result is not simply a media company, an events company or an education company. It is an institution built around a trusted worldview: helping people understand, navigate and shape the future of education.
The more I have studied the collection of assets you have built, the more I believe the opportunity is not simply to grow individual products. It is to build the intelligence platform that connects them.
Over the past several years, you have created a number of distinct assets: Next, State of Higher Education, Future U, webinars, salons, advisory relationships, books and research projects. Each has its own audience, format and business model. What connects them is the underlying capability behind all of them: your ability to identify the forces reshaping education, translate complexity into judgment, and help leaders understand what those changes mean for their institutions and decisions. That is the foundation of an intelligence business. The opportunity is to make that capability more systematic, scalable and durable. I see four core components that together create the Selingo Intelligence platform:
Transform Next from a successful newsletter and programming platform into the premium intelligence product for higher education leaders.
Make State of Higher Education the defining annual framework for understanding the forces reshaping higher education — the way the Mary Meeker report became a reference point for technology.
Identify the questions that matter most, build recurring datasets around them, and turn those insights into intelligence products leaders can use in their decision-making.
Build a network of trusted experts who can own distinct areas of the future of education while expanding the reach and authority of the Selingo worldview.
Taken together, these are not separate businesses. Next creates the ongoing relationship with leaders. State of Higher Education creates the annual thesis. Data franchises create proprietary knowledge. Talent expands the number of questions Selingo Inc. can credibly own. The opportunity is to turn a founder's judgment into an institutional capability.
I agree with your instinct that Next should evolve into a B2B brand. The more I have studied what you have built, the more I think that is the right strategic direction. The question, however, is not simply whether Next should become more focused on institutional leaders. The larger question is:
The opportunity is to move from a successful newsletter and programming platform into a professional intelligence product that becomes part of the workflow of people leading higher education institutions. The comparison I keep coming back to is not another education publication. It is the type of professional intelligence model that organizations like POLITICO Pro created: a trusted information layer for professionals whose decisions have significant consequences. The value proposition is not more information. The value proposition is helping someone do their job better. For a higher education leader, that means answering questions like:
The product becomes less about following higher education news and more about understanding the forces shaping the decisions leaders need to make.
The reason I believe this opportunity is credible is that Next is already demonstrating several of the characteristics of an intelligence business: a recurring relationship with a senior audience, a regular cadence of analysis and conversation, institutional relationships, sponsor-supported programming, and a library of conversations around the forces reshaping higher education. The Next Office Hours archive is a particularly important signal. From 2021 through 2026 year-to-date, Next has produced 42 virtual programs.
The commercial foundation is also encouraging. Thirty-five of the 42 listed programs identify a supporting organization. Seven repeat supporters account for 26 programs — approximately 62 percent of the archive. Workday alone appears on nine programs spanning five consecutive years.
| Repeat supporter | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026* | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Workday | — | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 9 |
| Charles Koch Foundation | — | 2 | 2 | — | — | — | 4 |
| Cengage | — | 1 | 1 | 1 | — | 1 | 4 |
| Qualtrics | 1 | — | 1 | — | 1 | — | 3 |
| Adobe | — | — | — | — | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| AWS | — | — | 2 | — | — | — | 2 |
| Risepoint | — | — | — | — | 1 | 1 | 2 |
The Risepoint example is particularly interesting because it shows a potential operating model already in motion. A sponsor-supported research question becomes a white paper. The white paper becomes a Next editorial. The editorial becomes an Office Hour. The Office Hour creates engagement and first-party audience data. The sponsor receives value beyond a single placement. That is already a commercial loop. The opportunity is adding the intelligence layer around it.
The next step is determining what level of professional utility the market will support. The current model appears primarily driven by sponsorship, partnerships and audience relationships. The question is whether the next phase should introduce a more diversified revenue model built around professional value. A potential evolution:
Editorial intelligence and audience growth.
Proprietary research, data products, recurring franchises.
Board-ready materials, briefings, executive conversations.
The question is not whether every reader becomes a subscriber. The question is whether there is a segment of the audience for whom better intelligence has direct professional value. That is the lesson from professional information businesses. The highest-value users are not paying because they want more content. They are paying because the product helps them make better decisions.
If Next becomes the daily intelligence layer for higher education leaders, State of Higher Education becomes the annual statement of the Selingo worldview.
Reading the 2025 State of Higher Education report with all of our other conversations in mind changed my view of it. My first reaction was to see it as a strong annual report. The more I have studied it within the broader Selingo Inc. architecture, the more I think that description undersells the opportunity. The first edition is already substantial. It organizes the state of higher education around seven major storylines:
What is interesting is that these are not seven separate topics. They are interconnected forces reshaping the institution itself. That is where I think the opportunity exists. The report should not simply tell people what happened in higher education. It should help leaders understand what is happening to higher education. The most interesting page for me comes early: you begin with Randy Bass's observation that higher education is reaching the end of a long period of "conservation" and moving through release and reorganization toward another period of growth — and the graphic places higher education at the edge of that cycle in 2025.
That idea may be large enough to organize much of Selingo Inc. Think about almost every question we have discussed:
All of those forces touch the structure of the university. The intellectual opportunity for Selingo Inc. is to become the place where leaders understand those forces as a connected system.
You have described State of Higher Education as the Mary Meeker report for higher education. I think that is the right ambition, with one important clarification. The opportunity is not to replicate Mary Meeker's format. The opportunity is to understand why that franchise became so valuable and apply those principles to higher education. The power of the Mary Meeker report was not simply that it was a large presentation filled with charts. It became an annual intelligence moment because it did several things exceptionally well:
That is the opportunity for State of Higher Education. The goal is not to create the biggest annual report in higher education. The goal is to create the annual intelligence franchise that helps the people leading higher education understand what is changing, why it matters and what decisions they need to make. The 2026 edition should therefore be viewed differently. It is not simply the next report. It is the foundation for building the operating system around the report. The question I would ask is:
The opportunity is to make State of Higher Education the intellectual spine of Selingo Intelligence. The report sets the agenda. Next keeps the agenda alive throughout the year. Data franchises create proprietary intelligence around the questions leaders care about. The community brings together the people responsible for responding to those forces. Over time, the annual report becomes more than a publication. It becomes the moment when the higher education ecosystem looks to Selingo to understand where the industry is heading. Below is how I would think about the components required to make this a true franchise — tap each to expand.
2026: Pressure-test the core argument with presidents, trustees, employers, technology leaders and other stakeholders before publication. Why it matters: the report becomes known for predicting and framing change, not simply summarizing it.
2026: Build recurring datasets, surveys, indices and longitudinal trackers around the major forces shaping higher education. Why it matters: Selingo owns original intelligence instead of relying primarily on existing data.
2026: Create a small number of charts and frameworks that can stand alone outside the report. Why it matters: the ideas travel into board meetings, presentations, LinkedIn and media conversations.
2026: Turn recurring questions into recognizable products and measures. Why it matters: the market begins to associate certain questions with Selingo.
2026: Give a small group of leaders early access to findings and use them to sharpen the analysis. Why it matters: creates trust, exclusivity and a community around the franchise.
2026: Pair the report release with briefings, video, media strategy, partner distribution and live programming. Why it matters: turns publication into an annual market event.
2026: Connect each major finding to Next, Future U, salons and data updates throughout the year. Why it matters: prevents the report from becoming a single annual moment.
2026: Build sponsorship, partnership and membership opportunities around the franchise. Why it matters: creates a durable revenue engine beyond a single report sponsor.
2026: Track citations, board usage, media pickup, executive engagement and audience growth. Why it matters: demonstrates influence and increases market value.
The opportunity is not simply to publish the definitive annual report on higher education. It is to create the annual intelligence franchise that helps the people leading higher education understand the forces reshaping their institutions.
Before defining the next evolution of the report, the most important conversation is understanding how your thinking has changed since the first edition.
The annual report identifies the forces reshaping higher education. The next question is how Selingo Inc. can own those questions throughout the year.
If State of Higher Education becomes the annual statement of the Selingo worldview, the next question is how that worldview becomes a year-round intelligence engine. This is where I think the data opportunity becomes especially interesting. The instinct is already there. Throughout our conversations, the questions you naturally gravitate toward are not simple reporting questions. They are questions about how the system itself is changing: Who becomes a university president? Why are interim presidents becoming more common? Where are institutions placing their bets? Which programs are growing and which are contracting? How is AI actually changing universities? Those are intelligence questions. The opportunity is to build a company that owns the most important questions in higher education and develops the evidence needed to answer them better than anyone else.
The interim president work that I mocked up is the example that convinced me this opportunity is real. What started as a relatively simple question — how many interim presidents are there across higher education? — quickly became a much more interesting exploration. The question changed. It was no longer "how many interim presidents exist?" The more important question became:
That opens a much larger set of questions. Are boards using interim presidents as strategic options during periods of uncertainty? Are institutions delaying permanent decisions because the leadership environment has become more complex? Are experienced operators being brought in for specific moments of transformation? Are provosts becoming the primary pathway into the presidency? Are certain institutional categories more likely to rely on interim leadership? That is the difference between a dataset and intelligence. The dataset creates evidence. The analysis creates understanding. The understanding creates a franchise.
The work you shared from 2023 around AAU presidential pathways suggests this opportunity has existed for some time. That analysis examined 63 AAU institutions — 35 public, 28 private — and began identifying patterns around leadership pathways, prior roles and internal versus external appointments. The most interesting lesson was not any individual statistic. It was that the insight was trapped inside the spreadsheet. A leader looking at the data could begin to see patterns. A professional intelligence product would surface those patterns continuously. The opportunity is to build a longitudinal Selingo Presidential Leadership Database tracking:
That creates a proprietary view into one of the most important questions facing higher education:
The broader opportunity is to look at every major force in State of Higher Education and ask: what recurring intelligence franchise could Selingo own around this question? A potential roadmap:
| Franchise | Core question | Potential intelligence product |
|---|---|---|
| Presidential Pipeline | Where do future university presidents come from? | Annual leadership database and report |
| Interim Leadership Index | What does leadership transition reveal about institutional uncertainty? | Quarterly tracker |
| Trustee Map | Who governs higher education institutions? | Governance intelligence database |
| Institutional Transformation Index | Which institutions are adapting successfully? | Annual benchmark |
| Academic Portfolio Tracker | Which programs are growing, shrinking or changing? | Program strategy intelligence |
| AI Adoption Index | How are institutions actually using AI? | Annual adoption benchmark |
| Research Competitiveness Index | Where is research capacity moving? | Research leadership tracker |
| International Exposure Index | Which institutions are most affected by global shifts? | Global higher education analysis |
The exact list will evolve. The discipline matters more than the individual franchises. Each one should have: a recurring question, a proprietary dataset, a clear point of view, a signature visualization, a board-ready output, and a predictable publication cadence. That is how intelligence products become habits.
This is where my experience at POLITICO Pro and the work I have been doing with Punchbowl has shaped how I see the opportunity. The highest-value professional information products are not valuable because they contain more information. They are valuable because they fit into the workflow of people making important decisions. The question I would ask for every Selingo Intelligence product is: could a president, trustee or senior executive use this tomorrow in a meeting? A Selingo chart should not simply be interesting. It should be useful. The ideal experience: a leader downloads a chart. The source is clear. The methodology is transparent. The interpretation is included. The slide is already formatted for a board presentation. The analysis answers the obvious follow-up questions. This is where intelligence becomes a product.
The opportunity is to move from an editorial calendar to an intelligence calendar. Instead of asking "what should we cover this month?" the question becomes "what questions do we want to own every year?" An initial hypothesis:
The exact calendar should evolve based on the questions you believe matter most. The important shift is that the company begins building institutional knowledge instead of simply producing content.
If data franchises allow Selingo to own the questions, talent determines how many questions the organization can credibly own.
The more I think about the intelligence business, the more I believe talent is the critical scaling question. The opportunity is not simply to create more content. It is to create more institutional knowledge. That requires a different approach to talent. The traditional media model is organized around beats — a reporter covers admissions, a reporter covers research, a reporter covers international education. That model is valuable, but I think the opportunity here is different. The Selingo model should be built around worldviews. The question is not "who can write about this topic?" The question is:
That is the lesson from Bill Simmons and The Ringer. Simmons did not build a larger version of himself. He built an institution where people with distinct expertise could develop their own audiences and franchises while remaining connected to a common DNA. The Ringer worked because you knew what belonged there. You understood the sensibility. You understood the standard. The opportunity for Selingo Inc. is to create that same gravitational pull around the future of education. You remain the center of gravity. The bench expands the universe.
One of the reasons State of Higher Education is so important is that it provides the map for this talent strategy. The report identifies the forces reshaping higher education. Those forces become the potential franchises. The question then becomes: who are the people capable of owning those conversations? A future Selingo Intelligence bench might include experts focused on:
| Force | Potential intelligence franchise | Target |
|---|---|---|
| International education | Global higher education, mobility and geopolitics | Karin Fischer |
| Leadership and governance | Presidential pipeline, boards and institutional leadership | — |
| AI and learning | Technology adoption and the future of teaching | — |
| University economics | Financial sustainability and institutional strategy | — |
| Research enterprise | Federal funding, innovation and competitiveness | — |
| College athletics | Athletics as an institutional business | Matt Brown |
| Workforce alignment | Skills, careers and the value proposition of education | — |
| Admissions and access | Family decision-making and opportunity | — |
| K-12 transition | The broader education journey | — |
The goal is to identify people who can make each category meaningful and become franchise owners — whether they are journalists or subject-matter experts. The question is whether Selingo Inc. can create a system where exceptional people with real expertise can enter the ecosystem, gain distribution, build products around their worldview and expand the overall institution. That is the experiment. The goal is not to create a collection of contributors. The goal is to create franchise owners.
After reading Karin's profile and the latest Latitudes newsletter, I understand much better why you are interested in her. What stands out is that her opportunity is much larger than "international students" or even international enrollment. She brings a real body of expertise and a distinctive perspective. Her background is particularly interesting because she did not begin as an education specialist. She began as a political reporter, including covering Congress, before moving into international education. That combination matters. Her work today sits at the intersection of international education, economics, culture and the political divides shaping American higher education. She explicitly frames part of her role as helping college audiences understand public resentment, distrust and the growing educational divide in American society. That is a much broader lens than a traditional international-education beat.
Latitudes demonstrates another important asset: she has built a practitioner network. Her August 12 newsletter begins with the potential impact of international enrollment declines — projections that declines could cost the American economy billions of dollars and affect thousands of jobs — then moves from analysis into intelligence gathering, drawing on responses from nearly 500 international educators about the impact of new federal rules. The responses reveal something traditional reporting often misses: the lived experience of the people inside institutions — anxiety, uncertainty, staffing constraints, regulatory confusion and recruiting challenges. That is intelligence. The opportunity is not simply adding Karin as another voice covering international education. It is combining her expertise and practitioner network with the broader Selingo leadership lens — answering what a president needs to understand about international exposure, concentration risk, graduate program dependence, the research enterprise, which countries are gaining at America's expense, which institutional strategies are working, and what boards should be asking. Those questions connect directly to the State of Higher Education agenda.
This is also where our conversations about Scott become strategically important. The lesson is not about one individual. It is about the type of talent system Selingo Inc. needs to build. The company does not need people who believe they can create a competing center of gravity around their own interpretation of higher education. The opportunity is not to assemble independent experts who happen to share a platform. It is to build a coherent institution where experts with distinct perspectives strengthen a shared worldview. The company needs people who deepen and expand the Selingo worldview — not compete with it. The standard is not simply expertise. Expertise is necessary. The standard is whether someone can take a critical part of the future of education, bring genuine authority and insight, and make the entire ecosystem stronger. The best talent should challenge assumptions, expand the aperture, introduce new ideas. But the gravitational center remains the institution being built. That is what separates a collection of smart people from a scalable intellectual platform.
The opportunity here is not to create another event business. Higher education already has plenty of conferences, association meetings and industry gatherings. The more interesting question is whether you have already built the foundation for something much more valuable: a trusted leadership community around the people responsible for navigating the future of higher education.
When I look across the assets you have created, I see two important pieces that have developed independently but should be connected strategically. The Academy for Innovative Higher Education Leadership created a pipeline of emerging leaders who are thinking deeply about institutional transformation. The salons have created a network of current leaders who value the ability to gather, compare notes and discuss challenges in a trusted environment. Together, they represent something much more powerful than individual programs. They represent the beginnings of a Selingo leadership community. The question is whether the next chapter is simply to continue hosting individual experiences — or to intentionally build an institution around the network you have already created.
The lesson from organizations like YPO is that the most valuable communities are not built around content alone. They are built around identity, trust and a shared journey. Members return because the other members matter. The relationships become the product. The intelligence business creates the shared understanding. The community business creates the trusted relationships. Together, they create a network of leaders who are better equipped to navigate change.
The salons may be the clearest evidence that this community already exists. Over the past several years, you have convened senior higher education leaders across cities and institutions around a simple premise: create a room where people can discuss the issues shaping the future of higher education openly and honestly.
The early August survey makes the value of that room much clearer. The survey is still preliminary — distributed shortly before you shared the results, 684 email addresses with 118 bounces, and most questions received approximately 60 responses. I would treat the results as directional rather than definitive. But the early patterns are unusually consistent. The strongest signal is that the value is not primarily the presentation or the programming. The value is the network.
The product is not the dinner. The product is the trusted room.
The survey also confirms something important about format. This audience wants physical community.
The implication is that the future community should not be built around digital engagement alone. The scarcity and value come from bringing the right people together. The commercial implications are also interesting: sponsorship does not undermine the experience — the number was similarly high when the sponsor does not attend. The issue is not whether sponsors belong in the ecosystem. The issue is whether the sponsor supports the quality and purpose of the room. The strongest extension opportunities are also revealing:
The open-ended responses reinforce the same themes:
This suggests the opportunity is not simply more dinners. It is moving from individual gatherings into a structured leadership community.
One of the most important discoveries in mapping the community opportunity is that the foundation goes back much further than the salons. For more than a decade, you have helped create the Academy for Innovative Higher Education Leadership through the partnership between Arizona State University and Georgetown University. The Academy was designed around a fundamental challenge facing higher education: preparing leaders who can navigate complexity, foster innovation and lead meaningful institutional change. The program is important not only because of the curriculum. It is important because of the people who have gone through it. The Academy represents a potentially valuable leadership dataset that does not exist elsewhere. The question is not simply who attended. The more interesting questions: Where are they now? What roles did they move into? How many became presidents? How many became provosts? Which institutions are represented? What leadership pathways are emerging? What does the next generation of higher education leadership look like?
This is where Community and Clarity begin to reinforce one another. The Academy creates relationships. Those relationships create intelligence. That intelligence improves the broader Selingo platform. A first strategic action should be a comprehensive alumni analysis — The Selingo Leadership Index: a longitudinal look at the careers, institutions and leadership trajectories of Academy participants. That analysis could become one of the first proprietary intelligence assets inside the broader platform.
The ultimate expression of this community opportunity is not another conference. It is a room. You have described the ambition as creating a Sun Valley for higher education. I think that is the right metaphor because the power of Sun Valley is not the programming. The power is the composition of the room. The room itself has status. The invitation communicates belonging. The conversations create value that cannot be replicated elsewhere. State of Higher Education provides the intellectual foundation. Next provides the year-round intelligence. The salons create trusted relationships. The Academy creates the leadership pipeline. The Selingo brings the ecosystem together. The question is:
The opportunity with a flagship Selingo gathering is not to create another higher education conference. Higher education already has conferences. Many of them are valuable. Many have strong attendance. Many have established sponsorship models. The question is different: what gathering does not exist today that the market would immediately understand as important? The competitive landscape is actually broader than higher education events. The rooms that shape industries tend to sit at the intersection of ideas, leadership and influence. Davos brings together global leaders around the forces shaping the world economy. Milken brings together capital, policy, business and philanthropy. Aspen creates intimate conversations around society's biggest questions. SXSW EDU blends technology, education, entrepreneurship and culture. ASU+GSV has become a major gathering around the future of learning, technology and investment. Higher education itself has many important leadership gatherings — presidential meetings, association conferences, governance forums and sector-specific events. But there is still a gap. There is not a room designed around the intersection of:
— coming together to discuss the future of education and America's talent system. That is the opportunity. The product is not the panels. The product is the room. The value comes from who is invited, who wants access, what conversations happen and what relationships form. A Selingo flagship gathering should therefore begin with a question: if this existed five years from now, what would people say they could not miss? The answer should not be "I attended because the programming was good." The answer should be "I attended because this is where the people shaping the future of education gather." That is what creates scarcity, community, and a franchise.
Before creating a flagship event, we should understand where it fits in the existing ecosystem. The strategic questions: What month creates the greatest opportunity? What events are we complementing versus competing with? When are presidents, trustees and senior leaders most available? Where is there whitespace in the calendar? What timing creates the greatest sponsor value? The market is not empty. It is fragmented. Different organizations own different parts of the ecosystem.
| Timing | Event | Primary audience | What it owns today | Strategic gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | World Economic Forum / World University Leaders Forum | Global university leaders, CEOs, policymakers | Global leadership, geopolitics and technology | Not focused on American higher education leadership |
| January | CIC Presidents Institute | Private college presidents | Peer discussion among independent college leaders | Limited institutional scope |
| Feb / March | ACE Annual Meeting | Presidents, chancellors, senior administrators | National higher education leadership and policy | Association meeting rather than curated leadership community |
| March | SXSW EDU | Innovators, entrepreneurs, technology leaders | Education innovation and emerging ideas | More innovation ecosystem than presidential leadership network |
| March | AGB National Conference on Trusteeship | Presidents, trustees and board chairs | Governance and fiduciary leadership | Narrower governance focus |
| April | ASU+GSV Summit | Presidents, investors, technology companies, entrepreneurs | Future of learning, innovation and capital | Strong technology orientation; less focused on institutional leadership |
| May | Milken Institute Global Conference | CEOs, investors, philanthropists, policymakers | Capital, philanthropy and global leadership | Broader than higher education |
| June | Aspen Ideas Festival | Global thinkers and leaders | Intellectual exchange and interdisciplinary ideas | Not higher education specific |
| September | Chronicle Festival / THE World Academic Summit | Higher education thinkers and research leaders | Ideas, innovation and global research leadership | Less focused on an ongoing executive community |
| October | EDUCAUSE | CIOs and technology leaders | Digital transformation and AI infrastructure | Technology-focused rather than institution-wide |
The opportunity becomes clearer when viewed against this landscape. Every event owns an important constituency. No event owns the intersection. The Selingo opportunity is not to compete with these organizations. It is to create the room where presidents, trustees, technology leaders, employers, philanthropists and emerging leaders come together around the questions that will define the future of education. The calendar also reveals the whitespace: the early-summer and August leadership-transition windows are open for intimate retreats, and September is the natural moment to pair a flagship gathering with the State of Higher Education launch.
The intelligence business helps leaders understand how education is changing. The community business brings together the people responsible for navigating that change. The choice business brings that understanding to the people making the decisions that ultimately shape the system: students, families and, eventually, the broader education ecosystem.
This is the area where I think there is both an immediate product opportunity and a longer-term strategic opportunity. The immediate opportunity is to take the intellectual property you have already created through your books and transform it into a digital decision platform for families. The longer-term opportunity is to explore whether that platform can become the bridge from higher education into the broader education-to-work journey. The reason this matters is that families are experiencing education as one connected journey. They are not thinking separately about K-12, college admissions, higher education outcomes and careers. They are asking: what path gives my child the best chance to succeed? That question is becoming more difficult to answer. College costs are rising. The labor market is changing. Artificial intelligence is reshaping work. The relationship between majors, credentials and careers is evolving. Families need more than information. They need judgment. That has always been the Selingo opportunity. You are uniquely positioned to become the trusted translator between families and an increasingly confusing education market.
The opportunity with Dream School is compelling because it represents the clearest place to test whether the Selingo model can move from institutional leaders to families. But I would not begin by trying to build a full consumer platform. The first step should be a product experiment. You already have the intellectual foundation.
The most immediate product opportunity I see in the entire Selingo portfolio is hidden inside the Dream School appendix. You have already built the foundation of a consumer intelligence product. The appendix is not simply supplemental material for the book. It is the beginning of a decision engine. The work starts with a universe of approximately 1,200 four-year institutions and evaluates schools across dimensions that move families beyond traditional prestige-driven rankings:
The methodology is the asset. The opportunity is to transform that methodology into an interactive experience. The MVP could be intentionally simple. A family answers a series of questions: Where do you live? How far are you willing to travel? What can you realistically afford? What academic interests matter? How important is merit aid? What outcomes matter most? What type of campus experience are you seeking? The platform then generates a personalized set of Dream Schools. Each recommendation could include: why this school made the list, admissions accessibility, estimated cost, merit aid behavior, graduation outcomes, career outcomes, academic strengths, employer connections — and Jeff's perspective on why the institution deserves consideration. That last element is critical. The value is not the data alone. The value is the Selingo judgment layered on top of the data. That is the same principle behind the intelligence business. Information creates awareness. Interpretation creates value.
| Stage | Product experience | Strategic value |
|---|---|---|
| Book appendix | Discovery and trust | Audience acquisition |
| Interactive college finder | Personalized recommendations | User registration |
| Dream School profile pages | Deeper institutional intelligence | Engagement |
| Saved schools and comparisons | Ongoing decision utility | First-party relationship |
| Admissions calendar | Recurring engagement | Habit formation |
| Premium membership | Advanced tools and guidance | Revenue opportunity |
The appendix gives us an unusually tangible opportunity to test the Choice thesis quickly. Much of the underlying intellectual work already exists. The first objective is not revenue. The first objective is learning: Will families register? Will they return? Will they save schools? Will they share recommendations? Will they pay for additional utility? A simple MVP could test this through a landing page, a digital version of the appendix, an Instagram and social acquisition campaign, email capture, personalized recommendations, and premium upgrade testing. The result would be valuable regardless of outcome. If families engage, Selingo begins building a consumer intelligence platform. If they do not, the company gains valuable insight into what families actually need. The larger opportunity is not a college search tool. It is becoming the trusted translator between families and an increasingly complex education marketplace.
This is where I think there is a larger strategic opportunity worth exploring. I would not start by declaring a move into K-12. I would earn the right to move there through the family relationship. Dream School creates an authentic entry point because families do not experience education as separate sectors. They experience a journey. The questions begin long before college admissions: What skills will matter in an AI economy? What experiences prepare students for the future? How should families think about college readiness? What pathways exist beyond the traditional four-year model? How should students evaluate majors, careers and debt? Those questions connect directly to the intellectual territory you have already established through your books and reporting.
The broader K-12 market is interesting because it has many strong institutions and reporters, but there appears to be less national thought leadership that connects families, schools, technology, workforce, policy and the future of learning. This is where the Selingo model could eventually extend. The opportunity is not to become another education news organization. It is to become the trusted interpreter of how education connects to opportunity. The same forces reshaping higher education are increasingly shaping K-12: artificial intelligence, changing workforce demands, parent expectations, demographic shifts, technology adoption, public trust, funding pressure, questions about educational outcomes. There is also a commercial logic. Many of the organizations investing in education think across the full pipeline. Technology companies, employers and workforce organizations increasingly see K-12, higher education and career pathways as connected systems. Dream School creates the bridge.
Start with project-priced sprints, put points on the board, and test whether this becomes a much deeper operating partnership.
You asked me what a project-based engagement with me would look like and where I would start. I want to start with discrete sprints. Each sprint should have a clear scope, a price, deliverables, a cadence, and measurable outcomes. We should hold each other accountable and put points on the board. That gives two friends who have talked about building things together for years a disciplined way to establish a serious business relationship. We learn how we make decisions together. We learn how fast we can move. We learn where we sharpen each other and where we create friction. We create visible enterprise value at the same time.
Immediate work: Get inside the current 2026 work; identify departures from 2025; pressure-test questions; build the Mary Meeker playbook; identify proprietary data; design the 2027 commercial architecture; map yearlong franchises and live activation.
Points on the board: Stronger 2026 launch; 2027 revenue plan; data/IP roadmap; SOHE Live prototype.
Immediate work: Turn the appendix and methodology into a live product prototype; define data updates and licensing; test registration, saving, comparison, and membership; map counselor and school use cases.
Points on the board: A real consumer product and direct evidence about willingness to engage and pay.
Immediate work: Prototype two to three data franchises; define free/Pro/Executive boundaries; build the board-ready slide-download concept; create a data editorial calendar.
Points on the board: Evidence for paid professional intelligence and workflow utility.
Immediate work: Define the worldview map; evaluate Karin and other candidates; design the trust-transfer plan, economics, launch path, and performance measures.
Points on the board: The first franchise that expands Selingo Inc. through a voice other than Jeff.
I have also been thinking about what this means for me. I have spent much of my career building around talented people, ideas, media brands, audiences, revenue, and institutions. As I think about the next chapter of my own career — and the combination of societal impact and wealth creation I want from it — I increasingly believe I need to apply everything I know to a singular talent with the capacity to become the center of a much larger enterprise. I think you are that kind of talent. That is part of why this has become so interesting to me. I can see the company. I can see the impact. I can see the commercial opportunity. I can also see the amount of work required to turn the pieces into a system.
So I see the project work as a down payment on a deeper possibility. We start by building. We establish operating trust. We put real numbers and products on the board. We create accountability. We see whether our instincts compound. If that happens, I can imagine a much deeper role over time, potentially serving as President of Selingo Inc. I am intentionally leaving the structure undefined today. I want the possibility on the table because the ambition in this report eventually requires someone waking up every morning responsible for the value of the whole enterprise while you spend your time on the things only Jeff can do.
I see a natural division of labor developing. You own the judgment, signature relationships, voice, and trust transfer. I own architecture, productization, business model, incubation, cross-franchise coordination, and the operating discipline required to turn experiments into an institution. We should earn our way into that model through results.
| Jeff | Peter |
|---|---|
| Worldview and judgment | Architecture and prioritization |
| Signature relationships | Productization and business model |
| Talent ordination and audience trust | Talent system and franchise incubation |
| Signature content and public voice | Intelligence infrastructure and workflow utility |
| Presidential / board trust | Commercial architecture and partnerships |
| Stage presence and convening authority | Experimentation, measurement, and scaling discipline |
The opportunity outlined in this report is intentionally ambitious. The goal is not to launch everything at once. The goal is to identify the highest-leverage actions that begin turning existing assets into an integrated institution. The first 90 days should focus on learning, validation and building the connective tissue between what already exists.
The first step is aligning around the questions Selingo has earned the right to own. This means pressure-testing: What are the core forces reshaping education? Which questions should Selingo answer every year? Which areas have the strongest combination of expertise, access and market value? The output should be the intellectual framework that guides every product.
Before designing new products, understand the assets already available. Analyze: Next subscribers, newsletter engagement, webinar attendees, salon participants, Academy alumni, speaking audiences, LinkedIn reach, and institutional relationships. The goal is to understand who is already in the ecosystem and where the strongest opportunities exist.
Rather than attempting to build the entire platform, identify three experiments. Intelligence experiment: test a premium Selingo Intelligence product — a leadership transition tracker, AI adoption index or institutional intelligence brief. Community experiment: test a recurring leadership cohort — a quarterly presidential or trustee cohort built around Chatham House conversations. Choice experiment: test Dream School as a digital consumer product — an interactive college discovery tool supported by targeted acquisition. The objective is not scale. The objective is learning.
Using State of Higher Education as the map, identify the future Selingo bench. Which forces require dedicated expertise? Which people already have trusted audiences? Who could become franchise owners? Where should Selingo partner versus build internally? Karin is an important first test case, but the larger question is building a repeatable talent model.
The final step is beginning to design the institution we want to build. By the end of 90 days, we should have clarity on: the intelligence products, the community model, the consumer experiments, the talent strategy, the flagship gathering concept, and the revenue model.
The Bill Simmons of higher education remains useful shorthand. The opportunity I see is an institution built around a singular talent and a distinctive worldview, with proprietary intelligence, a real bench, professional products that help leaders make decisions, consumer products that help families navigate education, an annual report that shapes the agenda, and a gathering that defines the room.
The commercial models can span subscription, sponsorship, advisory, events, data, digital products, research partnerships, and talent economics. The addressable territory can eventually widen from higher education into the larger education-and-talent ecosystem.
You have already earned the position from which this can be built. You have the trust, relationships, audience, community, sponsor demand, author IP, data instincts, live formats, and first major annual franchise. The newest inputs make me more convinced because they show that many of the systems we want already exist in partial form: a five-year webinar library, repeat sponsors, a senior first-party audience, sponsor-funded research, data questions dating back years, and a salon community that is asking for deeper recurring connection.
I want to help you give all of that architecture — and build the company around it.
— Peter