From Course Hero to QuillBot: Andrew Grauer on Building the Alphabet of EdTech

Sep 22, 2025

Andrew Grauer, Co-founder and CEO of Learneo Inc., dives into his journey from launching Course Hero at Cornell to leading an expansive EdTech portfolio. He discusses how QuillBot is revolutionizing AI-powered writing to support immediate learning and professional needs. Grauer also tackles the ongoing challenges of integrity in education, highlighting the importance of thoughtful implementation. He envisions a multimodal future for QuillBot that extends beyond text, showcasing AI's potential through translation and innovative learning tools.

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ANECDOTE

Origin Of Course Hero

Andrew Grauer started Course Hero at Cornell to solve students' stress and inefficiency around studying.
He obsessively learned the problem and scaled solutions from students to professionals over two decades.

INSIGHT

Products Linked By User Needs

Learnio groups products by overlapping user needs: study-focused brands and QuillBot's writing/productivity focus.
The platform strategy emphasizes shared audiences and complementary learning-to-doing workflows.

ANECDOTE

QuillBot's Early AI Trajectory

QuillBot's founders built transformer-based paraphrasing and grammar tools starting in 2017 and proved high demand with millions of users.
Learnio acquired QuillBot in 2021 and grew distribution and revenue over tenfold since then.

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Andrew Grauer is the co-founder and CEO of Learneo Inc., a leading productivity and learning platform that includes QuillBot, Course Hero, CliffsNotes, LitCharts, Scribbr, LanguageTool, and Symbolab. He also serves as CEO of QuillBot, an AI-powered writing and communications tool. Andrew launched Course Hero in 2006 while at Cornell University and has since grown Learneo into a global platform recognized as one of Inc.’s Best Led Companies.

💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode:

The journey from Course Hero to Learnio’s EdTech portfolio
How QuillBot is reshaping AI-powered writing
The ongoing tension between learning, doing, and integrity
Why “translation” is central to AI across text and media
Andrew’s vision for the future of multimodal EdTech

✨ Episode Highlights:
[00:02:27] Andrew Grauer shares the origins of Course Hero
[00:07:47] Building Learnio’s family of EdTech brands
[00:08:24] Why QuillBot stood out and was acquired in 2021
[00:14:18] Bridging learning and doing through AI-powered writing
[00:20:31] Lessons from two decades of integrity and plagiarism debates
[00:26:18] The multimodal future of QuillBot beyond text
[00:30:39] Translation as the core of AI’s power
[00:37:43] How AI can help learners move seamlessly from learning to doing

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This season of Edtech Insiders is once again brought to you by Tuck Advisors, the M&A firm for EdTech companies. Run by serial entrepreneurs with over 30 years of experience founding, investing in, and selling companies, Tuck believes you deserve M&A advisors who work as hard as you do.

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