Sebastian Thrun's pivot

There are a lot of "I told you so's" aimed at Sebastian Thrun for his initial enthusiasm for MOOCs and his recent turn-around. Udacity is now going to target job-specific training. So... ok, we told you so - BUT I'm thinking about how he got to this "fail": He was willing to experiment and go way out on a limb in a very public way. He had the social capital to gather up venture capital and develop a platform in short order. He has brought online education to the attention of many - including ivy league schools. He experimented in a BIG way. We told him so, but he learned it for himself. I'm sure that he will go on to do many more interesting things. Now I'm trying to think about what would be different if the last couple of years of MOOC craziness hadn't happened?