Raphhill | Personal Trainer

When you hire me for personal training, you CAN'T remain the same. It is my utmost desire to push your limits. Dm 'Ready' to start now.

🚨 Vincent Kompany on people appreciating him: “Don't believe the hype, don't believe the drama”. “When I arrived here at Bayern, I'd been promoted with 101 points, then relegated with 20, then won the league here – two years ago I was the worst manager and today I’m the very best”. “If you let yourself be influenced by all that noise, you’ll end up getting worse. It’s nicer this way, but I can live with criticism. It really doesn't matter to me”.

People have asked me how I feel about Udemy’s sale to Coursera. Honestly, I’m kinda pissed about it. I want to be clear - I’m grateful for the opportunity to start and benefit from Udemy’s success. It changed my life. But there’s another side to Udemy. A story of what could have been. After our Series B, founders owned less than 30% of the company. Our investors took over and installed their own CEO to run it. We all liked this new CEO and honestly, for years it looked like a brilliant move. The company kept growing and growing. They launched B2B and built a $500M ARR business. Eventually, the company IPO’ed for $3B. Yet all along there were clear cracks under the surface. Over Udemy’s history, there have been 7 CEO’s. The board replaced the second CEO with dud after dud. I’d often try to meet with the board or the new CEO, and was completely ignored. Eren had influence as Chairman of the Board but Oktay and I were so ignored they didn’t even invite us to the IPO. LOL WTF. There are like 50+ people invited to these things and nobody thought: “oh maybe we should invite the people who fucking invented the thing we’re all celebrating.” It shows how little respect they had for founders and for product innovation as a discipline. I think they wanted a CEO they could control, a buttoned-up suit instead of a brash founder/CEO that is risk-taking, visionary, but a bit of a pain. For awhile, it looked like it didn’t even matter who was CEO - the company was run by the incredibly talented team that reported to them anyways. Well, it worked until it didn’t. The company made no major product innovations for 15 years. Instead, they took the original idea (video-based courses) and sold it in every place imaginable. It got us to $800M run-rate. That’s no joke; that takes serious execution and a great team that hustled hard to win the market. But eventually the consumer business stopped growing. The B2B business has now flattened out as well. Meanwhile, Coursera was catching up. Original Coursera was a far worse product than Udemy, but it got a ton of press. Learning ivory tower bullshit from academics doesn’t get you a real education, but it does create prestige. They raised from better investors on better terms, and had better leadership. Udemy to this day has more revenue than Coursera, but Coursera won the court of investor opinion. They got higher multiples from both private and public markets. Coursera innovated heavily. They added corporate courses to their university catalog, built fully-online degree programs, and offered a B2B competitor that kept Udemy on its toes. Still, the Udemy B2B business (and team) out-performed and so the two companies were deadlocked. Coursera was better at B2C, Udemy at B2B. A merger was inevitable. But WHY IN GODS NAME did we sell to Coursera instead of the other way around? Why are the combined companies under $3B in market cap? Three reasons: First, edtech didn’t live up to its promise. While these two companies had solid revenue and cash positions, their growth slowed, and public markets balked. This meant compressed multiples and significantly lower valuations. Second, the companies stopped innovating. They are selling a product to businesses that their customers don’t love. They were category leaders, but they lead the category into mediocrity. They captured a significant share of learning and development (L&D) spending, but L&D as a whole actually lost budget within their organizations. That’s Udemy’s fault, and it doesn’t even realize it. That brings me to my final point: I personally believe Udemy traded upside opportunity for downside risk. Us founders were unproven and young. We made lots of mistakes, including fighting amongst ourselves. A good investor would have supported us through it because they believe founders drive the highest long-term returns. Instead, they brought in outside CEOs to replace us. I sometimes wonder if they recognize this error; everyone makes mistakes and maybe they learned from it. Either way - the consequences are real. By ignoring the founders, Udemy failed to innovate, which led to slowing growth which led to mediocre public market results. Furthermore, they don’t have a good evangelist and public markets don’t like a headless horse. I sold my Udemy stock awhile ago. I think the merger was critical for both companies’ survival. Now, though, the new combined entity needs to innovate again. On B2B, Coursera needs to help L&D become the heroes of the AI era so the entire market starts growing again. On B2C, they need to build the most educational AI product on the planet. (I’d focus on the former, since the latter is a lot harder and riskier). Coursera can still achieve our original vision and likely build a $10B+ company in the meantime. Even though I’ve got no stake in its future, I’m mission-driven and I REALLY hope they figure it out. The current education system sucks and the world deserves something better.

I will step on stage one day.

I need to know what made the Gaang hit the gym together cause WHY ARE THEY ALL JACKED AF!?

@ironmike_405 Omo e still far. 😂 I gats reach like 100kg fess cause I am still skinny. Thanks for the compliment though.

@raphhillthec Almost there 😂

Getting there. I just need more mass.

Took some time out to practice poses as an aspiring bodybuilder. I still have a lot of work to put in. Guess the bodybuilding division I would be competing in. 👇

@naturalaristo NO. Read fgs. Google is free.

Does this actually work?

@luisomor @BrentSwancer How for GOD'S SAKE? You were your lecturers? Stop embarrassing your Alma Mater.

@BrentSwancer It's better

By just doing dips and pullups in the sun you will get a better physique than 90% of science-based gymbros

@BuildsCoker Alright.

I never said adding weight is the only way to progressively overload. He said increasing load doesn’t stimulate any growth. And that’s where I disagree with him

@vaughan_steve1 @KaybankzOG @dntcallmejohn @bodybyzedd The fact remains, you can never build more muscle than a non-smoker if both of you start at the same time. Smoking slows down your gains.

@KaybankzOG @raphhillthec @dntcallmejohn @bodybyzedd Lol. He clarified what I was thinking, about d probability that he's talking about other substances. Weed no dey there so I know what I'm saying. Flowers meant weed in my tweet he initially replied. Eat good, smoke 'weed', exercise right nd rest, those muscles go dey bulge ni.

Up and grateful. #notyourpastor🙏🏿

@KaybankzOG @vaughan_steve1 @dntcallmejohn @bodybyzedd Okay. When I get 10 years of experience in personal training, I would boldly say Bicep Curls train the quads... following your submission. It's appalling you detest science or objectivity. I can also say 1+1 is 20 then, since I am a graduate.

@raphhillthec @vaughan_steve1 @dntcallmejohn @bodybyzedd lol google over his own experience ? 😃

@vaughan_steve1 @dntcallmejohn @bodybyzedd Check Google gee. I am not subjective.

@raphhillthec @dntcallmejohn @bodybyzedd I see 'personal trainer' in your bio and I want to believe you have a sample size to make this claim. But personally, I'm going to refute it. Smoking weed doesn't do that to me. I don't know if you are talking about other substances though.

@vaughan_steve1 @dntcallmejohn @bodybyzedd No, it doesn't. It lowers your testosterone, and affects performance due to shortage of oxygen.

@dntcallmejohn @bodybyzedd I think it just makes you enjoy workout sessions more... Like it does for me. Smoking flowers just increases your feelings towards anything you do.

Yes, it does. Your muscles are not effectively repairing after your workout, which slows down progress. Also, you would have less oxygen when you smoke, which would affect your performance. Thirdly, it can lower your testosterone.

I go still open gym one day. E sure me like mad (by wisdom, and God's grace).

You can't reach the pinnacle (even as a natty) of bodybuilding (the only model for muscle growth), looking like a skinny, starved guy. Apart from that, bodybuilding emphasises so much on size. So, how is lean superior? It is superior in callisthenics, not in bodybuilding.

@yankeeplug_ Alright bro.

@raphhillthec Hmm will check on a different scale then

I don't have to see you in rea life. 😂 Even Ronnie Coleman competed between 130kg-136kg. Convert all your fat to muscle, you won't still reach half his size (exaggerating here, but you get the point). I no wetin I dey talk. 123kg is MASSIVE. Read your weight accurately.

@yankeeplug_ I hope you understand sha. You can still prove me wrong.

@raphhillthec Hmm ok boss

Still doesn't mean, 123kg is massive. The weight reader you used is from Aba. Trained eyes would highly disagree with you.