David Rogier and Aaron Rasmussen founded Yanka Industries and registered their website under the name MasterClass in 2014. The website is a subscription-based online education platform where students access prerecorded lectures and classes taught by professionals in a variety of fields, including writing, business, cooking, acting, and more.
As of 2018, MasterClass’s total funding was $130 million.
Lessons are generally 2 to 5 hours and are not interactive for the most part, although some acting classes allow students to interact with one another via Skype.
As of 2019, the company was expanding into politics, economics, and video game design.
As of late 2018, MasterClass offered 50 different classes and more than 1,000 lessons.
Due to the coronavirus and subsequent quarantine, the company began pouring money into television advertising in the Spring of 2020, investing in the idea that people stuck at home might be willing to learn a new craft.
As of early May 2020, the most popular MasterClass was poker, taught by Daniel Negreanu.
Yanka Industries, which is doing business as MasterClass, maintains a corporate office in San Francisco, California.
