Coursera Co-Founder Takes a Job at ‘China’s Google’

Coursera, the online-education company, announced on Friday that one of its founders, Andrew Ng, was taking a third job, as chief scientist at Baidu, an Internet giant often called “China’s Google.” The announcement came about a month after Richard C. Levin, the former president of Yale University, became Coursera’s chief executive.

“With a strong executive team in place at Coursera, Andrew is taking this opportunity to pursue other interests in his career,” the company said in a statement.

Mr. Ng was an artificial-intelligence pioneer at Stanford University, where he is still listed as director of the A.I. Lab, before he began experimenting with massive open online courses. That side project became a full-time job in 2012, when he founded Coursera with Daphne Koller, a colleague at Stanford. Mr. Ng, who has also worked for Google, will stay on as chairman of Coursera’s board.

“I joined Coursera to launch MOOCs out to the world,” Mr. Ng wrote on the company’s blog. “Coursera has grown to a level where I am confident that it will continue to grow and thrive.”

Coursera has been trying to grow and thrive in China, a country with more than 600 million Internet users and a high demand for education.

“Part of Andrew’s role at Coursera, along with his key position as chairman of the board, is to continue furthering the company’s reach and relationships in China,” said Currin Berdine, a company spokeswoman, in an email.