MOUNTAIN VIEW, July 21 — For millions of students across India and Bangladesh, the face of free online education belongs to Salman Amin Khan, a man whose own roots trace back to both sides of the Bengal border. His story offers a rare glimpse into how a diaspora founder, armed with a doodle notepad and a YouTube account, built one of the most-visited educational platforms on the planet. Khan was born on October 11, 1976, in Metairie, Louisiana, to a Bengali Muslim family.
His father, Fakhrul Amin Khan, was a physician from the village of Rahmatpur in Babuganj, Barishal, Bangladesh. His mother, Masuda Khan, comes from Murshidabad, West Bengal, India.
Both sides are descendants of Rahmat Khan, a 16th-century chieftain of Pashtun origin. His grandfather, Abdul Wahab Khan, was a prominent Bengali politician who served as Pakistan’s third official Speaker of the National Assembly. Khan grew up in financial difficulty.
He recalled that his mother earned $16,000 in 1993. He attended Grace King High School in Louisiana, where he was a cartoonist for the school newspaper and took mathematics courses at the University of New Orleans.
He graduated as valedictorian in 1994.
From MIT to a hedge fund — and a cousin’s tutoring session
Khan went on to earn a double-major Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Mathematics from MIT in 1998, along with a Master of Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science. He later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2003. After a summer internship at Xerox PARC in 2002, he worked as a hedge fund analyst at Connective Capital Management from 2003 to late 2009.
In 2004, he began tutoring his cousin Nadia in mathematics over the internet using Yahoo!’s doodle notepad. That small experiment grew into a mission.
In 2006, he founded Khan Academy, a free online non-profit educational platform, moving his tutorials to YouTube. He created the Khan Academy YouTube channel on November 16, 2006. As of April 2026, that channel had 9.39 million subscribers and more than two billion views.
He has produced over 6,500 video lessons covering mathematics, science, and other subjects.
Leaving finance to focus on education
In 2009, Khan quit his job to focus full-time on Khan Academy, assisted by close friend Josh Gefner. By 2010, his MIT freshman-year roommate Shantanu Sinhal was appointed president of the organisation. Khan received sponsorship from Ann Doerr, wife of venture capitalist John Doerr.
His stated mission is to “accelerate learning for students of all ages.” He believes technology can free teachers from traditional lectures to provide more individualized instruction. In 2009, he planned to extend the platform to English literature.
In 2012, Khan Academy added the Coach feature, designed to connect teachers and students. In 2015, Khan announced a partnership with the College Board to create free SAT practice resources. Also in 2012, he was named in the Time 100 and became the youngest commencement speaker at MIT in 30 years.
