Our Vision

A world where everyone has the opportunity to learn from others and teach what they know. Every student goes on to teach someone else in a global community that becomes more knowledgeable, thoughtful, and empowered.

In 2020, we launched Code in Place. We wondered: how could we teach Stanford's intro CS class to the entire world? The answer was more teachers. Volunteer teachers each teach a section of about 10 students, and suddenly an online class becomes a community. “Reciprocal” sums up our teaching model: learn, then teach, and then the person you taught can do the same.

Thanks to our community of teachers and learners, completion rates reached 70%, while typical online courses sit near 5%. Six offerings later we’ve had 3,000+ teachers and 60,000+ students coming from more than 150 countries. Code in Place might be the class with the most teachers in the world!

Along the way we built a platform: an online IDE, a system for running thousands of Zoom sections, automatic feedback tools, a way to share your Python programs over WhatsApp. We use AI for routine tasks that support teachers and learners. We don’t use it to replace connections between people.  

Reciprocal emerged from that success. Building on the research, pedagogy, and infrastructure behind Code in Place, Reciprocal exists to support institutions and communities in adopting and growing the section-leader teaching model themselves.

In 2026, Reciprocal supported the launch of two new courses from Stanford and the Piech Lab. Code in Place X expands our intro computer science course so students learn how to teach others about what they build. Probability for AI teaches the math that explains how AI actually works.

Our team brings together Stanford researchers, global teaching experience, and a deep commitment to expanding opportunity through education. We work through collaborations between educators, researchers, engineers, and community leaders who believe learning works best when it’s human-centered, rigorous, and shared. We are building on the fantastic, foundational work of Mehran Sahami, Julie Zelenski, Ali Malik, Juliette Woodrow, Brahm Capoor, Sierra Wang, Cameron Mohne, Andrew Tierno, TJ Jefferson, Miranda Li, Joseph Tey, Joshua Delgadillo, Julia Markel, Binh Le, Dora Demszky, Uera Smith III, and many more. Our board is Chris Piech, Clarissa Shen, and Mitchell Estberg.