1 rich Libsyn https://www.libsyn.com 90 600 What does it take to change how an industry works — and what happens when it doesn’t change fast enough? Lars Hyland has been asking that question for thirty years, from the early days of interactive multimedia through nearly a decade leading EMEA for Totara Learning, and now at Enlytning, an AI-powered platform helping small businesses close the gap between policy and practice. In this conversation, John and Lars go back to the beginning — to the Epic days, when the e-learning model that now dominates the industry was taking shape around them — and trace a career-long argument about the one thing L&amp;amp;D keeps getting wrong. &amp;nbsp; They cover the founding of Retenda in 2010 — a learning reinforcement platform built on spaced repetition, a decade before the category existed — and why good timing isn’t enough if the market isn’t ready. They get into the Totara years, open source as a power relationship, and the honest tension in spending nearly a decade championing infrastructure you know is being misused. And they dig into AI: not the conference version, but the harder question of whether the industry is using it to fix a broken model or just to run the broken model faster. Lars’s phrase for the latter — faster garbage in, garbage out — is both a provocation and a diagnosis. &amp;nbsp; Lars has a view on what he thinks good actually looks like. The question is whether the industry is willing to build it. &amp;nbsp; TIMESTAMPS 02:12 - Intro 05:05 - The formative years of elearning 17:59 - Why did he found Retenda? 21:35 - The Totara years 25:53 - What happens to open source tech when it goes commercial? 30:21 - Enlytning 40:26 - Compliance &amp;amp; HR 52:17 - Does the SaaS model still have a future? 57:51 - A way to cut down duplication in course catalogues? 01:08:51 - End &amp;nbsp; CONNECT WITH LEARNING HACK LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer X: @johnhelmer Threads: @jphelmer Bluesky: @johnhelmer.bsky.social Website: learninghackpodcast.com The Learning Hack podcast https://learninghackpodcast.com/ <iframe title="Libsyn Player" style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/40811355/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/87A93A/" height="90" width="600" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe> https://assets.libsyn.com/secure/content/200649105