I should note that nobody is quite sure what will happen yet, so that may not be the case. A lot of people found out this was even happening the same time HN did! And the agreements were all signed at a very high administrative level (President or Provost level, which is often a political appointment quite out of communication with the day-to-day operations of the university), so it's not clear there is an implementation plan with dean-level or department-head-level administration yet.
We'll see, though. One thing universities are trying to balance is how to get professors to do more "entrepreneurial" kinds of things while staying. As professoring gets to be a little more like a freelance job (bring in your own research funding, teach online courses via a for-profit company, build up a personal "brand"), one question is what keeps the more successful professors at the university, instead of just going independent, the way Sebastian Thrun did. There's a real possibility that some of the launch professors listed in this announcement volunteered precisely because they're contemplating jumping ship to their own online-course startup, and are using this as a route to build name recognition and audience.
We'll see, though. One thing universities are trying to balance is how to get professors to do more "entrepreneurial" kinds of things while staying. As professoring gets to be a little more like a freelance job (bring in your own research funding, teach online courses via a for-profit company, build up a personal "brand"), one question is what keeps the more successful professors at the university, instead of just going independent, the way Sebastian Thrun did. There's a real possibility that some of the launch professors listed in this announcement volunteered precisely because they're contemplating jumping ship to their own online-course startup, and are using this as a route to build name recognition and audience.