Best Business, Finance & Economics courses
The 91 Business, Finance & Economics courses programmers recommend to each other on Hacker News, ranked by how many people recommended each one, how strongly, in how many separate threads and over how many years (138 recommendations, 2006 to October 2026). 48 of them are free. How ranking works.
Economics of Money and Banking
Coursera · intermediate · free
Commenters call it a great, real-world introduction to how the monetary system works, with one calling it the best online course they've taken.
Financial Markets
Coursera · beginner · free
Commenters repeatedly recommend it as a broad, well-delivered introduction to finance and the economy, with one calling Shiller "a good lecturer and clearly knows his stuff."
Behavioral Economics (Dan Ariely)
Coursera · intermediate · free
Commenters call it one of the best Coursera courses, praising its high-quality videos and graduate-level readings.
How to Start a Startup
Stanford University · beginner · free
Commenters call it an excellent, thorough introduction to startups and praise individual lectures on growth, management, and operations.
Startup Engineering
Coursera · free
Commenters call it a course that truly changed how they approached tech and startups, and praise its focus on understanding industry history alongside predicting trends.
Banking and Money
Khan Academy · beginner · free
Commenters call it a clear, illuminating explanation of how banks create money and what is going on with currency and Treasury holdings, and recommend it as an alternative to a controversial MMT video.
How to Build a Startup (Steve Blank)
Udacity · beginner · free
Commenters call it a very good, free introduction to startup thinking from Steve Blank, and one recommends it for small businesses as well.
Finance Theory I
MIT OpenCourseWare · intermediate · free
Commenters call it an excellent course for learning finance fundamentals and say the Fall 2008 timing makes it especially interesting.
Introduction to Financial Accounting
Coursera · beginner · freemium
Commenters call it an excellent, very helpful introduction for learning to read earnings statements, and one praises it as the best teaching they've seen in a MOOC.
Marx's Capital (David Harvey lectures)
YouTube · intermediate · free
Commenters suggest pairing Harvey's lectures with Capital because the opening chapters are dense, and the lectures help make the dialectical argument and basic definitions easier to follow.
CS183 Startup School
Stanford University · mixed · free
Commenters call the lectures outstanding and point to Blake Masters' detailed class notes as a useful summary of Peter Thiel's startup course.
Machine Learning for Trading
Udacity · intermediate
Commenters describe it as a favorite where you implement algorithms to optimize trading strategies, and one says they would highly recommend it.
A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior
Coursera · beginner · free
Commenters call it a favorite online course that was rigorous without being watered down, with curated papers they found especially valuable.
Game Theory (Ben Polak)
Yale University · beginner · free
Commenters say they learned game theory from it and describe the 24 lectures by Ben Polak as excellent.
15.S12 Blockchain and Money
MIT OpenCourseWare · beginner · free
Commenters call Gensler's lectures one of the best introductions to the fundamentals of money and crypto, and recommend them to anyone wanting to learn the basics.
Wharton Accounting
Coursera · beginner · free
Commenters recommend it as a solid introduction to accounting, useful for understanding SEC filings like S-1, 10-Q and 10-K.
Introduction to Finance
Coursera · beginner · free
Commenters describe it as a useful non-CS course that is a good starting point for developers learning business and finance.
Economics and Finance
Khan Academy · beginner · free
Commenters point to it as a good, accessible set of videos for learning how money and the banking system work and for a primer on cryptocurrencies.
Entrepreneurship 101: Who is your customer?
edX · beginner · free
Commenters say it taught them how to find their end user, and one calls it a good companion to the Disciplined Entrepreneurship book.
Economics (3rd edition)
The Great Courses · beginner · paid
Commenters recommend it as a listenable, well-explained overview of economics, with one saying it was checked out from the library for a commute and later bought after a sale.
Corporate Finance (Aswath Damodaran)
YouTube · intermediate · free
Commenters call Damodaran the gold standard and say the free course is especially useful for the financing decision and how debt and equity mix affects value.
Negotiation
Coursera · beginner
Commenters describe it as a well-put-together course that gives a useful framework for approaching negotiation and makes people more comfortable with it.
Economics
Khan Academy · beginner · free
Commenters point to it as a free, accessible basic economics resource, with one calling it fine for basic economics and others suggesting it to someone who is confused about the basics.
Introduction to Finance
MIT OpenCourseWare · beginner · free
A commenter highly recommends it, noting it was taught while the financial crisis was unfolding.
Influencing People
Coursera · beginner
Commenters highly recommend it as a practical answer to how to influence others without manipulating them.
Negotiation Skills
Coursera · beginner
One commenter says the course was amazing and credits it with teaching them the BATNA concept.
Beyond the Goal (Eliyahu Goldratt)
Eliyahu Goldratt · intermediate
One commenter strongly suggests these lectures over The Goal, saying the novel is thin on useful information by comparison.
Accounting Foundations
LinkedIn Learning · beginner · paid
Commenters say the Stice courses are easy to understand and surprisingly entertaining, and point to this one as a good starting point.
The Money View
Coursera · intermediate
Commenters call it the best explanation they've seen of how the economy works, and praise its bank-centric focus on balance sheets.
Negotiating for Success
Table Force · freemium
A commenter says they took it a few years ago and would highly recommend it, noting that free material is available on the Table Force site.
More Introduction to Financial Accounting
Coursera · beginner
One commenter calls the teaching the best they've seen in a MOOC and cites it as a strong example of making the MOOC format work, though they note the subject may not interest most programmers.
Tech Entrepreneurship
Coursera · beginner · free
Commenters call Chuck Eesley's first tech-entrepreneur MOOC ground breaking, noting it led to the spinoff of NovoEd.
Leadership Fundamentals
Lynda.com · beginner · paid
The commenter calls it a short, worthwhile watch that helps you assess your strengths and weaknesses as a leader, both of your own life and within an organization.
Development Economics
Marginal Revolution University · beginner · free
One commenter strongly recommends it and says they wish they had been taught the Solow Model in school.
Startups Guide to Hiring Virtual Assistants
Udemy · beginner · paid
A commenter says it shares many of the same philosophies as their own approach and highly recommends it.
Lean Launchpad
Udacity · beginner
The one commenter calls Steve Blank a prophet for modern startups and says the customer development approach is among the most important startup ideas in decades.
Macroeconomic Policy in a World Economy
Stanford University · advanced · free
The one commenter calls it the best of their economics courses and says it covers the modeling and process central banks like the Federal Reserve and Bank of Canada use.
Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders
Stanford University · mixed · free
One commenter calls a negotiation talk in the series one of the best lectures they've heard and says they've recommended it dozens of times.
MSE Academy
Open University OpenLearn · beginner · free
One commenter suggests it for personal finance learning, noting that some of the topics apply to everyone.
Algorithmic Trading Strategies
Udemy · paid
One commenter who studied the topic recommends it alongside a second Udemy forex course, noting they paid about £14 each.
Complete Algorithmic Forex Trading
Udemy · intermediate · paid
One commenter recommends it alongside another Udemy course as a way into building trading bots, noting they paid about £14 for it during discounts.
Intro To Live Coding
YouTube · beginner · free
Commenters call Eli Fieldsteel's SuperCollider intro fantastic and find the language's syntax nice once past its initial oddities.
Become a User Experience Designer
LinkedIn Learning · beginner · paid
A commenter recommends it as the more detailed next step after a short UX intro, saying it is worth investing in if you want to keep learning design.
What it takes to set up a Rush concert
Lynda.com
One commenter calls it one of the best Lynda courses they ever took, just for fun.
Nuts and Bolts of Business Plans
MIT OpenCourseWare · beginner · free
A commenter suggests it as a way to learn business plans without committing to the whole course, recommending at least the first lecture.
Principles of Manufacturing MicroMasters
edX · intermediate · paid
One commenter, working through it, says it is great for learning manufacturing vernacular and communicating with manufacturers when scaling a design.
Money Management Skills
The Great Courses · beginner · paid
Commenters point to it as a US-specific companion to research on happier spending, with practical lifetime money advice from narrator Michael Finke.
Time Value of Money
Coursera · beginner
A commenter with an engineering background says they found a finance intro course more useful than a spreadsheet and has been recommending this one to family and friends.
Public Speaking
Stanford Graduate School of Business
One commenter recalls it as a really good course, and highlights the course's use of Resonate's idea of framing the audience as the hero on a journey.
Disciplined Entrepreneurship (Bill Aulet)
edX · beginner
Commenters point to Bill Aulet's online course as a solid companion to his book for learning how to start a business.
Investment Valuation (Aswath Damodaran)
NYU Stern · intermediate · free
Commenters recommend it as a thorough valuation course, and one notes that Damodaran's shorter Little Book of Valuation is a good option if there is no time for the full course.
CS50's Computer Science for Business Professionals
edX · beginner
One commenter recommends it for people who want to intelligently communicate about computing rather than program independently.
Business Process Management
edX
One commenter found it fascinating and highly informative, amazed that business concepts could be diagrammed and executed.
Negotiation (Chris Voss)
MasterClass · beginner · paid
One commenter says Chris Voss's negotiation class alone has easily justified the $100 per year subscription.
Supply Chain Management MicroMasters
edX · intermediate · freemium
One commenter recommends it as a solid curriculum for self-studying supply chain management, alongside operations research resources.
Salesforce Administrator Certification Course
Udemy · beginner · paid
Commenter calls it a cheap prep option (around USD 15) for the Salesforce Administrator cert, which they say led to a PM and product manager career path.
Machine Learning for Business Professionals
Coursera · beginner · free
One commenter lists it alongside AI for Everyone as a good online course for this context and notes both can be tried for free.
Data, Economics, and Development Policy MicroMasters
edX · intermediate · freemium
The commenter, a working data scientist who completed it, says it taught them new statistics techniques and a lot about causal estimation.
Pricing Strategy
Coursera · intermediate · free
One commenter audited it and found it "pretty good" while discussing undergraduate-level economics self-study.
Global Financial Crisis
Coursera · beginner
Commenters call it a great, approachable course on the 2008 financial crisis that explains why the Irish bailout went poorly while the American one succeeded.
Digital Marketing Nanodegree
Udacity · beginner · free
A commenter suggests it as a free, practical starting point for learning social media marketing and SEO to get users.
Games People Play: Game Theory in Business
The Great Courses · beginner · paid
Commenters call it a helpful way into game theory, and one notes it is the Teaching Company version of the same material as a companion book.
The Economics of Healthcare
Coursera · beginner
One commenter recommends it as a quick way to understand why US healthcare pricing is so complicated and why the usual focus of public debate is often on the wrong problems.
Agent-Based Financial Markets (Blake LeBaron)
Brandeis University · advanced · free
One commenter recommends it as a set of lectures and code for building finance agent-based models from scratch in Python.
Ethics and Law in Data and Analytics
edX · beginner · free
Commenters call it a great course on the subject and say it was surprisingly good despite expecting it to be fluff.
Armin van Buuren's Dance Music Production Course
MasterClass · paid
Commenters say it was awesome and that hearing from Armin directly, including his way of thinking and production tips, is worth the subscription.
Gamification
Coursera
A commenter in an 'best MOOCs you've taken' thread calls the Wharton gamification MOOC excellent.
Entrepreneurship 102
edX · beginner
The commenter recommends it as a companion to the Disciplined Entrepreneurship book, alongside Entrepreneurship 101.
Negotiation
The Great Courses Plus · beginner · freemium
One commenter calls it a good introduction to negotiation training and points to a free first lesson on YouTube.
Poker Theory
MIT OpenCourseWare · intermediate · free
Commenters point to it as a starting point for people who already know the rules of poker and want the underlying theory.
Tech Entrepreneur Nanodegree
Udacity · beginner · paid
One commenter who finished it says it was money well spent because the prototype and marketing plan are still used for their product work.
14.121 Microeconomic Theory
MIT OpenCourseWare · advanced · free
One commenter says the material is worth working through, notes it is free online, and says it changed how they see the world.
Reith Lectures (Niall Ferguson)
BBC Radio 4 · mixed · free
One commenter recommends a specific Reith Lecture on the dollar's future, noting they find the speaker annoying but the lecture worth listening to.
Valuation Specialization
Coursera
One commenter calls it a well done business class from the University of Michigan, though they note their wife was involved in creating it.
Business Foundations Specialization
Coursera · beginner · freemium
One commenter suggests it as a way for developers to learn business, noting they followed an earlier version of some of its courses.
Lypur Piano Video Course
YouTube · beginner · free
Commenters list it among specific resources for learning piano, alongside books and theory sites, as a recommended starting point.
Mathematical Methods for Quantitative Finance
Coursera · intermediate · free
Commenters call it a clear, easy-to-follow refresher that is useful even for those new to the material.
Competitive Strategy
Coursera · beginner · free
Commenters call it a pretty good starting point for game theory from a business point of view, and recommend it as a free marketing strategy course.
Advanced Competitive Strategy
Coursera · intermediate · free
Commenters call it a pretty good starting point for game theory from a business point of view, and recommend it alongside the introductory course.
Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies
Coursera · beginner
One commenter points to it as a starting place for someone wanting to try something new through entrepreneurship.
ChucK Music Programming
Coursera
One commenter who took the course recommends it to designers and musicians as a way into programming music.
Computational Investing, Part I
Coursera · intermediate · free
One commenter says they enjoy it because they wanted to learn more about finance, while noting the presentation and material preparation could be improved.
Networking for Introverts
Mixergy · beginner · paid
A commenter points to it as a practical starting point for networking, alongside meetups and goal-setting, for people who find it hard.
15.818 Pricing
MIT OpenCourseWare · advanced · free
One commenter calls it a set of very good lectures on pricing, noting it focuses on economics rather than psychology.
Financial Markets (Robert Shiller)
Yale University · beginner · free
One commenter recommends it for a deeper look at the underpinnings of the financial crisis, specifically session 2 on risk management and session 7 on behavioral finance, noting the instructor wrote Irrational Exuberance.
Finance
Khan Academy · beginner · free
Commenters suggest browsing its videos and clicking through topics that interest you, saying each video is quite accessible on its own.
Chris Martenson's Crash Course
chrismartenson.com · beginner · free
One commenter recommends it for its clear explanation of the economics behind the Fed, noting that Martenson, a former biological scientist, describes it well.
Agile Estimating and Planning
Mountain Goat Software · beginner · paid
One commenter says the Mike Cohn course on Agile Estimating and Planning (2 days) was worth taking, alongside his free presentations and book.
Venture Capital and Capital Markets
Khan Academy · beginner · free
One commenter points readers to Sal Khan's videos on capital and funding as a complement to other fundraising summaries.
Economics 113 American Economic History
UC Berkeley · intermediate · free
One commenter recommends it as a listen-along option for a long commute, noting the audio-only availability of Berkeley's webcasts.
Finance and Insurance (Robert Shiller)
Yale University · beginner · free
The commenter says the full semester of Shiller's Yale lectures is a joy to watch and a good way into stock market and investing topics.