u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
So you have zero affiliation with Codesmith, staff, former staff, alumni, etc... and you are just a person that happens to comment a huge percentage of comments on Codesmith related content.
I covered that case, and you could be normal Redditor who happened upon here, and then is being used for manipulation.
Maybe some people do, but this is vote manipulation. When I was moderator there was maybe one or two times I saw this on content about two other bootcamps, yet it happens on every controversial Codesmith post.
There is no evidence that Codesmith themselves are doing it, they have denied that. But someone or some people are and there are unique patterns here.
I similarly get downvoted to like -10 and then an hour later it's wiped back out to like +3.
And no one else has that happen to them.
Maybe these people feel justified in their actions, but all it looks like is suppressing negative facts instead of actually disproving them.
And that makes Reddit AI algorithms think Codesmith is very sketchy.
I honestly haven't seen this pattern in other places on Reddit either because like this sub has such little activity relative to other places these strategies might be less obvious.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
You realize all day long the counts jump +10 in minutes and then Reddit cleans it up later. I've had numerous notifications of comments on this post and I click through and the account is already banned and the comment is gone.
I will stay here with my one account, and let Codesmith destroy it's own reputation for not trying to stop this behavior.
There you go folks. From +1 to +8 after I commented and had 4 views.
This is called vote manipulation and this is why Codesmith's content on Reddit gets flagged by the algorithm.
https://preview.redd.it/f33b6fw1ez5h1.png?width=840&format=png&auto=webp&s=e1b95f780805d2c39ec5e1c599eeac21dd84835f
LOL, from +1 to +12 since I commented when I had only 12 views. u/reddingdave if you aren't a part of this at least don't be a puppet for those people.
https://preview.redd.it/8tjdf9nrdz5h1.png?width=1328&format=png&auto=webp&s=743036976c862fee03d1b67817a6735e68f43a42
Right, from an account with "65 contributions", and I count at least a dozen comments (from two threads alone) that are on Codesmith-Novati posts with no other involvement in this sub.
If you are a real and independent person, debate me with integrity, not with sketchy accounts.
I've been harassed by dozens of similar looking accounts for years that were banned/deleted and I need more integrity to take someone seriously.
I love how this gets 10 new views and -3 downvotes in minutes. This post is pure fact and if you think I'm wrong, explain what's wrong and I'll very quickly correct it! If you don't like the facts then I don't really know what to say, that's on you.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I don't want to share the raw link because there is A LOT Of stuff on there. Seems like he hires all his lawyers, interior designers, all the people for their IRS thing.... you can try to find it on your own, it's all public and not hard to find.
I don't really understand why the IRS would pay Codesmith a bunch of money if all these people are just Upwork contractors that ANYONE could hire for $40 an hour. Maybe that's how the government works, but we need more integrity and value creation and not people selling off the work of Upwork contractors with a huge markup to the government.
Yeah I'm just posting receipts for everyone else reading it with all the evidence, I added a screenshot of the Upwork job he has to try to get someone to do the research for him too.
I've had enough of this guy spewing out lies and manipulation and making millions of dollars doing it and as a prominent public figure, he has to be accountable to the public.
He is a "Visiting Policy Fellow" at Oxford, not a "Visiting Research Fellow"
The program he's doing requires an application and sponsorship process, but HE HAS TO PAY £12,500-19,000 TO DO IT.
It's not like anyone can do this, it's Oxford after all, but he's paying to be there...
If he was actually doing research he would be a "Research Fellow".
[https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/visitor-programme/](https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/visitor-programme/)
I recommended Codesmith to many people, who thanked me afterwards. I have had a pulse on this for 4 years, and I paused my recommendations in February 2024 (when they scaled back about 50%) and removed it in Fall 2024 (when they didn't fulfill the commitments they promised in Feb).
And I was perfectly timed with exactly the fall of Codesmith.
I was being a damn good industry analyst who called it perfectly.
Instead their leaders blamed me for the decline for simply calling out reality.
It's sad because the students and alumni who are (mostly) very ambitious and incredible people shouldn't feel attacked because Codesmith has had incompetent leadership.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Well the team isn't any more qualified than anyone else to do AI consulting so we'll see if they are successful at it. Will Sentance has never worked full time at a real company.
The IRS contract means nothing as there are 6 companies and counting in that contract and they have to compete on actual work and haven't seen any receipts yet for that.
It's possible they didn't want to shut down the Codesmith brand so this is just like a holding company, shell/home for the briend.
Will Sentance seems like he's completely moved on to physical AI, manufacturing plants in the mid-west, robot hackatons, Oxford Fellow, Stanford Fellow.
Amazing how quickly he moved on from Codesmith and abandoned everything after personally making millions of dollars (based on court filling estimations) off of Codesmith.
The sad problem is that out of the $50M Codesmith approximately/estimate made in pure stude…
Will Sentance has been unambiguous about this. He thought most bootcamps were driven by profit motivated investors who pushed for scale and resulted in bad products.
He maybe be right about that but his OWN COMPANY had PROFIT MOTIVATED INVESTORS that resulted in internal disputes, chaos and lawsuits, that impacted the business and took a lot of money off the table. He scaled too fast in 2023 and it resulted in the implosion of his product.
People need to know about this four-faced liar because he took advantage of people's distrust of bootcamps, thousands of people believed it, when he was no better off himself. He was making millions, he scaled too fast, quality degraded, it imploded.
The only difference is he blamed me for his decline and his mental health issues which is the fourth face of the lie... while telling these things to the public, he was wrapping up a massive lawsuit tha…
The bot army is back to downvote me, 10 views, -10 votes... these people have no integrity and people are shocked Codesmith imploded and that a number of former staff think Will Sentance is a liar.
https://preview.redd.it/q7h2x48jrs5h1.png?width=802&format=png&auto=webp&s=3283c4be823016968e06be2987597b5cd4d945ff
The voting manipulation is back... from +4 to -6 with only 48 views, deeply nested comment... my parent comment above this has 250 videos.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Will Sentance has been unambiguous about this. He thought most bootcamps were driven by profit motivated investors who pushed for scale.
He maybe be right about that but his OWN COMPANY had PROFIT MOTIVATED INVESTORS that resulted in internal disputes, chaos and lawsuits, that impacted the business and took a lot of money off the table.
People need to know about this four-faced liar because he took advantage of people's distrust of bootcamps, thousands of people believed it, when he was no better off himself.
If I told everyone that bootcamps owned by investors sucked and Codesmith can be trusted because it's independent, and it was actually owned 70% by investors, who allegedly "stole" (Codesmith's word in the lawsuit) $3.9M, and you yourself made millions of dollars...
That's indeed wrong.
I don't care if you are independent or not.
I don't want companies to trick people.
The shit I took for being critical during the good times means they don't get a free pass to ride off in the sunset in the bad times.
I was truthful and correct the entire past 4 years and Codesmith has been disingenuous.
Court documents indicate his compensation could have been $500,000 base per year plus up to 50% of profits.
I don't really care what his compensation is, but my point is about the transparency of that and the messaging he had around Codesmith's mission, etc...
For example he continuously claimed Codesmith was independent, when court records it was 70% owned by investors and that those investors got millions $3.9M paid to them.
Nothing wrong with business in America, I just push coding bootcamps for transparency because every time a white knight shows up they end up being a manipulative, money-hungry person in disguise.
Well the team isn't anymore qualified than anyone to do AI consulting so we'll see if they are successful at it.
The IRS contract means nothing as there are 6 companies and counting in that contract and they have to compete on actual work and haven't seen any receipts yet for that.
It's possible they didn't want to shut down the Codesmith brand so this is just like a holding company, shell/home for the briend.
Will Sentance seems like he's completely moved on to physical AI, manufacturing plants in the mid-west, robot hackatons, Oxford Fellow, Stanford Fellow.
Amazing how quickly he moved on from Codesmith and abandoned everything after personally making millions of dollars (based on court filling estimations) off of Codesmith.
The sad problem is that out of the $50M Codesmith approximately/estimate made in pure student tuition, millions of that went into Will Sentance's pockets and…
📢 BREAKING: Codesmith shutdown. Removes all immersive programs from website, blog posts, community, and content. All previous links 404 and disappeared. The company has completely rebranded as an enterprise AI solutions company.
Developing.
End of an era.
Ah ok, so they don't really offer any bootcamps anymore and only offer those over 12+ months so that might explain why there are no more signs of life in "bootcamp" world. Probably a good move in the right direction, can't speak on the execution quality either way.
Pulse Check? I'm not seeing any signs of life from these bootcamps, and I wanted to do a check if anyone is a 2026 student/grad of these programs.
These are on Course Report's "top bootcamps of 2026" list that do not have a single review IN 2026 and I'm struggling to find people who actually went there in 2026.
Codesmith (excluding Future Code)
Fullstack
Coding Temple
Codeworks
Icon Hack
yeah it's up to him, it's worse for you if it's left up because this is a community sensitive to being used for marketing, and it tends to backfire and have the opposite effect. so I don't care either way, as long as everyone sees transparently your intentions.
Just my 2 cents, not legal advice, if you had completed the program you likely won't get any money back because you got a loan from ClimbCredit to pay for the tuition upfront (whether you realized that was the case or not) and you now have to pay back ClimbCredit.
If DevSlopes didn't provide the services you were contractually promised, then you can take action against DevSlopes to try to get them to refund part of your loan through ClimbCredit, which seems unlikely to happen if they have no money left or went bankrupt.
The deals companies like ClimbCredit has with DevSlopes typically has DevSlopes indemnify ClimbCredit, meaning that DevSlopes has to deal with everything legally, not ClimbCredit.
And if you think the whole thing is screwed up you can go beyond these companies to regulatory bodies.
You are adamantly saying that anyone can switch careers right now into SWE by learning to program, in the learn to program subreddit, when no engineer will actually program by the end of this year and many remaining coding bootcamps will shutdown.
If I'm wrong I will happily eat my words on that remind me date as long as you would do the same.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about then take a break from Reddit and try to understand first.
At least research who you are talking to.
I'm stating unequivocally that most engineers will not be writing code by hand by the end of 2026 anymore.
If you don't believe that will be to your own loss.
You energy can be valid but the direction it's pointed in might not work out well for your career.
A small number of people can career change right now and you should help them, but you should be legally responsible for the trail of destruction left by making it feel like anyone who just tries hard enough can make the switch.
I'm friends with the executives of the top AI labs. Their engineers don't write code anymore. By the end of 2026, most top tier engineers won't write code anymore. I'm the number 1 output engineer from Meta through manual code wiring and I don't write code anymore.
I don't have a chip on my shoulder. I have authentic experience and relationships with the people that are building the future.
Anyone reading this, do independent research carefully before listening to this. If you use AI ask about 2026 updates.
One of the top three bootcamps doesn't even appear to have any active students left but their website still says a 70% placement rate (from 2023?).
So do your research.
Thanks for sharing this, more people than you know relate to this journey of stops and starts and ups and downs.
The bootcamps are so eager to place you that for them, the END is the placement. For you that's just the START. So they focus on getting the job through whatever means, and not what happens after.
Even the bootcamps that think they offer support for life, really have no idea just how many gaps there really are to supporting someone long term. And it makes sense, a different focus and a different expertise than 0 to 1.
I think it's more complex than that.
During good times, the reviews attributed the cause to the bootcamp, when the market was a major factor.
During bad times, the reviews attributed the cause to the bootcamp, when the market was a major factor.
And the tough part is that some bootcamps did grow too fast in the good times, degraded, and were objectively worse in the bad times. Others were just as good the whole time and got hit hard.
Then you throw in bootcamps paying people to write reviews.
It's very hard to sort that out if you a student. How much of the reviews are the actual bootcamp and how much are