Wow people do really go after your stuff on here, all the downvotes. I got way too deep in the rabbit hole in my sub, mapped out all the bad guys, called them all out, and they are all banned from Reddit.
I don't take people's shit and probably why I'm in this position lol.
I'm even more confused about Lars because he has a history of calling out bad actors and I'm like dude, I was protecting Reddit! I posted all of the receipts.
I took down a whole Reddit Makreting agency!! Like all their accounts banned.
I'm just like mega confused if this is actually about SEO and not ME or if it was actually about ME lol.
Thanks for the reply, so the thing I'm confused about is like all the SEO influencers re-shared this thing so quickly to make it go viral, and they added kind of superifcial, "this is insane!" type messages.
I'm trying to understand if this is like an SEO tactic that SEO people use to build credibility in the SEO community.
The stuff Lars talks about in general is a combination of classic SEO stuff with a modern twist of this kind of manipulation tinge. "I can't say how I know this but the black hats...." kind of vibe.
Yeah they came out the first week of April 2025. So at this point it's irrelevant. It doesn't even matter what happened to 2024 graduates anymore. It's 2 years later and the bootcamp market is dead.
It's not fair that these organizations don't close up on a positive good bye and just disappear into nothing.
Rithm and Launch Academy and Epicodus has just fond goodbyes.
This is just pathetic.
I said I would respond when I can, and I did with 8000 words/evidence debunking Lars' claims. **A Response to Lars Lofgren's Codesmith Piece.**
I'm not going to write too much here about this, I just want the public record to reflect both sides of this. I've had enough of being called a 'p-word' for 'stalking' leader's 'kids' when that was a completely false, wrong, and inaccurate representation of what happened. I'm still reserving my right to take legal action.
I would appreciate that anyone who spread the original Lars post, or believed it, read my piece and evidence shared. It's only fair.
Even those deep in the Codesmith community who felt like Lars' every word rang true - you need to see what your leaders were actually doing and saying and what they allegedly actually knew. It's very possible that the story Will Sentance has been telling you for years is bullshit.
This piece co…
It was not a paid attack but it was gsrbage, sloppy and lazy work that has been debunked https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith
The person you are talking to is an alt account of someone else who has forensically matching posts across two personas.
The piece has been debunked https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith
Well thanks for partially reading, it's appreciated.
I have not decided if I will pursue legal action against Lars. There are more than three parties here and it's complicated.
u/reddingdave you have been going after me very hard, so I would appreciate you read the debunking. Given how hard and relentlessly you went after across Reddit, its really disingenuous if you don't.
My post doesn't paint me as being right, but it presents the situation as a messy two sides multi-year argument, rather than a one-sided harassment campaign.
It would make me happy if you actually read the post.
If you are going to keep harassing me across Reddit based on Lars' post I would appreciate you read the dismantling of Lars' arguments as well and then share that alongside your harassment campaign so people can see both sides of an argument.
I debunked this now that I can talk about it [https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith)
When people call you a stalking p-word because of en entirely fabricate and fake narrative that I systematically debunked and proved that Lars told a made up timeline of events surrounding the claims I stalked 'leaders' kids' you sure as hell bet I'm going to defend myself.
I'm operating fairly and in public and when the other side is lying to your face and caught with contradicting text messages and evidence on several occasions, it's not right and people need to know what happened.
So they don't get fucked over by people like you and Lars in the future.
I finally am able to respond and I debunked the hit piece: [https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith)
If you spent the time to read that original thing, please take the time to read the other side
Debunked, finally now that I can: [https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith)
What's the defense for an instructor telling their students in an official career class to lie on their resumes because Codesmith will back them up?
[https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith)
True to my word, I wanted to take the time to write an equally detailed reply. For all the shit I got, the least you can do is read the equally long response.
[https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith)
I said I'd reply when I could, so I’ve written up this equally thorough response. Thanks for reading.
[https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith)
As promised, I wanted to take the time to provide an equally comprehensive response. Here it is.
[https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith)
I said I would reply when I could and I wrote up this equally thorough response: thank you for reading.
[https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith)
You are hitting in the fundamental truth of why bootcamps make no sense unfortunately.
Places like Codesmith, where they teach you how to talk about your project without making it sound like a project and you put more effort into how to do that than the project itself. They convince you you are actually a senior engineer so you arent lying, just getting the 'credit you deserve'. One leader repeatedly told the cohorts that the 3 week project is equivalent of 4 months of full time senior engineering work (which is not true).
This approach worked during the good times but completely fell flat ok its face and Codesmith's immersive doesn't have many signs of life anymore.
Launch School and Triple Ten frame the projects more as internships. Triple Ten calls them externships. Launch School has some slots where you can work on some of the largest open source projects, like Firefox, under supp…
False. You clearly don't understand this unique market: both what I do and why I do it and what it's like to be a prospective student.
I'm sorry for pissing off all the SEO and Reddit Marketing people who manipulate this space.
Still no response or update from CIRR. I'm flip the table pissed off here how much people shoved CIRR down our throats when it was convenient for them, but the second its not, it just fades away without a comment or an update or a post or a goodbye...
People wonder why this industry has such a shitty reputation... well when even the people claiming to be the best, the gold standard, the most transparent, better than everyone else, the solution... end up being another part of the problem, it just disillusions everyone remaining.
Well I'm not going anywhere but maybe this sub will just be me in the end lol.
Can anyone update me if Gauntlet is guaranteeing $200K placements if you "finish the gauntlet"?
I have on original evidence that they used to but they seem to have dropped that marketing in newer cohorts.
Are all of the graduates getting placed?
I'm trying to find on the record documents that still say they guarantee a $200K job and it feels like it vanished. Maybe that was for cohort 1 and they dropped it?
I'm actually shocked because I bought into the marketing that they had so many hiring partners they had to send people away because the students were so much in demand.
I have a feeling though since the engineers pay $0 and get all this stuff for free, that it would be hard to prove damages. Maybe if you quit your job and couldn't get it back because of the promise. Harder to put concrete numbers on but the numbers are far larger than tuition of a program.
Wow, well my DMs are always open to hear about the other side, I can also ask Austen about it. I don't know him well but I have no qualm calling out programs that are mis-representing publicly, but I need irrefutable proof like I have with Codesmith.
Ok more clarification, did they FINISH Gauntlet? One of the things I heard was that say 25% of people drop during the report period and another 25% drop something in person.
So did they finish the program?
And if they did and they did everything right, then why the heck would Austen market it as a $200K guaranteed job after all the lawsuits with Lambda School.
Just to confirm you are talking about Gauntlet and not BloomTech/Lambda School right?
And regarding Gauntlet, my understanding in the past was that they said they will hire you AT GAUNTLET if you don't get a job and pay you $200K, so that they can truly guarantee it.
Do you know the circumstances of the people who didn't get jobs: was it a technicality, a thing like a criminal record, no hiring partners wanted them, they got jobs and then lost them?
You can figure out a lot of if you just ask ChatGPT to go to their websites and analyze the contents and cookies.
I see HubSpot and other CRMs but many are a giant mess of random tools and spreadsheets and such.
This is a dying market though.
If a bootcamp has 50 students a year they don't really need to solve this problem.
Well the "leadership" has minimal AI experience. Of the three people: one has product experience, one has like no tech experience for 10+ years, and one has never worked full time for a real tech company.
Like who the heck would hire tis group of people to overhaul AI at a Fortune 500 company?
I'm not trying to be mean but just realistic.
Like lots of companies ask me to do talks and stuff because I'm one of the highest output engineers in the world but I'm not the right person to overhaul AI tooling at a Fortune 500 company... I know what I'm good at and what I'm bad at.
I think they are going to die even faster with this pivot in my opinon.
You don't get points for good intentions in this industry.
You don't get a trophy for trying.
You don't build credibility by paying somebody on Upwork to write Twitter content for you.
Their homepage hero right now that seemed that changed o…
Well bootcamps basically gave you a $50 course with human accountability and feedback an d then charged you $10,000.
That was worth it when the accountability drastically increased the likelihood of finishing, the feedback made sure you actually learned, and the network helped you actually placed.
The market destroys the last one.
So a $50 course vs a 100X cost comes down to if you need to finish the course and learn.
If you are learning for learning's sake, $50 course.
If you really need to upskill or something without a job guarantee, a more expensive option could make sense.
I can clarify that, sorry I have a felling this will be long but it's important details IMO to make sure my opinions are clear.
So "fuzzing the numbers" doesn't mean intentional deception, but it means representing the numbers in a better light than they are. So by that definition - yes, CIRR was created through a marketing lens to promote bootcamps and it was designed to be rigorous enough to build trust, but also marketing-tilted enough to present numbers in a good light.
For example, there is a number that's like 'median salary'. But the only absolute number of people is the number of graduates and you have to chip away at that to get to the actual number of people in the people. E.g illustrative numbers: 100 people considered in the report, 90% graduated, 10% self employed, 5% not looking for jobs. 60% of what's left actually report income. So right off the bat the salaries only in…
https://preview.redd.it/b84chibn67xg1.jpeg?width=2000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=28e5d01abdf4aacc183b5817b2edd8aaf7fea3ab
Am I being trolled? This is the primary homepage since I posted this comment?
The first bootcamp I dove into was Lambda School and its founder but once journalists published it was less interesting.
I have gathered lighter info on a dozen bootcamps but nothing interesting caught my eye.
Codesmith all started when I interviewed two engineers and they were lying through their teeth about their engineering jobs (that were 3 week projects at Codesmith) and then starting poking around and uncovering this ecosystem.
The second I starting poking around and asking questions I got this attack mob on me (which was later tied to a leader of Codesmith asking people to post on Reddit and go after my questions and observations).
Instead of being intimidated or bullied I launched an investigation that I've been spending now four years on, professionally asking people questions, watching tons of YouTube videos, collecting a lot of evidence, reading corporate fillings, lawsuit…
No CIRR 2024-25 reports? Never taken this long for them to come out, and CIRR did not respond within 2 days to my request for comment prior to publication of this.
I'm going to call it a wrap on CIRR, the self proclaimed "gold standard" of bootcamp stats.
I'll I'm going to say it that I think it's ridiculous how when the times are good, bootcamps are throwing around CIRR as proof of their excellence.
And then when times are bad, they are fuzzing the numbers (Codesmith's report has so many people who did not respond with placement information and they counted because of LinkedIn, that the integrity of the reports is garbage now in my opinion.... or Codesmith publishing a press release that CIRR verified "85-90% of graduates placed within 12 months" - which isn't even verifiable with CIRR).
I hope all of you who yelled at me over and over and over, with anonymous now-banned accounts, j…
Here is a list of the problems to show that i'm not being sarcastic. You could feed this into AI and fix all of these in an hour.
This doesn't include CSX.
1. Footers inconsistent across site, one says 2025, one says 2026
2. Alignment in 2026 footer is not centered properly
3. Header, hover on the final item in each list has no radius and bleeds onto the page
4. Home -> Join Us -> Train Your Team -> Enterprise -> Enquire -> hello@codesmith email. Felt like I was going in circles.
5. Programs say "more dates available" but the other dates are the exact same ones in the header I clicked from
6. The dates make no sense and Jun 1 should be July 1
7. Median Salary & Employment Rate overflows in one box, inconsistent
8. It looks like their loan providers is gone but now the payment options have a gap missing a block that looks weird
9. The Terms and Privacy policy are dated…
Yeah happy to DM, I've always been open to hearing all sides and have had numerous discussions.
I also have dozens and dozens of emails with the Codesmith staff discussing things in private. "Like hey your data is inconsistent and mathematically wrong" and often got no response. I spoke to their current CEO the most and did a call with her about how we could work together more productively, but when she completely flipped the narrative in that blog, I'm done... I can't trust these people whatsoever and a bunch of former staff who can't speak because of various reasons have witnessed similar things working there, so I'm just incredibly frustrated.
Not a single person other than their current CEO has told me Will is a trustworthy person. The arguments I have are people attacking my motivations and never actual counters to a dozen people calling Will a liar, unreliable, flaky, controlling…