u/twaccount143244 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Honestly I can’t believe Michael Novati is a moderator on this subreddit. It seems like an enormous conflict of interest.
Basically I think nobody who offers CS instruction/tutoring/mentorship should be a moderator.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Why do you think it's a conflict of interest?
Codesmith's unhinged post is libelous as I have officially informed their leadership about this in the past and have the records to prove it and they decided to intentionally lie to mislead the public.
I have always made it extraordinarily clear my commentary is my personal opinion and nothing to do with my company.
I stated that there are a handful of unique edge case people that could go to either Formation or Codesmith but that our records show it's a very small number and not our target demographic.
They decide to lie anyways with zero evidence presented to support their claim.
An institution that behaves like this is rotten at the core and won't survive, just don't get caught up in it.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Bootcamps work for a specific slice of people.
Launch School is the only program I know that systematically tries to find those people though a multi step, months long process of getting through to Capstone.
And surprise, it works better! But you don't know if it will work for you until you try getting through, and you might be capable of getting a job through a bootcamp, just not through Launch School.
Launch School has like under 100 capstone students a year.
The problem with bootcamps, which particularly hit Codesmith hard and they haven't fully recovered is that they scaled from 100 students a year to over a 1000, thinking that if it worked for so many of their students when they are small, it would work for everyone who passes the bar.
While Launch School has maintained a relatively high placement rates. Unofficially reported Codesmith placement rates have gone down drastically in the mad market.
I interpret this in my opinion that Launch School has more intrinsic impact on the outcomes, whereas Codesmith's outcomes are more the result of the person and the market than anything they do and their true impact is small.
u/chispica wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Is this astroturfing?
u/michaelnovatireplied·
You never know with pro Codesmith people. A dozen accounts and two moderators were permanently suspended from Reddit
I treat everyone equally regardless since you don't know and assuming creates a us vs them mentality that is harmful to constructive discourse.
u/RuthGreen601 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
IMO this subreddit feels like it's being run by one loud, very invested mod who’s also running a business. Formation gets a sweet deal by steering the convo here since it's crawling with bootcamp grads. What people don’t seem to catch is that this whole 'level up your career' tal
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I'm very fair about potential conflicts of interest. In my opinion, the conflict of interest is that about a third of people at Formation did botocamps in the past, so it's a good chunk of people who come to us in the future. And no, these aren't recent grads who can't get jobs but people with real work experience post bootcamp. I think I disclose.and manage this well and that it's a relativrly minor conflict.
You know what's worse, anonymous accounts that could be run by bootcamps, manipulating discussions, and they shouldn't get a free pass just because they are anonymous. I shouldn't be villainized because I'm not anonymous.
There is a happy medium.
I don't own this sub and there are two other mods with different views.
I was made a moderator after demonstrating for two years that I could manage my biases well and be fair and reasonable.
Reddit permanently suspended about a dozen pro Codesmith accounts and two mods of their sub, many of which had new, anonymous accounts with unclear backgrounds.
u/Entire-Philosopher26 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Good morning, Mike. Thank you for your input—I always value your insights and have never intended to be disrespectful. It might seem like I'm stirring the pot, and maybe I am. I put thought into what I post and how it might be interpreted, and I'm actually learning a lot from the
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah no worries and I appreciate being challenged respectfully and with good intentions, even if the challenges are hard.
I'm not perfect and I can't be fair and reasonable without acknowledging and talking about my weaknesses too.
I'm frustrated that while I have tons of documentation from tons of people in making my arguments about Codesmith and other bootcamps that the company is trying to gaslight me and silence me with a post that presents facts about me and my intentions without any evidence.
It's awful.
u/Entire-Philosopher26 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Thank you for taking the time to look at my post history—it's nice to know my opinions have caught your attention. I chose not to include my background details in this post because I believe the discussion should stand on its own. People will always make assumptions, as you have,
u/michaelnovatireplied·
This is fair and the nature of Reddit, but by not disclosing people shouldn't assume you have to bias.or conflicts of interest either.
Not disclosing anything is within your right but doesn't absolve one of those concerns.
u/CoastLongjumping6491 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
The workshops themselves are a bit misleading. Don’t expect the same teaching approach or technical depth if you go through the program
u/michaelnovatireplied·
This is a common concern I hear. People think they will get Frontend Masters level lectures every day and instead they get a recent alumni who became an instructor pulling up some slides and walking through them as written.
In all fairness their instructors are fairly consistent and there is a hierarchy, like a pyramid, of instructors. Fellow -> Mentor -> Instructor -> Lead Instructor -> Head Instructor.
And they have consistency in moving someone up the later. An instructor leaves? They pull the best mentor up.
u/RuthGreen601 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Exhibit A: this comment. You can’t resist dominating the convo when no one asked. Out of 26 messages in here you’ve got 10+ and counting? I didn’t ask for a sales pitch on how 'minor' you you think your bias is—you're just proving my point.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I'm loud here and I monopolize conversations at times (certainty fair from most conversations as you can see)
That has nothing to do with my intentions of being here or the fact that I have a company.
You don't have to like me or my personality or who I am to respect me and treat me fairly.
u/cglee wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Great insight and rarely mentioned. This is exactly why I designed Launch School this way. I fundamentally believe this:
> The first rule of education institutions should be "do no harm". Because they serve vulnerable users, education institutions should not be measured by their
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I think being transparent about the failure states is sufficient and a program doesn't only have to be value positive for everyone necessarily. People tolerate difference amounts of risk and they might want to take a risk that the bootcamp will work out for them, knowing the reasonable range of outcomes and what happens in all cases.
Millions of people buy lottery tickets after all! But not because they mislead about the odds of winning, but because they want to take the risk.
u/CoastLongjumping6491 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Which is why they’re very consistent with teaching the Codesmith way. But expanding even slightly on the material or answering questions they’re not prepared for? Not so good.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
This might be TMI, but someone sent me some completely public but unlisted instructor training videos with no message or commentary that they were secret so I have to assumeI have permission to see (but given they are unlisted I don't think are intended to be searchable publicly)
They were from like 8 years ago, but I was informed upon asking that recent instructors saw these videos. The training was developed by Will Sentance and an instructor who used to be an actor in LA with no SWE experience.
Most of the training was about how to manage people in lectures, like how to get people to put cameras on, introduce themselves, make a comment about each person by name, and then how to handle not knowing the answers to questions you are asked.
Really enlightening. I don't even know if I have the links anymore, this was like a long time ago that I saw them.
But they are/were trained on how to be unprepared to answer questions they don't know the answer to.
Will also said publicly that he does public talks on topics he doesn't know so he can learn them by teaching them. I guess (opinion) that his AI workshops are practice for his Frontend Masters AI series being recorded live next month and might not be really about the students at all and might be about his personal legacy as a great teacher.
u/CoastLongjumping6491 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Interesting. Yeah, on the surface it almost seems like they specifically don’t want to go deeper on topics than the curriculum dictates… but obviously the much more likely explanation is that they just don’t know.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I think the default advice was if someone asks a question you don't know to redirect it back to them and say 'well what do you think the answer might be' to stimulate a discussion around it without saying 'I don't know'. I don't remember exactly so don't quote me on that. I'll try to watch them again and see if it comes up.
u/Entire-Philosopher26 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Wow, that’s definitely a tough market. Thanks for sharing—I had no idea people would scrutinize you so much for posting. I also completed a bootcamp and managed to land a gig as a mobile controller developer before finishing the program, programming agricultural machines using C
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Being a carrier for USPS is one of the most fascinating jobs. I think you probably learned a ton to apply creatively in the future in a lot of jobs.
u/twaccount143244 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Put aside Codesmith. Your income is dependent on the kind of people who frequent this subreddit. You’re not a disinterested participant in the conversation. That’s a conflict of interest.
More specifically, you use this subreddit as a recruitment pool. At the very least you’ve d
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
1. I don't make a personal income and haven't for 5 years
2. About a third or so people at Formation did a bootcamp in the past, it's far from the majority right now.
3. Are you able to prove that I DM'd you and promoted Formation and told you to go there? I've done it very rarely - like 2 or 3 times, while I've had 100s of conversations telling people to go to bootcamps like Codesmith (which I no longer do), Launch School, Rithm, grad school, Tech Elevator, etc... based on their circumstances. If I DM'd you from my account and out of the blue told you that you need Formation, then that was a one off that rarely happens, was probably a very legitmate reason to do so, and I probably mentioned other options too like Interview Kickstart rather than just saying "go to Formation", it was probably like "you should consider interview prep programs because you have a lot of experience already".
4. Reddit isn't even a large enough source of traffic to break out into a top level sourcing bucket and it's under socials with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
u/twaccount143244 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I'm not super interested in a back and forth here (unlike you I have no financial stake in this conversation).
I don't know what "make a personal income" means but it sounds carefully worded to be misleading but literally true. Are you willing to say that you have no financial
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
1. Personal income means I haven't made a penny in any way from Formation to date, no secondary sales, no profit sharing, no income, no dividend, big fat $0. I own a large amount of shares in it, and if it sold some day or IPOd I would make money, but I do not make money from any of the operations.
2. That's fair our perceive my message that way. Like I said it's rare, and I connect to a ton of people just to learn more about them and network like anyone else. I don't recall pushing Formation on anyone in DMs. If you felt that way, that's fair feedback and I'm happy we talked about it.
3. There are other mods who can make decisions too, not just me! I haven't changed my behaviors since becoming a mod and I feel like I had a bit influence in here BEFORE then too. I appreciate a reminder to be aware of potential conflicts, this is the kind of fair discourse I want to have. I'm not trying to convince you I don't have conflicts, you can believe what you want to believe. Just want us to be able to talk about it civilly without jumping to conclusions.