u/annie-ama wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hey everyone
I’m Annie, one of the Directors at Codesmith. I’ve been part of this team for over 5 years and many of you may know me from previous company updates here and from my AMAs
I wanted to share a quick update with this community that has always mattered so much to us.
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
Alina is more capable of running the company for sure but it's too little too late honestly.
She needs a capable team around her and almost everyone has left.
The whole industry is changing and the teaching style and pedagogy at Codesmith is dying out and you don't have a team left to invest in building out.AI ways to learn. You have to flip your company on its head. But you don't have the money and you don't have the talent to build that.
Even if Alina has a vision, the team is delivering garbage code (as her and I both know the quality of) and people there isn't even realize it. They celebrate the heroes of the past - who themselves really didn't know what they were doing either.
Will needs to leave the company entirely, which it sounds like might be over time and he floats to academia - where maybe he should be - because he just doesn't have the experience to forge software engineers - as this market has demonstrated and exposed the Codesmith pedagogy as a trick to fake your resume, rather than a rigorous curriculum.
All the people who trusted him and then realized he doesn't know the industry, have all left and many are super unhappy. They aren't leaving blaming the market, but they feel like they were taken for a ride and are feeling disoriented getting off of it.
Look at the blog post, so many superficial words that mean nothing but sound good. It's the curriculum, it's not the curriculum. It's the community, it's not the community.
What made Codesmith special is that it took exceptionally ambitious people from other industries and boosted their self confidence.
Finally, the AI course right now is following the same old sketchy marketing tactics (spinning stories out of context) and is really just convincing alumni to fork over money for something they were promised they would get for life. $4600 for 4 weeks to be taught by people with very little experience is absurd.
I want to disclose that Formation is working on an AI productivity course that doesn't overlap much with yours but is much closer to competing than the immersive way. I'm not here to talk about that but want to point out that for about 1/3rd the cost people will get to learn from literally one of the most productive engineers in the entire industry.
Your AI course comes across like what happens when Private Equity buys a company and tries to milk every last penny out of the community at the cost of what makes it special.
u/Additional-Pilot6419 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Interested to see what the AI curriculum looks like in a year or two - saw the Frontend Masters workshop Will did on neural nets and it was pretty great
(posting again as my same comment earlier was removed by mods, accidentally probably)
u/michaelnovatireplied·
You know why your posts are being removed and assume I know too.
u/michaelnovati wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
You know why your posts are being removed and assume I know too.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Many of the other removed comments are Reddit flagging reputation and account risks. But for you, it's different.
u/Legal_Spray_8531 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Cheif AI officer?? Lmaooo your not teaching people who cant even code up JSON routing or a webdev front end HTML and CSS layout how to design a weighted node system that can solve any real world applicability!?? .............What in the world? After graduating from a bootcamp I t
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I had the same reaction to Chief AI Officer and called it out. They are pushing this narrative of the "modern engineer" - someone who brings their past experience to SWE and AI and is a unique perspective that makes the industry better.
I agree with the idea but the blocker is that this applies to people with EXTENSIVE SWE WORK EXPERIENCE and not to bootcamp grads with no experience.
They keep trying to push this narrative and come up with random alumni examples and twist them to fit the mould.
Codesmith: you can't force product market fit by just telling stories about how your product meets the market. It might make you feel good because the stories are great, but If it's not there it's not there and you guys are done - hang up the towel and if you want to keep doing this, start over from scratch.
u/dhawal wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
When the very companies responsible for teaching us appear to be dishonest, it raises a red flag. Udemy's CTO recently moved to a "[Head of Innovation](https://www.classcentral.com/report/udemy-cto-co-founder-out/)" role, and Coursera's CEO announced his "[retirement](https://www
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I think Codesmith's founder wants the Chief AI Officer so that he can go to conferences and throw around the title.
Codesmith is all about appearances, superficial, good words... and zero substance to back it up.
I'm sorry that's offensive to the people who are trying hard to save it, but it's true.
u/Gullible_Mousse_4590 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
As someone who worked at Codesmith for quite a while and thinks that they we doing a reasonably okay job even in the headwinds of the market falling around then I can confidently say this is the dumbest shit I’ve heard in a while
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I hear this about 1-2 times a week. It's frustrating to people as well how delusional their leaders are.
I spoke to Alina directly 1-1 on a call and she seems 50% like a good product leader who tricked into taking this job and is now running a company full of mouse traps, and 50% she was brainwashed by Will as well and perpetuates this bull shit messaging and narratives.
Unfortunately she's not an engineer and while she has more experience than Will did, she still doesn't have the engineering lens to look at things through and her ambition and drive is pushing Codesmith in the wrong direction.
I don't think there's a single thing they can do to save it without throwing Will's goal of an "independent bootcamp" and the rest of their community support into the trash and raising VC funding to build something new OR by getting rid of all of the staff and rebuilding something from the ground up that is actually built by industry experts.
So far Alina is hiring the same old same old cast of unemployed graduates and it's a waste of time and money.
People like me, you would have to pay $2500 an hour to hire.
And when people like me are building AI programs that will cost a fraction of Codesmith's, they have no chance with this pivot, no hope whatsoever.
u/CodeClowns wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I'm stoked to see what's in store for the AI program. I think that having someone who can dedicate all of their time to keeping that program in sync with the rapid pace of AI as well as integrating aspects of it into the immersive is a smart move. The work the students are produc
u/michaelnovatireplied·
This person isn't dedicating all their time to keeping the program in sync. They are paying to do a Oxford Fellows program, like doing a master's degree. And I suspect this will take a lot of Will's time too.
u/Gullible_Mousse_4590 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
It was the dumbest shit I’d heard in a while because I avoid this dark corner of codingbootcamp negativity. It took 40min for you to try and talk about yourself and Formation, so well done for the restraint I guess
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I haven't made a penny of salary for the past 8 years and i'm not selling anything. I'm pointing out how poorly positioned Codesmith's AI program is and how they need to seriously watch out for growing it through milking alumni - who are paying for something that they were promised for free for life.
I've spoken to a number of companies on the B2B side floated different ideas around. The answer - we want our fleet of 100 ML engineers to teach this internally.
Codesmith's AI program is maintained and lead by someone with I think about 2-3 years of industry experience, ZERO prior to Codesmith, has not done AI professionally.
AND IS DOING IT PART TIME WHILE HE WORKS AT MICROSOFT.
There's no way in heck this program can be good. No way.
I'm telling you I will work 16 hours a day to build a much better AI program applying my experience as the number one code committer at Meta and showing people how to use AI tools to be more productive.
I'm not selling this program but I'm making a point that Codesmith's program is doomed at the start and even if they get some traction it won't have the substance to carry it forward.
I'm not even sure my experience is enough and my point is that it's >>>> Codesmith.
The fundamental problem they have is they spent 10 years building almost ZERO INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY.
They don't have code of value, none of the "engineers" built anything useful for the world. They basically have NOTHING other than their branding and reputation to go off of.
u/Gullible_Mousse_4590 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Looking in a tech climate like this for any company to claim that over have of the fellows that are placed don’t have a CS degree and that fellows with less than one year of experience increased to $148k without backing it up with real data is hard to believe. And when people 202
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
A) correct, I have equity as an owner and Formation is venture backed. I have not made a single penny from my equity and I have purchased additional equity, but I do own equity.
B) Excellent question. we spent 7 years building a PLATFORM that is completely unique and patended and built from the ground up to enables us to to configure practice and benchmarking dynamically.
This technology has has a number of people contribute to it over the years and will support the AI and ML people contributing to it as well.
My personal expertise lies in AI PRODUCTIVITY - using AI to replace a number of engineers and using it to make me 5X more productive through 20,000 commits and counting.
So I'm not out of the game by any means but I don't have any ML experience - our first product in this space is focused on productivity using AI tools, which honestly doesn't overlap much with Codesmith's AI program.
Our offering is about helping people be more productive on the job, get more done and become irreplaceable by delivering more output faster... real, tangible output.
u/Gullible_Mousse_4590 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
A) you have not made a penny from your equity? Yes that’s how equity works.
B) completely unique - yeah you built it, so of course it is. Has been built from the ground up with a number of people contributing - yes that’s how things are built normally.
Well done turning the res
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
A) I meant that Founders can sell off stock in secondaries, instead I bought more with cash
B) The platform is genuinely a unique product not offered anywhere else in the world. That doesn't mean it's GOOD haha, it has a lot of bugs and product issues, etc... and it's why I have to do some work still ;), but it's indeed a unique model that lets us adapt faster to things and it's an advantage in many ways.
AI for productivity is about using AI tools, so you need a background in using AI tools. I can do that one.
I don't have a background in ML or LLMs and I can't do anything personally about ML.
Unlike Will Sentance who thinks he can so much that he did a public Frotnend Master's Course on it, I don't want to bullshit the public with smoke and mirrors. I know what I can do and what I can't do.
The challenge for us with AI for productivity isn't the content, but it's that our 7 years have been outcome driven features for people job hunting and actively interviewing and this AI course just has the goal of learning.
So adjusting the platform to focus on that is net new and a challenge we're working on.
u/CaptainKubernetes wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Appreciate the energy — it’s clear you’re passionate about AI tooling.
Just to clarify a few things: I’ve worked at Microsoft for several years total, with time in between spent integrating AI into real-world applications. I’m currently back at Microsoft, and in addition to my
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I have no problem with your background or your efforts. I have a problem that you and Codesmith aren't marketing it for what it is and I think it's doomed to fail from a business point of view.
You just said you are working on AI stuff at Microsoft and your work at Codesmith is a conflict of interest - like seriously submit the internal conflict clearance ticket and get sign off before you get fired for it. Microsoft doesn't screw around with this stuff.
Second, it's all defensive. I'm not attacking your background, I'm attacking the marketing and pricing you are using based on your background.
You can't change your background, there is absolutely zero you can say because you don't have the experience, there isn't some program you did or some credential or some project. Zero.
If you want to be defensive, then defend the pricing and defend the marketing.
Maybe my pricing is off and this is worth it but [DeepLearning.ai](http://DeepLearning.ai) is LARGELY FREE so the bar is high here. **Tell me what I'm getting for $4600 in four weeks!!!!**
KEY FEATURES:
\> Program creator: Codesmith Co-founder Alex Zai
This is a lie and Alex asked Codesmith to stop saying that he is actively involved in this new program. It's not related at all to the DSML program and you know that. Maybe DSML inspired this program, but Codesmith invested like $1M into DSML and it didn't work.
\> Expert-led program designed by world-class instructors.
No offense but you aren't. Will Sentance isn't. Andrew Ng is. Andrew Ng runs [DeepLearning.ai](http://DeepLearning.ai) and they can say they have world class instruction.
\> Program delivered in live online sessions by industry experts.
This one is a stretch but it feels like Dunning Kreuger where people with 3 years of experience rate themselves as 10/10 expert level and people with 10+ years start rating themselves lower because they know what they don't know.
\> Our ever-evolving curriculum helps you build the essential capacities needed to be a modern software engineer
No complaints on this one.
\> Gain access to our monthly AI & ML Leadership Circle.
No complaints on this one.
\> Build a real-world open source project to showcase in your portfolio with support and feedback from our instructors.
No complaints on this one.
\> Learn frontier tech tools and concepts you can immediately apply to current projects.
No complaints on this one.
u/Gullible_Mousse_4590 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
https://preview.redd.it/upc4h2kxdr8f1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8c30e13d1db946aa45e3db5cca10f2935b2c4cc2
Haven’t you been saying that people have to have a CS degree? And isn’t this your website? Probably don’t throw stones in glass houses
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
That stat is correct and it's about 45% so far in 2025 so close but a bit lower.
The average YOE for 2025 placements so far is (full time SWE experienceprior to Formation): **5.5 YEARS**
This means that people had bootcamps, self taught, and other degrees, worked for 5 years, came to Formation, and then got a better job.
What is wrong with that?
Here are the 10 or so most placement companies : Udacity, Amazon, Gurus Solutions, Meta, Meta, Meta, Headspace, Stripe, AppleCart, PayPal, Applied Intuition, Meta, NVIDIA
These are stronger placements than 2024.
What is wrong with that?
**I'm happy to take feedback to improve our marketing so please give it but I want to make sure it's clear that the stuff on our website is accurate for starters.**
Will is faking his background yes - he has never really been an engineer ever - and then he spent 10 years focused on superficial appearances of Codesmith instead of actually building something. The materials and pedagogy really haven't changes for years, no engineering codebase of value, no curriculum of value, there's no IP there. He was solely focused on building a brand and a community whose value has almost disappeared in the past two years and therefore he's left with almost nothing because there was no intrinsic value in what he did.
Frontend Masters for example was an investment that people pay money for and the content there is IP with intrinsic value.
This sounds absurdly offensive but it's just the truth and if you don't confront the truth you can't grow.
u/Gullible_Mousse_4590 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Also does Connie know you’re on here saying all this about other people? Looking forward to the next time I’m back in SF
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
Do you mind giving her the documented evidence of Codesmith confirming they paid a guy on Upwork to post stuff on Reddit and then that same person posted shit about me and tried to get me banned?
Do you want the messages Codesmith posted to their CSX community of 20K people lying to them that I was on Slack with multiple aliases contacting people to try to get them to go to Formation - which never happened.
Those messages are libelous and I asked Codesmith to apologize which they declined to.
I'm furious at Codesmith and I'm justified in being angry and upset about it and I'm playing by the rules of the game in expressing my anger.
u/Gullible_Mousse_4590 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Also does Connie know you’re on here saying all this about other people? Looking forward to the next time I’m back in SF
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Can you also clarify exactly what you are going to do to me next time you are in SF? I feel that is mildly threatening and I want to make sure you aren't physically threatening me.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Oh I would grab coffee and talk more because Reddit is Reddit and I think I make more sense face to face.
I genuinely felt a bit threatened at first there so glad to clear that up lol.
u/Gullible_Mousse_4590 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Michael Novati “you have to have a CS degree now”. Rest my case.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Sorry I misunderstood - if you DO NOT HAVE EXPERIENCE, you need to have a CS degree right now. I'll be more clear when I make those arguments. If you have experience it doesn't matter if you do or don't but your gaps will be different in either case.
u/Gullible_Mousse_4590 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
No no I’m sorry. I misinterpreted your website where it said I could earn $148k with less than one year experience. Now I need 5. I must have misread
https://preview.redd.it/yn5od15nor8f1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4f0569b4490e4de95c523180d4c6cf7ba3095d97
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
Yes that's also correct. For 2024 placements, early career = harder, Compensation increase = higher.
Our demographic has been shifting and in 2025, only 3 placements have under 1 year SWE experience.
I believe we're going to do an H1 update as H1 finishes up and we'll be able to comment on the latest.
Read the fine print for the official full details but as a partial note, these calculations we are using YOE prior to starting Formation, full time SWE work experience only, excluding internships, contracts, and adjacent experience.
So someone with 1 year as a SWE might have been a contractor for 2-3 years and if they weren't a W2 type situation and were "contracting" that doesn't count in these calculations.
It's like the opposite of embellishing resumes and really holding a firm tight bar on the definition of experience.
If you don't have 1-2+ years of this kind of SWE experience, we might still work with you but it's an extensive discussion about fit and not many people choose to - but those people aren't going through a shopping checkout flow and signing up from the blog directly.
u/buttholewax wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I worked at CodeSmith and left when I saw the writing on the wall. I offered solutions and even talented people years ago that could step in and help. Instead you all have proven that maybe a degree does matter, maybe experience does matter. A bunch of idiots playing company.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
To be contrarian, I think they - specifically Will - should get credit for doing one thing well, which is building an organic community through sheer will (no pun intended). I think they figured out how to take high potential people with low self-confidence/low confidence in their SWE abilities and increase their self-confidence (which is not an easy feat).
But everything else about the company I'm extremely critical on and have been puzzled for years why the heck they wouldn't take my feedback.
For years, defending, defending, defending. Even Alina when she joined posted something about how how I'm 'reddit competitor' going after them - trivializing my feedback and mischaracterizing it.
If they friggin listened to the friggin feedback they would have had a better shot andit's too late now because they have zero engineering talent (they might have potential, but no serious talent) and there's no way they can just rebuild or pivot right now successfully.
The way they milk the smallest thing for appearance might help their advertisements look good, but it doesn't change the underlying reality and the amount of talent they need is impossible to build.
You have AI engineers being paid $100M at Meta and these people aren't' volunteering their time to Codesmith because they love the community. Instead you get graduates 1-2 years out who give back the best they can, but it's just not enough.
I guess that's the lesson: listen to the critics, reflect on yourself - engage. Not just from me, but I've heard from many staff who feel exactly like yourself - that 'leaders' don't listen to feedback.
u/cooking-chef-2000 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Could you provide an estimated number of how many engineers have signed up in 2025 only?
On edge of getting a formation subscription if there aren't many engineers. I mainly want to be in an ecosystem. I think it's very much possible to self learn and prepare, but I enjoy learn
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah sure for starting in 2025: rough non-binding, reasonable estimates:
About \~250 people starting in 2025 so far, about 15% or so leave in the trial week.
We had fairly robust starts in January, then tariff threats in particular caused a lot hesitation, and then May -> June things picked back up again.
I would estimate about 5 to 10 people start in a given week?
The number of people in Formation isn't super relevant because the nature of the program scales up and down dynamically - including all of the mentorship.
So this sounds insane but your session matching is BETTER the MORE people there are.
Our team works on the practice content, benchmarks, etc... but the mentors themselves are contractors and we have a very complex algorithms to manage all of this dynamically without much humans.
So more people, better level matching, better time matching, etc...
All of our full time humans are either directly supporting you (you have a team of 4 humans covering working with you every day) OR working on the platform itself.
But anyways, let me know if you have more questions.
u/cooking-chef-2000 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
awesome, thanks
Could you walk me through what a week usually looks like for a student at formation, and what type of work they'll do at their own time?
Would they be assigned a set amount of leetcode questions to use, or do you use custom questions that Formation makes?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Each week is completely dynamic and unique both to you and week to week.
Every Friday we run the algorithms and crunch a schedule of mentor led, peer based sessions for the next week and then assign them all out in the evening.
What you get depends on:
\- your workload that week
\- your schedule that week
\- your availability that week
\- your job interviews that week if you have any
\- everyone else's availability who need to work on similar problems as you
\- the mentors availability and FAANG-canonical level matching criteria to you and your group.
Then throughout the week you can book 1-1 mocks when eligible, book checks etc.. also join and release sessions.
Then in between you do practice problems, system design practice, benchmarks, etc... on various topics. The topics you work on depends on your progress, your workload etc...
We have some interesting "tasks" like to chat with AI about SD etc...
All of this is on platform in a dynamic "feed" of stuff.
The practice you get is real time dynamic to how you are doing so I can't give you examples really.
\---
If you apply and talk to a team member they can walk you through sample weeks and we have an anonymmized view of the platform they can show you samples with.
u/Gullible_Mousse_4590 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Yeah agree, I absolutely hate it when someone makes claims that are unverifiable and have no proper verification except for that person claiming it on a Reddit forum. Almost false advertising
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
That's why integrity is so important.
I have an email chain with Codesmith leaders about literally the math having problems on their California reports on their website and they never responded or acknowledged those concerns and answered other things.
Like if you publish things that were made up for marketing purposes, rushed in a panic because you realized how terrible the numbers were and did a massive LinkedIn profile sprint not so diligently that's fine but don't tell the public that.
If you keep telling everyone your data is audited but you and CIRR don't answer me about where the audited version is (historically CIRR publishes the audit paperwork after they are audited) it's sloppiness.
People make mistakes here and there but almost everything here is a mistake and when I talk to former employees that proactively tell me how clowntown everything is run there... everyone "in over the head" (was used a number of times).
I get it. Startups are shit shows. But admit that and seek help.
Instead Codesmith just keeps trying to make up justifications without accepting that they are doing a million things completely wrong.
And I think they tripped over themselves now a few times and can't get up.
If you have strong integrity when the team says omg placements are down we need to fix this, quick change the.goal posts, quick scour LinkedIn, etc...
Then the facts will line up. They have to line up.
If you push integrity on your team, then when prospective customers reach out to different people with anonymous accounts sneakily - the stories from everyone add up because everyone has integrity.
Like I said, no one is perfect and people make mistakes, but the mistakes are less often and rather if you have integrity.
Even in Will's goodbye message he's lying about the student base and how people get jobs.
A tiny fraction have previous SWE experience and most people lie to get those jobs. It's a proven fact that I have clear, indisputable evidence from the end of 2023. Codesmith doesn't tell them to lie about for some reason almost everyone does and it's a major part of getting a job for the majority. Which is fine but be fucking honest about it.
When he says something like that and then someone goes to the Codesmith LinkedIn page and sees videos from actors teaching Fetch and Array operations with content for high schoolers nothing adds up.
No integrity is what I call that.
If he accepts that the embellishments have a large part to do with placement, he has to accept that his program doesn't really teach as well as he thinks they do and has to reflect on how he can teach better and that means he has to question the past 10 years.
That's what therapists are for because product market fit doesn't give a shit about your feelings and Will's inability to accept critique contributed to their downfall.
I accept critique and I defend what I feel is right but I make mistakes will admit it and try to improve.
I have a whole podcast with someone coming out in two weeks about this topic of feedback cycles and how it's the easiest way to grow quickly and not taking feedback is the easiest way to flatline or decline.
u/CaptainKubernetes wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Just to clarify — there’s no conflict of interest here. I’ve already gone through the proper internal process at Microsoft and got clearance.
On the rest: I’m not involved in Codesmith’s pricing or marketing strategy, so that’s not something I can really speak to. My role is foc
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
1. Last week you or your bot said that you asked your manager if it was a conflict and that they worked at Microsoft for 25 years and said there wasn't. So if you since then went through the entire internal conflict review process and are confirming that then I will acknowledge that. I've been around the block here and any super senior engineer will warn you on this topic. Some companies don't even let you mentor at bootcamps and consider it a conflict. Instead of seeing this as an attack, see it as advice. I've seen many people get in trouble for conflicts.
2. You said in a public talk about two months ago with Course Report that you weren't using AI on the job and wanted to more and would consider new roles that use AI more internally at Microsoft or at another company. If you are updating this and now saying since then you have extensively used AI the whole time then I will update accordingly.
I have zero problem with you having very little experience but a problem with you pretending you have a lot.
I don't think you are even internalizing this and that's on you. If you want to be peak Dunning Kruger then do it and fall into the same old pattern.
You'll be more successful if you try to absorb what you can from my feedback even though it's very blunt and direct and make improvements instead of pushing back on it and questioning the source.
u/Gullible_Mousse_4590 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
So where can I find the published and verified data behind your claims? Looks like you’re doing the exact same thing then writing screeds of nonsense to try and attack someone who is doing the same as you. I say all of your companies claims are garbage. Where’s the independent pr
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
We don't have zoomed out data as I've stated a number of times over the years extensively why.
We don't have a way to aggregate date into a consistent "report" that makes any sense and we won't want to spend time making a superficial one that we don't think is useful.
When you apply we show you anonymized before after data based on your background.
We don't have end dates, graduations, or "school" concepts and it's very hard to make some kind of report.
We explain our process in multiple paragraphs on our website.
It's INSANELY more costly for us to discuss outcomes 1-1 with each person that applies and is interested but we think it's the best way to make sure someone is on the same page and we will keep doing that for the Fellowship.
I wish we could have a report that was as effective and clear because it would save time and money.
It's not perfect but that's the transparent answer for why there's no report.
It's far worse to control shell charities with no income that fly under the radar that validate your outcomes for you when the integrity of the outcomes is questioned (LinkedIn verification being used for a double digit surge in outcomes and there being no clear LinkedIn process in the CIRR specification) is a lack of integrity by my definition. It results in the 'seal of approval' put on something that requires more thoughtful inquiry that people might overlook.
I've directly questioned about this and the only thing I was told was that 'LinkedIn verification excludes Open Source Projects to not accidentally count them as placements'. And when I asked if that means they are away that graduates are drastically exaggerating their LinkedIns if the team conducted such a review, no answer.
No integrity by my definition.
Maybe I shouldn't be stepping into how another company operates and keep my nose out of the business, but the level of bull shit I have documented is next level - it's literally like HBO mini series documentary level of a mess. Lots of people thought Nxivm was legit and their career courses were life changing. There were lots of good intentioned things in the career courses there and lots of lives changed positively.... and then lots of messed up stuff behind the scenes that went off the rails. To be abundantly clear, I'm not saying the Codesmith has the same issues in any way whatsoever as Nxivm but I'm pointing out the polarization over Codesmith is at a crazy high level that is fascinating to me and very interesting to study.
u/Gullible_Mousse_4590 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
“It’s too costly for us to prove our marketing claims/we don’t have data. But this other company should and when they do we’ll say it’s garbage” is what I hear. This is terrible. Sounds like a scam
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
That's not what I said, I said it would be wasted money because we can't think of a "report" that would be useful.
So we spend even MORE MONEY person by person going over these things.
I think that is better but if you don't then you can call it a scam and not join, thats totally fine if that's your opinion.
We are very diligent about feedback and actioning it and people wanting data is on the list, and the way we are working on that and have worked on it is by providing them more data.
We have a bunch more data but it's only for people who apply and we get more info about you to provide you with more relevant data.
That's how it should be - deliver the best product, not superficial garbage CIRR reports so that we APPEAR legit. We actually BEHAVE legitimately with integrity the best we can and over time that compounds into trust.
If you behave sketchy and focus on superficial you end up like those actors in Hollywood that float around all the parties and look beautiful and everyone talks to but five years later have no career and no friends.
It's about substance and not appearances.
u/Fantastic-Pace-7766 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Lol You are as horrible as any salesperson from there and have been on most of your posts here. You defend their nonsense and should be ashamed of yourself. Also, creating a new role for Will is horrible. He needs fired. Also, no one holds Codemsmith to a high standard, they hol
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
The leaders that have left are the ones that stopped believing or were laid off. I wouldn't be surprised if Annie also left and moved on.
I spoke to Alina and she's a much more reasonable person and open to criticism, but she's in a very tough place with Codesmith imploding and trying to pivot to AI - which many programs have struggled with.
Alina: if Will, Annie and Eric all left the company I would definitely be open to talking, but with them there there is too much baggage of low standards and lack of diligence.
u/michaelnovati wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Alina is more capable of running the company for sure but it's too little too late honestly.
She needs a capable team around her and almost everyone has left.
The whole industry is changing and the teaching style and pedagogy at Codesmith is dying out and you don't have a team
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I still think we're talking about different things here.
I'm not attacking YOUR background. I'm attacking it being marketed as "world class instructions" and "industry experts"
And calling yourself an "industry expert" with 3 years of experience and minimal professional AI experience is what I'm calling the peak Dunning Kruger by definition.
If you don't think you are a world class instructor and industry expert, ask Codesmith to stop marketing you that way.
u/hello-codesmith wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Michael, as always! We want to acknowledge that you’ve raised important questions about leadership, hiring practices, and the direction of the organization and here are a few key points to clarify on.
You asked a fair question: should a non-eng
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I edited that statement to clarify that I was not stating that you were, but publicly calling out that I've read the Future Code contract and it is very strict, so that Future Code funds couldn't be used to cover staff costs on other projects for example - which it sounds like we agree on.
u/hello-codesmith wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hi Michael, thank you for taking the time to share your perspective.
I know how much you care about this space. Just to help ensure the full picture is visible, I also want to offer a bit more context on the points you raised.
**Regarding team & direction**
There is a core
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
1. Agree the core team/admin team and the instructor team is hardworking, no question there. But Codesmith's codebase is apparently a giant mess that looks like the largest OSP project - which isn't surprising because the people that work on it just graduated Codesmith. I would say the team has tremendous POTENTIAL but the technical people lack the experience to be called talented. Based on some alumni talk that someone told me about where Will tried to explain the Codesmith architecture (in an attempt to learn it himself) and it literally sounded like the worst code I've ever heard of for a 10 year old company that calls itself a tech company, something like deploying the entire codebase to 32 microservices that each ran one of them???
I know this sounds mean but it's just being real. Like every instructor I know that sees Codesmith defend the quality of the code or the legitimacy of how the code is managed makes them so furious I would recommend just not even acknowledging it. Some are resentful that after sometimes 2+ years of working there, they have nothing of quality to talk about and they feel lost.
2. Immersive grads that did the AI portion, which is like 500 out of 4500. Or do all grads get the $900 discount?
3. Lifetime hiring support was billed as "all you need for your career" when Eric was texting alumni a few years down the road to tell them not to go to Formation because he'll give them all they need (I have a text). For months alumni complain there are no mock interview slots available, like hardly any CSE's left, and there was a penny pinching move to have weekly office hours instead of 1-1 meetings.
This is all great for a bootcamp, most don't offer anything! It's great Eric will take calls to help alumni later on. But the SUBSTANCE is not remotely "all you need" or a replacement for Formation and if you make it sound that way I'm going to keep harping on it.
4. I actually should give you more room on the AI program, I got really harsh on it after one of your employees Dogs started messaging me with extremely terrible AI responses and lost my cool.
Like working with people who aren't being promised a job for $22,500 when you know your unofficial in progress numbers are tanking is what I'm upset about, but working with people who just want to learn something is fine and you can charge what you want. I will more respectfully challenge the pricing for sure, but we can have a civil debate about it.
I also think that industry mentors doing talks works well, whereas in the immersive any industry person that comes in and gets pestered with these fake resumes from grads who want a job, leaves very upset at Codesmith.
In the AI program that's not a problem. It erases half of my problems with Codesmith haha.
I +1 the effort to get lots of points of view about AI because it's a tricky fast moving space.
5. I've said enough on pricing but the market will figure itself out. Formation will be offering more and more AI courses.
And we have a platform with 23,000+ commits and 500K or so lines of code and thousands of contributions from dozens of industry engineers.
We can offer incredible products for a fraction of the price of a human heavy operation and if we end up competing head to head then:
1. the market will decide
2. the market is large enough for 50 companies to do AI courses nevermind two and the market might show appetite for both.
u/CaptainKubernetes wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I’ve never referred to myself that way, and I don’t write the marketing copy. I stay focused on what’s actually being built, and there’s a lot I do behind the scenes that doesn’t end up online — conferences, applied work, conversations in the space, etc.
The strength of the prog
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
That's a fair point so I won't attribute you to claiming you are an industry expert and world class industry, but I will attribute Codesmith to saying it about you.
If you don't think it's true and you are employed by Codesmith than you have a responsibility to tell them because they might be false advertising and they should correct it.
My point about the quality. Formation has 200 or something mentors in the system and some are industry legends.
If you think the program's value is collaboration with those people then come on down to Formation because you'll collaborate with a huge range of people, far larger than in that program.
I posted above, but I was infuriated by your Dog's account and I was very mean about the AI program and I'm going to be more cool headed about it because it's not terrible, I'm just critiquing it like I would critique my own work and I want my comments to be of that tone and not angry tone.
u/michaelnovati wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Alina is more capable of running the company for sure but it's too little too late honestly.
She needs a capable team around her and almost everyone has left.
The whole industry is changing and the teaching style and pedagogy at Codesmith is dying out and you don't have a team
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I've been working with some people and I strongly urge you do go through the OFFICIAL Microsoft conflict process (you haven't confirmed you did that explicitly). I've spoken to people about this and you really need to do this if you haven't. DM me if you want more details.