u/RobSteinsVoice wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Why don't you post independently audited outcomes of your graduates?
The curriculum doesn't look particularly good, your website is hilariously not good for someone hoping to teach web dev, and your alumni list even work let alone impress.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
This is also an in person bootcamp in Punjab which is a specific market for a group that's primarily US based bootcamps.
I think we're on the same page here about Code Camp, but would love to chat about CIRR audited results seperately because I've seen you post a few time about how important audited results are. The TLDR: it was founded and is run by primarily bootcamp executives and while it's fantastic to have at least some audited data it was also crafted to make you need to do a little extra work to read between the lines. Like Codesmith's report says the median salary for NY on 2020 is 120K. Now if you actually crunch the numbers in the report itself based on graduation rates, number of people who supplies information, and number of people employed, it's not the median salary. It's the median salary of people who graduated, people who got jobs, and people who reported their salaries and not the median salary of every person that STARTED (since 9% didn't graduate on time, 20% don't even have jobs and 9% didn't report salaries)
Again, very much friendly intention here and love to discuss different opinions.
u/RobSteinsVoice wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Yeah I don't think that CIRR is perfect by any means, but it is a legit independent audit.
I wouldn't expect that the salary number would have a salary for someone who didn't report, didn't graduate, or didn't get a job. I think that's pretty clear and not really deceptive.
Y
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
u/RobSteinsVoice thanks for sharing that well written response! I definitely agree comparing on CIRR Codesmith is by far the best results and at a slightly larger scale.
Good question about Formation. We might in the future actually! The problem is we aren't a school or bootcamp and we work with people for wildly different amounts of time (I've seen anywhere from 1 month to 12 months) and people all do different things. So there isn't a single experience we can summarize.
But the outcomes are extremely strong and we want to figure out how to communicate that better because people assume we cherry pick the best results.
Here the last 20ish offers accepted, in order, no filtering or editing: Bloomberg, Paperclip, Front, Workday, Neato, Microsoft, Bitgo, Amazon, Jelly Fish, GitHub, Microsoft, Toast, Quantcast, Meta, CloudTrucks, Plaid, 1Password, Microsoft, Google, Meta.
u/RobSteinsVoice wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
>So there isn't a single experience we can summarize.
but despite that you proudly and prominently list dollar figure outcomes on your website, which are seemingly not externally audited at all. Any independent CPA firm would be happy to look at your data and attest that the num
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Thanks, point taken and thanks for the feedback, very much appreciated!
I normally just tell people to do their homework and talk to people about Formation (both for experiences, but also because you need to know what you are getting into). Sometimes people are even still concerned because they haven't heard any red flags and generally hear anything from good to amazing things. To make that list I literally just went to an internal chat channel and typed out the last 20 logged accepts, very simple, no report, not audited.
So we are doing ourselves a major disservice if we can't communicate the outcomes properly so that people believe them.
Once again thanks u/RobSteinsVoice the feedback!
EDIT: regarding the cost of an audit. We are a company backed by one of the top investors in the world, Andreessen Horowitz, and we have fairly expensive lawyers, accountants, etc... so it's not a few hundred dollars. The biggest cost would be in our team's time to work with equivalently top tier auditors to do a thorough and proper job.
u/RobSteinsVoice wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I mean who you are backed by doesn't really matter and if he's one of the top investors in the world then it seems the money isn't an issue to prove you are not pulling the figures out yo booty ;-)
It wouldn't be your accountants, it would be other accountants. That's the key f
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited
Sorry, to clarify, they do extensive due diligence, background checks, private investigators, and they have auditing requirements on the company (not on these outcomes, but on the operations of the company), we're talking 5 and 6 digit legal bills to review all of this stuff before they make an investment.
We're still small and have to make choices about what to invest in and investing in audited outcomes might be a good choice! I'm not disagreeing here. We just have to weigh that over like more mentorship, another engineer, etc... and project the impact the investment will have on more Fellows joining, versus Fellows having better outcomes etc.... so it's not just flipping a switch.
It's definitely on the radar though as a I said, and really appreciate this discussion!