I honestly have no idea. I don't seen bootcamps battling with each other, but rather bootcamps just trying to stay alive right now.
I'm giving industry wide commentary and I often talk about Codesmith because while other programs acknowledge the struggles, Codesmith continues to double down on marketing such that I am frequently presenting a balanced view of that marketing.
My commentary has been well received and even helped people decide to go to bootcamps like Codesmith and Launch School knowing what they are getting into...
Yeah sorry, I could make it more explicit or clear. Like I had a thread of two anonymous accounts: one got AI-collapsed by Reddit, the other suspended by Reddit, both were making false claims but Reddit PROACTIVELY took action, so clearly some really weird stuff is going on in the sub. There's nothing remotely like this for other programs.
🏛️ Get to know a moderator: Michael Novati
Hi all, I thought it might be a good idea to share more about myself as one of the three moderators on here and one of the most active members. It might be a surprise but I spend way more time writing code and helping Fellows at Formation than on Reddit. Here's my GitHub as evidence 😝 [https://github.com/mnovati](https://github.com/mnovati)
I just wanted to share a little more about who I am and where I come from so you can work with me better in making this subreddit a better place.
There's no advice or lessons in here, it's all biographical, but I'm happy to answer questions in the comments.
# FOUR FUN FACTS
1. Meta created the "Coding Machine" archetype for me when promoting me to Principal Engineer.
2. I've met Taylor Swift. In fact I couldn't convince Mark Zuckerberg to meet her too at the time and played a prank on him by hanging…
Thought experiment.
So if we take it as fact that the Codesmith mods are banning people from their sub that have never interacted there. So far this is just a conjecture from the OP that I haven't seen evidence for, so I talked to OP privately about it and I feel it's likely true, but with the door open for someone to disprove it. For example if the Codesmith mods came to me and said they have never banned someone who hasn't posted something violating their rules in their sub then I might have to take action if it at my discretion that is more credible.
Now let's I really actually hated Codesmith, and wanted to attack them.
Why wouldn't I do the same? Why not just ban you all, delete all your comments. Wipe every positive trace of Codesmith on here. I'm responsive all the time, I could easily act on things super quickly and no one would see anything.
That's what I've personally exper…
I don't really know what to say, you seem down conspiracy theory lane and it's just all not true.
This post wasn't held up for review.
I said very clearly for the record that no accounts have been banned from this sub by me, temporarily or permanently.
What's your deal? Do you have questions thoughts?
As someone pointed out, a major part of the problem is no-one from Codesmith or otherwise never discusses or refutes the things I say with facts, it's all just made up stuff and bullying. A year or two ago people used to, and then I talked to those people and they say what I do and then they disappeared and we keep in touch on LinkedIn every so often.
I meticulous document, screenshot, capture, record, collect anything that I reporting facts on to show my work.
if you want to mudsling and play games you haven't seen the half of what I know.
And this why INTEGRITY is important, becau…
Want to know the best defense to bullshit trolls... INTEGRITY. No matter how much I get poked I play by the rules and I have integrity.
I have one account and I hope anyone making fake accounts to manipulate discussion gets banned for life.
I HAVE NOT BANNED A SINGLE PERSON FROM THIS SUBREDDIT.
If you can't fathom someone who is as responsive and productive as me then put yourself in a better network of people before this kind of bullshit.
Codesmith has consistently raised prices every year, but I agree that in my opinion, that raising them this year with tanking outcomes is a bit arrogant, but I don't know their marketing strategy.
They just lowered the prices of JSB and CSPrep SIGNIFICANTLY like 75% off for CSPrep, so maybe they changing their view.
Launch School lays out their outcomes here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLKHZYX8D78](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLKHZYX8D78)
Unsurprisingly if you are transparent there isn't any drama. When your outcomes are tanking, your alumni believe in you like a religion, and you don't acknowledge it publicly then you get drama.
Rithm School sadly is really small right now, running a small cohort every few months, so I still think it's a great place if you want high touch, high access learning. But their outcomes aren't that meaningful right now due to size.
Again, I'm not collapsing any comments, and I've turned on "crowd control" on THREE POSTS EVER for LEGITIMATE REASONS.
Reddit has added more AI capabilities recently that more aggressively diminish the posts of people suspected of being bad actors.
Given how many new/low history/anonymous accounts come at me on here, I'm not surprised whatsoever that they get flagged as people "likely trying to break the rules". Reddit knows who everyone is based on their fingerprints and IDs. There are five so accounts that have been suspended from Reddit with similar posting patterns so when those people/person come back with new accounts... Reddit knows.
If it means anything, I was in a similar talk in the past and made comments about other people too, because they were placed like a year ago and I didn't think that was "recent".
They ignored that comment and added dates to the newer version of the slides.
People who worked there talk to me and I think it's very passive aggressive to not ONCE contact me, ONCE (other than Eric Kirsten) and yet to post blog posts and videos, and wording to respond to the things I'm saying.
I'm more than happy to talk to people about this non-defensively and openly, and this conversation is great to have madhouse!
This is correct, it's now more common for SENIOR engineers to join, competing and trying to get a leg up in the market. There are indeed a very small handful of edge case people without much experience who have joined in the past year (literally a handful - under 5) and each case was after many conversations and trying to convince them of other options. Just like there are a handful of engineers with experience who go to Codesmith. But that overlap isn't competition, it's an edge case.
Both the statements are wrong haha:
1. We're not a competitor. We would be amazing partners in another world where Codesmith acknowledged us not as a competitor haha.
2. I don't spend much time on Reddit no, I know it looks that way, but it's just the way I am, I am always on and one of the most responsive people - if not the most responsive - out of anyone I've ever worked with. It's not fair for people to tell me who I am and what I do when they see 1/50th of what I do and make up their own narrative portraying it as 1/4 of what I do.
I have no idea why the person left and I didn't imply anything, but it was just a factual statement that the person isn't there anymore.
Was it necessary? Probably not yeah. But as with all my other comments it was just a statement and wasn't bad intentioned and didn't warrant a public humiliation.
I told one person about it who called it yelling, another called it not yelling but a stern tone.
A current Codesmith student say this session and messaged me to apologize because they thought it was yelling and they were disturbed by it and felt bad for me.
The video was since removed so I don't think I can share anything from it, have to look up the rules and laws.
I don't want to fan any flames. Regardless of what he said in the video there are clearly some frustrations outside the context of the actual speech and sharing it would require full interpretation. I'm a rule follower and they have the right to remove me from their communities if they want for whatever reason and I have to respect that ban.
My message goes both ways and I have asked corporate Reddit to look into both subs to try to advise on the situation. It's really bad for the Reddit ecosystem and both sides are claiming about violating the rules, so hopefully corporate Reddit can sort this by looking at who all the people are and seeing if there are disingenuous actors on either side they can remove or if there is anything else they can do to help increase the integrity of discussion.
I attended an event recently and this is what I said in the chat throughout the entire event.
1. Early in Will was talking about one of my long time friends as the "founder" of React and "co-founder of Vercel". Maybe I misheard but I said in the chat that I know that person well and he doesn't call himself the founder of React and co-founder of Vercel.
Will responded to that with 'Tom said gest things about you, that you were one of the best engineers ever at Facebook'
2. Will suggested someone talk to a specific alumni and I said how awesome that alumni is.
3. Will mentioned the B1M YouTube channel and I said how awesome that channel is.
Then suddenly I got an email saying I was permanently banned from Codesmith's subreddit.
4. I commented that I was just banned from their subreddit and won't be able to participate in the AMA after. Their was no response.
5. Shortly after Will w…
I didn't ask for formal comment no. I can't remember but I think it was either a codesmith account on Reddit, a comment on LinkedIn thread, or that I commented on or it was in a live stream over the past few months as they have been showing slides with Alex Zai giant face teasing the upcoming AI/ML.
It wasn't for official comment no and I wouldn't say that I asked formally enough or clearly enough to expect them to reply though.
I am banned from Codesmith's community, Slack, events, entirely so I have limited avenues as I intend on fully respecting their ban. Although they started sending me emails inviting me to events so I'm not sure anymore haha. The whole operation just has so many issue in executing the details you know and I'm always confused if they are intentionally sharing so much data (which common sense says they shouldn't) but then they acknowledge the problems.
Rithm has max 20 people per cohort and a dedicated super experienced teacher. It's more like having someone with more experience than Will Sentance (both teaching and in industry) being the primary instructor for your cohort.
The content itself is a little different and it's a little longer I think.
It's also 9am to 6pm every day instead of 9am to 8pm.
A bootcamp choice is very personal to your circumstances. If you don't really need to learn anything and are going for networking and support, education doesn't matter. If you want to learn how to program, it matters more.
We had someone join us who wanted to do Formation with no experience. I told them to go to Codesmith and come to Formation in a year or two. Instead they got a role at a startup in another country and came to Formation after 6 months. Person just got a job at Google in a SWE adjacent programming role.
I don't think bootcamps work right now and would love to see something like the above. Training focused apprenticeships for people with zero programming training that are paid for via tax credits to big companies that pay for the person and more. The bootcamps could be more like level up tools to go from that to full time role. The anecdote above was a one off and not reproducible and a special person who is extremely driven with significant tech industry experience.
People getting jobs tend to rely on some creative representation of past work anyways and giving those people real training…